[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I can certainly empathize with this statement. When two people fundamentally disagree on a topic, even after extensive side-reading, even when trying to respectfully present arguments, it often isn't productive.

I appreciate the charity of this statement, but I also need to note that you didn't actually answer the question. It's not just a case of fundamental disagreement; I've had highly productive discussions with people I disagree with, and others that aren't so much.

Originally Posted by Solecismic

one of the things I get from this is that we're close to 3% of world energy produced by solar/wind/battery power.

Originally Posted by Solecismic

One thing that stood out, and it's partially sourced by a piece on Bloomberg that counted global SWB subsidies at $750 billion or so in 2021, is that to get to 3%, governments have spent about $5 trillion subsidizing the SWB marketplace over the last 20 years.

These are a couple of the most important statements here, for a couple of reasons.

- You refer to this level of investment as massive. I would call it transparently not even really trying, perhaps tokenism is the best word. 5 trillion is well under a tenth of a percent of the global GDP over that period. If you invested at minimum 50-100 trillion, I might begin to think you were actually considering getting serious.

- On the energy reliability front, 3% is simply not nearly enough to matter, which is why the NERC stuff (that PDF link does work btw) is irrelevant as it relates to EVs. It's not irrelevant, as I've said, as it relates to a stable energy future, reliable grid is important, but they are two different if tangentially related issues. Both are needed to be handled, not one in isolation. It cannot simultaneously be the case that we are not transitioning much, and are also transitioning so fast as to cause widespread energy stability issues. One of those can be reasonably argued for, but not both at the same time. I would say the 3% figure demonstrates that the first is the case. If our grid can't handle a 3% transition, that means it's inadequate if no transition were being attempted.

Originally Posted by Solecismic

The “Energy Transition� Delusion | Manhattan Institute

You can see where it's going by the loaded headline. I'd urge you to read it anyway.

I don't have a problem with the headline. I do have a problem with the bad arguments and bad use of data contained within it - I don't think dishonest is too strong of a term here. I can unpack that more if you don't think it would be a complete waste of time, but I will say that probably the central point of what they are arguing is not in dispute; energy transition is very difficult and will be very expensive & disruptive to the global economy. The problem is they explictly only deal with that side of the equation, present some of the data/arguments in a selective/slanted way, and don't deal with the reality that it's still a fantastic bargain at 10x the price, making the usual flawed assumption that we have the option of continuing on our current path indefinitely without paying a catastrophic price for it.