ant: the figures are rubbery cause that is the very nature of pricing externalities, ie. they are ultimately just approximations, guesstimates and opinions.

But let's see what the figures themselves tell us: take the figure given for Global warming costs; $1.628tn. By giving such a detailed figure- to 4 significant digits no less- they are effectively claiming that given all the weather events last year then they can tell me to closest 1 part in 10,000 how much of the events impact is due to global warming and how much is just natural. Do you really think these bean counters are that good at calculating this when even between the scientists who agree that humans are having an observable impact they can't agree which events are exceptions to natural events?

Regardless of these figures, since we're now already deep in the world of hypothetical and speculations let me ask you a question:

What do you think the economic cost would have been for 2015 if on 31st Dec, 2014 the global community decided to completely and immediately eliminate man-made CO2 emissions.

Well, here's my confident speculation: about $70tnUS. Why am I so confident in this figure? -Cause that is about the size of the world's economy. In other words- we would all now be DEAD.

And that right there is the problem of *forcing* people to change to renewables on the ridiculous time schedules that environmentalists propose. It will kill a lot more people than it will "save".

I should make clear, I'm not dogmatically against renewable energy. For instance, I'm planning on building a house on a rural block I own in early 2018 and will investigate the solar storage options as opposed to paying for about 1/2km of powerline. However, I'll only go solar if it is really is the cheapest option.

On current improvement trends, CO2-free energy will eventually unquestionably be cheaper than fossilfuel so just let the free market do its thing and the economy will swap over. Just don't force people to adopt it beforehand - cause that will cause more pain than it gains!

thinkabit, of course the transition to renewables will take time. I'd be surprised if we could get the world to better than 50% renewables within 20 years.

However, there is so much work being done on new technologies that it seems very unlikely that any current projections will be close to the real pace of change.

I suspect, although it's mostly speculative, that there will be a tipping point within perhaps 5 years that will massively accelerate the pace of the transition.

Craig,

You open your mouth to change feet. Let's see the disciplines of the people that put together this "Simulation" to design a new power network.

1 Physics - reasonable understanding of the theory but bugger all relevant experience

2 Environment & Life Sciences - What a joke

3 Social work - You have to be kidding?

4 Management science - Seriously?

5 Oceans and Atmosphere - What can I say.

Garbage in = Garbage out.

Not one electrical or network engineer. They say "We offer a simulation of low-carbon electricity supply for Australia, based on currently and economically operating technologies and proven resources."

Yet I provide reported actual costings of the most recent, largest and most efficient CSP thermal plant, and not only are the highly subsidised costs far higher than the assumptions in the paper, but they are built in a country with far lower construction costs.
There are lots of references which you can google, I used Wiki which was the most concise, but the info is all the same.

There is a basic saying in engineering Garbage in = Garbage out.

Based on their initial assumptions the results are a pile of crap.

The first 14, 76 to go. Enjoy...

[1] Delucchi MA, Jacobson MZ. Providing all global energy with wind, water, and
solar power, Part II: Reliability, system and transmission costs, and policies.
Energy Policy 2011;39:1170–90.
[2] Jacobson MZ, Delucchi MA. Providing all global energy with wind, water, and
solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of
infrastructure, and materials. Energy Policy 2011;39:1154–69.
[3] Fthenakis V, Mason JE, Zweibel K. The technical, geographical, and economic
feasibility for solar energy to supply the energy needs of the US. Energy Policy
2009;37:387–99.
[4] Delucchi MA, Jacobson MZ. Response to ‘‘A critique of Jacobson and Delucchi’s
proposals for a world renewable energy supply” by Ted Trainer. Energy Policy
2012;44:482–4.
[5] Trainer T. A critique of Jacobson and Delucchi’s proposals for a world
renewable energy supply. Energy Policy 2012;44:476–81.
[6] Jacobson MZ, Delucchi MA. Response to Trainer’s second commentary on a
plan to power the world with wind, water, and solar power. Energy Policy
2013;57:641–3.
[7] Trainer T. 100% Renewable supply? Comments on the reply by Jacobson and
Delucchi to the critique by Trainer. Energy Policy 2013;57:634–40.
[8] Trainer FE. Can renewable energy sources sustain affluent society? Energy
Policy 1997;23:1009–26.
[9] Trainer T. Can renewables etc. solve the greenhouse problem? The negative
case. Energy Policy 2010;38:4107–14.
[10] Hart EK, Jacobson MZ. A Monte Carlo approach to generator portfolio planning
and carbon emissions assessments of systems with large penetrations of
variable renewables. Renew Energy 2011;36:2278–86.
[11] Budischak C, Sewell D, Thomson H, Mach L, Veron DE, Kempton W. Costminimized
combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical
storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time. J Power Sources
2012;225:60–74.
[12] Brouwer AS, van den Broek M, Zappa W, Turkenburg WC, Faaij A. Least-cost
options for integrating intermittent renewables in low-carbon power systems.
Appl Energy 2016;161:48–74.
[13] Obara Sy, Utsugi Y, Ito Y, Morel J, Okada M. A study on planning for
interconnected renewable energy facilities in Hokkaido, Japan. Appl Energy
2015;146:313–27.

Craig,

Now you mention it, it looks like an incestious little clique who write papers on the same subjects and refer to each other, with apparently not an engineer amongst them.

Who did the peer review, an interpretive dance professor, or maybe a gender studies major?

Denier Agencies have been very successful in thwarting climate science; if there had been a transition into renewable a couple of decades ago we would not be in such a mess as we are in now. Agencies such as Heartlands, IPA et al have been spreading misinformation for many years. Heartlands was responsible for continuing to create doubt in relation to smoking long after the science was settled.

Deniers are all over the place in relation to climate change from its not happening, it is natural variation, the climate is cooling, to CO2 has a marginal impact.
In relation to natural variation; it took millions of years for fossil fuels to be created, we are expelling emissions from fossil fuels in a few moments in comparison. In previous epochs there were no factories or vehicles. In several major cities many citizens wear nose masks.

In September 2016, WUWT published an article about the sea ice extent in the Arctic expanding rapidly suggesting it showed climate scientists are wrong. If the author had known anything about sea ice extent in the Arctic they would know that it varies daily up and down. Currently, sea ice formation has done a U turn and very little is being created in October. If the author had any knowledge he would have realised that commenting on a few days displayed either ignorance or mischievously creating lies. Sea ice extent changes from year to year and the only measures which are meaningful are in April for maximum extent, and September for minimum extent. Sea ice extent being an illustration of the nonsense published by Anthony Watts from WUWT.

Sea ice volume is another measure that fluctuates from year to year; but, the trend line is downward as with sea ice extent and sea ice thickness. The volume in 1979 had been 16,700 km3; whereas, for 2016 around 4,400 km3 (PIOMAS). In 2016 a British yatch was able to sail through one route of the fabled North West passage; and then, sail back on the other route.

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