Sounds a bit like an excuse making process to me but according to JP Morgan via the Financial Times today, the green transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy is going to take decades or generations so we shouldn’t get our hopes up. They cite things like the way places like Scotland set ambitious goals to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030 but have already given up. So according to them we should just let the natural process take its place and not worry too much about this being done anytime soon.
But I disagree. We could make this transition last a lot shorter than that. I think the is down to countries not really wanting to make this transition in the first place. It sounds like they’re just making excuses as to why its all been so slow in the first place. Most renewables take capital to start but are much cheaper in the long run so they payoff is there, it just takes a while for them to come around. So if we could see the full price of keeping coal power plants or diesel cars around we’d see how the full price isn’t that much at all but rather would offer much better returns. Especially to society at large the payoff longer term is much more than monetary terms alone. You’ve the large obvious things like EVs and renewable energy, but there’s also other things like improved cycling infrastructure that have whole other benefits that aren’t easily measured in a price tag or investment payoff.
One big problem about the transition they point out is the intermittency of renewables potentially making it more expensive for electricity on the grid. But I think this just means we need a better investment in storage for electricity. Allow that to happen and much of the problem becomes unnecessary. The same storage used for renewables could also be used for peaker power plants, reducing the need for most gas powered ones. If there’s enough solar and wind power installed in the first place then the large volume of electricity makes it all cheaper in the first place.
Overall a lot of this is, I think, excuse making by people who do not want to make hard decisions. It is much easier let things go along as they are going even if it is making it worse for everyone and making it more difficult to change in the long run.