An eminent researcher has warned that any attempt to decarbonize the US economy by 2050 is doomed to fail.
Professor Michael Kelly, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, has previously studied the impact of Net Zero projects in the UK and his native New Zealand and has now turned his expertise to the United States. [emphasis, links added]
His headline findings are a stark warning for politicians across the country.
“The cost to 2050 will comfortably exceed $12 trillion for electrification projects and $35 trillion for improving the energy efficiency of buildings.
“A workforce comparable in size to the health sector will be required for 30 years, including a doubling of the present number of electrical engineers.
“The bill of specialist materials is of a size that, for the USA alone, is several times the global annual production.”
Professor Kelly warns that politicians are not thinking through the scale of the project they are pursuing.
“It’s clear that no country has the manpower, the materials, or the money to deliver Net Zero. It cannot be attempted without establishing a command economy, and even then it would fail. This is a fool’s errand.”
Michael Kelly: The Feasibility of a Net-Zero Economy for the USA by 2050 (pdf)
Prof Kelly’s sums are devastating enough but do not take into account that whatever feeble CO2 reductions the ‘West’ achieves, ocean outgassing and Chinese power stations will ensure that the present two to three ppm per year will continue towards doubling when the effect might be 0.4degsC in 200 years. So no need to scare children.
Net Zero stands for the Net Zero Intelligence of the Climate Change Global Warming Pinheads
San Francisco has a pending bill to give each black resident $5 million in reparations for slavery. California has a similar measure proposed of $360,000. San Francisco also plans to subsidize the incomes of residents so no household is below $100,000. A lot can be said about reparations but the purpose of this post is to show that liberals have no concept of reality. Without factoring in these give a ways San Francisco has project a $728 million deficit for the next two years and California $22.5 billion deficit for the upcoming fiscal year. The city and state are planning to spend huge sums of money that doesn’t exist. The same is true of reaching net zero. The $50 trillion to do so is not affordable. The technology to store energy on the scale necessary to power an electric grid when there is no sun and wind doesn’t exist. Wind and solar power do not have the energy density to power an industrial society. Just as is the case with the given away proposals of San Francisco and California, the climate change agenda is attempting to force a program that isn’t possible. The liberals can’t understand this.