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It seems pretty dubious to project this out 32 years. I find it more enlightening to look at some of the data this is based on. For example, official US governm

by lacker 8y ago

It seems pretty dubious to project this out 32 years. I find it more enlightening to look at some of the data this is based on. For example, official US government figures for historical energy consumption: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_6.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_6.pdf You can see that even in the past 15 years, there were several inflection points that were probably unpredictable beforehand. Coal went from flat to declining, natural gas went from flat to increasing, petroleum rose then fell again, renewables were flat before rising up to a current rate of 11% of US energy consumption. I'm rooting for renewable energy here and the future does seem bright. But any sort of high-level prediction that claims to project out for 32 years just isn't the right way to analyze.

rossdavidh 8y ago
Hear, hear. In fact, anyone who can disregard the history of past predictions (in energy or almost anything else) so much as to bother with a 32-years-out prediction, seems untrustworthy. Also, unlikely to persuade anyone of anything. It's a pretty well-known feature of human psychology that distant prospects don't motivate us the way they should. Actually, maybe the unreliability of long-term predictions is part of why we evolved to be like that...
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Just finished reading that chapter of the The Black Swan. True, the 32-year year number is useless, but the slope is probably still good for the next couple of years. Of course the negative uncertainties still dominate. The more interesting question is how do you expose yourself to the positive uncertainties involved (e.g. a carbon negative power technology)? This requires investment in research in parallel with your infrastructure investments.
moorhosj 8y ago
We would need to look at world energy consumption to make a proper comparison, no?
sandworm101 8y ago
>> ...and the future does seem bright. No it doesn't. The graph is predicting 10% coal in 2050. Remember too that this is a percentage of a growing total amount of produced energy. If we are still burning that much coal in 2050 then we are in serious trouble. There is no 'too soon' scenario when it comes to C02 emissions. The damage has been done and we are deep into damage control mode. Coal needs to be gone yesterday.
- lacker 8y ago
  To me, the future seems bright not because of this graph but because the underlying performance of solar and wind energy keeps improving. For example, see: http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very-cheap-indeed/ http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very... As to whether the damage has already been done, I guess "bright" is relative. I agree with your statement, I just think that the biggest disaster scenario is that we find no replacement for fossil fuels and just never ever stop burning them, and I think we are likely to avoid that scenario.

by lacker 8y ago

rossdavidh 8y ago

Hear, hear. In fact, anyone who can disregard the history of past predictions (in energy or almost anything else) so much as to bother with a 32-years-out prediction, seems untrustworthy. Also, unlikely to persuade anyone of anything. It's a pretty well-known feature of human psychology that distant prospects don't motivate us the way they should. Actually, maybe the unreliability of long-term predictions is part of why we evolved to be like that...

killjoywashere 8y ago
Just finished reading that chapter of the The Black Swan. True, the 32-year year number is useless, but the slope is probably still good for the next couple of years. Of course the negative uncertainties still dominate. The more interesting question is how do you expose yourself to the positive uncertainties involved (e.g. a carbon negative power technology)? This requires investment in research in parallel with your infrastructure investments.

moorhosj 8y ago

We would need to look at world energy consumption to make a proper comparison, no?

sandworm101 8y ago

>> ...and the future does seem bright. No it doesn't. The graph is predicting 10% coal in 2050. Remember too that this is a percentage of a growing total amount of produced energy. If we are still burning that much coal in 2050 then we are in serious trouble. There is no 'too soon' scenario when it comes to C02 emissions. The damage has been done and we are deep into damage control mode. Coal needs to be gone yesterday.

lacker 8y ago
To me, the future seems bright not because of this graph but because the underlying performance of solar and wind energy keeps improving. For example, see: http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very-cheap-indeed/ http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very... As to whether the damage has already been done, I guess "bright" is relative. I agree with your statement, I just think that the biggest disaster scenario is that we find no replacement for fossil fuels and just never ever stop burning them, and I think we are likely to avoid that scenario.