Cont: Global warming discussion V

[Stout]

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

What Stout knows is this tactic of complaining about burning fossil fuels while burning fossil fuels has been a miserable failure. What, you think posting doomsday articles on the internet and standing around holding a sign then going home and booking a flight to some tropical destination would actually lead to reduced emissions?

 

[a_unique_person]

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

What Stout knows is this tactic of complaining about burning fossil fuels while burning fossil fuels has been a miserable failure. What, you think posting doomsday articles on the internet and standing around holding a sign then going home and booking a flight to some tropical destination would actually lead to reduced emissions?

The most extreme scenario for global warning is no longer likely to occur because of the efforts to implement renewable energy so far.

I already said that, of course.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

What Stout knows is this tactic of complaining about burning fossil fuels while burning fossil fuels has been a miserable failure. What, you think posting doomsday articles on the internet and standing around holding a sign then going home and booking a flight to some tropical destination would actually lead to reduced emissions?

Renewables are probably more expensive in the short run. Doing nothing so we can be off slightly cheaper now will eventually lead to the collapse of agriculture in the area we do so now. And while new arable land will become available in Norther Russia and Canada, that soil is too poor to sustain agriculture, probably for centuries. Most of us will be dead by then. Hopefully, though the series of droughts in Europe seems to suggest things move fast enough. We could do noting and hope it will go away, the MAGA way. Or pay a bit now while seeking to mitigate things.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Renewables are cheaper than any other form of power and, more importantly, they require less capital investment and are quicker to build.

 

[Stout]

The most extreme scenario for global warning is no longer likely to occur because of the efforts to implement renewable energy so far.

I already said that, of course.

So what, who cares? Unless you're trying to market this as an "all clear, crisis over". Scientists made up the ultimate doomsday scenario, then nuked it because it was no longer realistic due to China not going as crazy on the coal as they anticipated.

The 1.5 C target, the one that's been held up as the holy grail for the past 20 years has also been consigned to the dustbin of history.

 

[Stout]

Renewables are probably more expensive in the short run. Doing nothing so we can be off slightly cheaper now will eventually lead to the collapse of agriculture in the area we do so now. And while new arable land will become available in Norther Russia and Canada, that soil is too poor to sustain agriculture, probably for centuries. Most of us will be dead by then. Hopefully, though the series of droughts in Europe seems to suggest things move fast enough. We could do noting and hope it will go away, the MAGA way. Or pay a bit now while seeking to mitigate things.

Agreed.

In the grand scheme of things, MAGA is going to end and America will get back on track. Is it enough?

 

[dann]

Renewables are cheaper than any other form of power and, more importantly, they require less capital investment and are quicker to build.

It is clear to everybody at this point: People who pretend not to know, e.g. MAGAlytes, are just trolling.

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

He is obviously wrong and probably knows he is: Renewables are not only going to be cheaper. They have been getting cheaper for decades, and there's no reason to think that it won't continue.

Australian Innovation | Printing Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells ( on YouTube, May 28, 2026 – 7:13 min.)
In the race to find new sources of electricity, an Australian team of scientists and engineers has come up with a novel idea: what if you could print it? This CSIRO team was inspired by their agency's success in inventing polymer banknotes and decades of solar cell research that came before.

New Energy Breakthrough From China Is Shocking Everyone - Engineers Are Amazed ( on YouTube, July 29, 2026 –10:21 min.)
Simultaneously, batteries for energy storage are getting both cheaper and more efficient. Now. Not just "eventually."

What Stout knows is this tactic of complaining about burning fossil fuels while burning fssil fuels has been a miserable failure. What, you think posting doomsday articles on the internet and standing around holding a sign then going home and booking a flight to some tropical destination would actually lead to reduced emissions?

Stout's strawman is too obvious for anybody to take it seriously. His tactic of complaining about communist vegan girlie environmentalist spending all their time flying in private planes to tropical destinations is growing so stale that it should be as obvious to him as it is to everybody else.

 

[dann]

Renewables are probably more expensive in the short run.

They aren't!
Doesn't it make you wonder why Trump, at this point, has to subsidize fossil fuels and pay people not to build wind farms and solar parks. Haven't you noticed that this is what Big Oil bribes him to do?
The economic incentive to build solar parks and wind farms is that they produce cheaper energy. For capitalists, it's just a bonus that it reduces CO₂ emissions.

Try googling "Have solar and wind become cheaper than fossil fuels?"

Or go to:

Wind and Solar Energy Are Cheaper Than Electricity from Fossil-Fuel Plants (Scientific American, June 17, 2025)
Wind and solar energy are cheaper than electricity from fossil-fuel plants. Even without subsidies, renewable energy is staying competitive with power from gas and coal.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...per-than-electricity-from-fossil-fuel-plants/

 

[dann]

Hedebølger i Europa har kostet rekordmange menneskeliv (DR.dk, July 31, 2026)
Aldrig før har der været konstateret så stor overdødelighed om sommeren i Europa, fortæller SSI-direktør.

Heatwaves in Europe have resulted in the loss of a record number of human lives
There never was this much excess mortality in the summer in Europe, according the the director of SSI.

The excess mortality this summer was 25%.

 

[The Atheist]

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

That's so far beyond idiotic I think you've proved yourself guilty of the accusations that you're just another denier.

Even if what you said was true, which it clearly isn't, even imbeciles know that products get cheaper by selling them rather than spending on R&D until they've reached some mythical economic point.

A 26-inch colour TV cost months of wages in the 1970s. Now, they give a 4K 55-inch away as a free gift when you buy a lounge suite.

Worst of all, even if it cost several times as much to produce energy cleanly the cost of not heating the planet further us worth a lot more than dollars.

 

[Stout]

That's so far beyond idiotic I think you've proved yourself guilty of the accusations that you're just another denier.

Even if what you said was true, which it clearly isn't, even imbeciles know that products get cheaper by selling them rather than spending on R&D until they've reached some mythical economic point.

A 26-inch colour TV cost months of wages in the 1970s. Now, they give a 4K 55-inch away as a free gift when you buy a lounge suite.

Worst of all, even if it cost several times as much to produce energy cleanly the cost of not heating the planet further us worth a lot more than dollars.

I wasn't expecting that, but thanks for proving my point for me. Germany has LOTS of renewable energy as well as the most expensive electricity in Europe.

Worst of all, even if it cost several times as much to produce energy cleanly the cost of not heating the planet further us worth a lot more than dollars.

It's great having money, isn't it?

 

[dudalb]

I wasn't expecting that, but thanks for proving my point for me. Germany has LOTS of renewable energy as well as the most expensive electricity in Europe.



It's great having money, isn't it?

Maybe going Cold turkey on Nuclear Power was not such a great idea?

 

[dudalb]

I am all in favor of renewable resources. but I take a minority position here in not being anti Nuclear Power.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

So renewables are going to be cheaper, sometime, maybe, eventually. Just not now.

Already are.

What Stout knows is this tactic of complaining about burning fossil fuels while burning fossil fuels has been a miserable failure.

Transitioning to renewables can't realistically be done overnight, so in the interim we will continue to burn fossil fuels - OBVIOUSLY. But that usage goes down faster as renewable generation accelerates. We are now at the point where it's starting to pay off.

So what, who cares? Unless you're trying to market this as an "all clear, crisis over". Scientists made up the ultimate doomsday scenario, then nuked it because it was no longer realistic due to China not going as crazy on the coal as they anticipated.

No, they didn't make it up. Nor did they 'nuke it'. The worst case scenario is now simply looking less likely because people listened and acted. This idea that there was no crisis because the calamity didn't happen, when it only didn't happen because we responded to the threat, is a typical denier tactic. It's not getting the response they want now though, because people are starting to see the effects of global warming and understand what will happen if we don't stop it.

thanks for proving my point for me. Germany has LOTS of renewable energy as well as the most expensive electricity in Europe.

Nope, you haven't made the point you think. From 2024 to 2026 Germany was in the middle the pack. For July 2026 the wholesale electricity price in Euros/MWh was:-

Italy 155.95
Ireland 154.39
Germany 105.28
Spain 103.58
France 95.36

That puts Germany towards the low end. If retail prices are higher it's not due to the actual electricty cost, but other charges such as grid fees and taxes. According to Clean Energy Wire,

Various surcharges, taxes, and levies used to finance new wind turbines, solar farms and power grid upgrades caused household power prices in Germany to rank among the highest in the world, even as the cost of renewables declined.

However,

During the energy crisis, in 2022, the German government and a broad alliance of business and civil society groups urged citizens to save energy to reduce dependence on Russian imports while accelerating the energy transition... Two years later, in mid-2024, three-quarters of respondents in a survey said that they had started conserving electricity, gas or heating oil during the crisis, and almost all of them (93%) continued to do so after prices dropped again... The primary motivation for more than one third (36%) of respondents was environmental protection and climate action, while about a quarter (26%) said they primarily wanted to save costs.

Furthermore...

A 2021 analysis by the German Economic Institute (IW) likewise found that... German customers paid just over 9 percent of their average monthly income for energy (including petrol and gas), on par with consumers in neighbouring France and the Netherlands... Another analysis, by the International Energy Agency (IEA), set the share of income paid by German households for energy in 2022 even lower, at about 5.5 percent. This was below Italy (7.2%) and Spain (6.5%), but above the UK (4.8%) and France (4.7%).

Foreign concern trolls make more noise about German power prices than Germans themselves do.

The conclusion?

renewables seen as cost-cutting in long-term

A combination of market developments, technological advances, and political decisions will shape Germany’s household electricity prices in the future, making predictions difficult. Government and industry representatives during the energy crisis repeatedly stressed that the best way to shield the country against future price hikes is to quickly expand renewable energy production.

Putting the infrastructure in place obviously costs money. Once it's in the real savings begin. Germans will benefit greatly from this.

 

[lionking]

Renewables are cheaper than any other form of power and, more importantly, they require less capital investment and are quicker to build.

My solar panels paid for themselves in just over 3 years. They don’t produce much in these winter months, but reduce power bills drop enormously for the rest of the year. Australia is the leading per capita producer of solar energy.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I am all in favor of renewable resources. but I take a minority position here in not being anti Nuclear Power.

Few people here are 'anti' nuclear power. Most of us just don't see it as the holy grail some others do, and we certainly don't think renewables should be dropped in favor of building nuclear plants. Nuclear proponents will tell you that the only reason the plants are so expensive and take so long to build is uninformed people with an irrational fear of nukes. But that doesn't explain why insurers refuse to touch them. Then they harp on about new types of reactors which are unproven and may not actually be any cheaper or safer. Basically anything to avoid renewables. This betrays the real reason some of them prefer nukes - Ludditism.

The truth is that without spending a lot of time and money on making Nuclear Power safe, it won't be. In order to justify the enormous cost consumers will be locked into a fixed price for the life of the plant, but by the time it's built renewables will probably be much cheaper. That's not to say more nukes wouldn't be welcome, but we won't be powering the world with them.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Maybe going Cold turkey on Nuclear Power was not such a great idea?

Nuclear power is not economical and mature if you consider the entire production a decommissioning cycle.
It's also insanely expensive up front.l, and requires massive investments in power distribution. It is also very unreliable in hot weather, having to power down if the rivers needed for cooling run too low or to hot (as is the case all over Europe right now).

Cheaper, faster, distributed power generation, while in its infancy is vastly superior unless there is a massive technology leap in nuclear and not in renewables

 

[dann]

I wasn't expecting that, but thanks for proving my point for me. Germany has LOTS of renewable energy as well as the most expensive electricity in Europe.

I already explained why that is – with the receipts – but Stout seems to be incapable of understanding anything because he never makes an effort to do so!

The short version: Germany has some (but not enough as implied in Stout's "LOTS") renewable energy mainly in the northern Bundesstaaten where they also have access to cheap renewable energy from Scandinavia, but since the grid can't cope with it, it can't be delivered to the southern states where electricity mainly comes from fossil fuel and is thus more expensive, which is why the northern states object to paying the compensation to the South that makes electricity prices the same all over the country.

The long version (use Google to translate the German quotations into English):

No, not everybody loves Canada, and those who do are probably just unaware of Canada's role in anthropogenic global warming: CO₂ emissions per capita. I guess Carney is happy that Trump's USA takes the focus away from his Canada.

As for Germany becoming dependent on Canadian gas, I very much doubt it.

1) It's about diversification, about avoiding becoming dependent on any one supplier.

2) As wind & solar keep getting cheaper, it's doubtful that electricity consumers in Bavaria and Baden-Würtemberg will continue to put up with the prices they have to pay to the semi-monopolies:
Der Süden wehrt sich gegen teurere Energie (Staatsanzeiger, May 2, 2025)

3) And consumers in Germany North aren't likely to continue to have to subsidize their southern compatriots.
Strom könnte in Bayern bald mehr kosten als im Norden (n-tv Nachrichten, Aug 13, 2025)

4) It is not as if businesspeople in Germany are happy with the situation:


5) In the southern federal states of Germany, they are feeling the heat much more than in the northern coastal states:
Heat records in Bavaria: June 2026 hotter than ever:


6) The grid (as mentioned in post 2,521) is already a choking point for the full use of renewables:


Stout knows nothing and doesn't understand any of this.

 

[dann]

My solar panels paid for themselves in just over 3 years. They don’t produce much in these winter months, but reduce power bills drop enormously for the rest of the year. Australia is the leading per capita producer of solar energy.

If that's true, why this???
CO₂ emissions per capita
Are you throwing an exorbitant number of steaks on the barbie?

 

[dann]

Germany has LOTS of renewable energy as well as the most expensive electricity in Europe.

Whenever Stout makes a claim, it should be fact-checked! It hardly ever comes with receipts.
"Which country has Europe's highest electricity prices?"
Google AI:

Highest Price Breakdown

• • Ireland: €0.4042 per kWh
  • Germany: €0.3869 per kWh
  • Belgium: €0.3499 per kWh
  • Denmark: €0.3312 per kWh [1]

Ireland has the highest price, and even more so if you look at the price without taxes!
CO₂ emissions per capita in .

By the way, notice also how those prices are composed: Without taxes, other taxes, VAT.
Electricity prices for household consumers, second half 2025 (€ per kWh) (Eurostat, April 2026)

Compare 's energy prices without taxes with .
Notice also 's (and even 's) position in this chart (same link):
Change in electricity prices for household consumers compared with previous year, same semester, (National currency), second half 2025 (%) (Eurostat)
No doubt mainly due to renewables, wind in particular.