{"id":97282,"date":"2016-10-26T10:29:13","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=97282"},"modified":"2016-10-26T06:30:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T10:30:17","slug":"energy-does-going-green-mean-making-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/10\/energy-does-going-green-mean-making-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy: Does Going Green Mean Making Peace?"},"content":{"rendered":"
October 26, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"Energy:<\/p>\n

The world is adding more renewable energy capacity. But it may be too little, too late.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

It may be the most consequential Valentine\u2019s Day ever: February 14, 1945.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the day King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia boarded the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal to meet with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

FDR was on his way back from the pretty-consequential-in-its-own-right Yalta Conference, which proved to be the last time he met with his \u201cBig Three\u201d counterparts \u2013 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin \u2013 to discuss World War II.<\/p>\n

Decisions made and deals consummated at Yalta set the stage for the defining conflict of the second half of the 20th century, the Cold War.<\/p>

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The relationship that King Ibn Saud \u2013 the founder and first monarch of modern Saudi Arabia \u2013 and President Roosevelt forged on Great Bitter Lake continues to shape U.S. entanglements in the Middle East in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

As early as 1943, FDR understood the importance of Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil \u2013 discovered in 1938 by American geologists working for Standard Oil \u2013 to the Allied war effort and started funneling foreign aid to what was then one of the poorest nations on Earth.<\/p>\n

We needed that resource to fuel our own war effort. And we needed to prevent the Axis powers from gaining access to it.<\/p>\n

FDR, the consummate politician, also respected the Saudi king\u2019s strict Sunni fundamentalist beliefs and refrained from smoking and drinking during their meeting.<\/p>\n

Churchill, who also enjoyed an audience with Ibn Saud aboard the Quincy, took no similar precautions.<\/p>\n

The differences among the two Western leaders didn\u2019t end with decisions on the vices.<\/p>\n

As Marine Col. William Eddy tells us in a 1954 narrative of the historic meeting, the king said:<\/p>\n

\n

The contrast between the president and Mr. Churchill is very great. Mr. Churchill speaks deviously, evades understanding, changes the subject to avoid commitment, forcing me repeatedly to bring him back to the point. The president seeks understanding in conversations; his effort is to make the two minds meet, to dispel darkness and shed light upon the issue\u2026 I have never met the equal of the president in character, wisdom and gentility.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Circumstance and time have only validated, reinforced, and reconfirmed deep, durable U.S. ties to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Witness the Obama administration\u2019s strident opposition to a bill granting litigants the right to sue Saudi Arabia and its agents for damages related to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and subsequent efforts by members of Congress to declaim responsibility for votes in favor of such legislation.<\/p>\n

It may or may not be the case that American power is basically deployed on behalf of allies such as Saudi Arabia and in service of major fossil fuel companies such as Halliburton Co.<\/strong> (HAL) and Exxon Mobil Corp.<\/strong> (XOM).<\/p>\n

But Turkey\u2019s government-run Anadolu news agency has put together some pretty compelling evidence, in the form of maps, that the conflict playing out in Iraq and Syria boils down to the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other fundamentalist Sunni allies versus Russia, Iran, Shia, and non-fundamentalist Sunni allies.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re witnessing, according to Eric Zuesse of <\/em>Strategic Culture, is an old-fashioned oil and gas pipeline war.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The world continues to tear itself apart over fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

And we continue to kill the planet with emissions from burning them.<\/p>\n

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), \u201cGlobally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached the symbolic and significant milestone of 400 parts per million for the first time in 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the WMO notes, \u201cThe longest-established greenhouse gas monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, predicts that CO2 concentrations will stay above 400 ppm for the whole of 2016 and not dip below that level for many generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spike in 2015 and into 2016 was caused by a \u201cvery powerful El Ni\u00f1o event.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, \u201cBetween 1990 and 2015, there was a 37% increase in radiative forcing \u2014 the warming effect on our climate \u2014 because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (N2O) from industrial, agricultural, and domestic activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains, \u201cFour hundred parts per million is an arbitrary milestone, but it also may be a window on our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earth last saw CO2 levels of 400 parts per million about 3 million years ago, during the mid-Pliocene warm period.<\/p>\n

As NOAA notes, \u201cPaleoclimate research suggests that there was a lot less ice to cool the planet then. The extent of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were severely reduced.<\/p>\n

\u201cDitto for the Arctic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea levels were up to 65 feet higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trees replaced tundra. Tropical rainforests nearly disappeared. Snow in what\u2019s now the United States was a rumor.<\/p>\n

Says Bruce Bauer of NOAA\u2019s National Centers for Environmental Information, \u201cThere were some differences in continent locations, and in Earth\u2019s orbit around the sun, but the Pliocene is considered a bellwether for what future climate might be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet we continue to fight that future.<\/p>\n

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewables accounted for more than 50% of new power capacity installed around the world during 2015. Wind- and solar-power projects drove a 15% year-over-year increase in new installed capacity to 153 gigawatts.<\/p>\n

As the IEA notes, \u201cAbout half a million solar panels were installed every day <\/em>around the world last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IEA upped its growth rate for renewables and now sees wind, solar, and other clean resources growing by 13% more between 2015 and 2021 than it did in the 2015 forecast.<\/p>\n

Competition in the industry is heating up, prices are coming down, and technology is advancing rapidly. Public policy moves \u2013 including ratification of the Paris climate agreement \u2013 are also driving a significant shift toward renewables.<\/p>\n

Global renewable power capacity now exceeds coal-fired capacity. But renewable generation still lags, as you can\u2019t run a solar photovoltaic plant or a wind farm when there\u2019s no sun or no wind. Storage technology just isn\u2019t there yet.<\/p>\n

And the Energy Information Administration\u2019s Annual Energy Outlook 2016 Early Release: Annotated Summary of Two Cases<\/em> still projects that fossil fuels will dominate the mix until 2040.<\/p>\n

Natural gas, oil, and coal meet about 85% of U.S. energy needs today. And they\u2019ll account for about 77% in 2040.<\/p>\n

It may or may not be the case that going green means making peace.<\/p>\n

Of course, human nature being what it is \u2013 and governments being what they are \u2013 we\u2019ll probably pivot to wars over (instead of just on) sand.<\/p>\n

\n

NBNBC<\/h2>\n

Courtesy of the blog 15 minutes in the morning, \u201cThe NYT buying Wirecutter and Sweethome is so much more amazing than you think<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a think-outside-the-box story with a very happy ending. Matt Haughey identifies six steps crucial to the enormity of Wirecutter and Sweethome founder Brian Lam\u2019s success:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He single-handedly built his own empire without having to cater to advertisers or<\/em><\/strong> investors.<\/li>\n
  2. He built a site that made revenue in a way that was previously uncharted.<\/li>\n
  3. He built it according to his own rules, without needing to pressure writers and editors to publish as often as possible.<\/li>\n
  4. He built a brand and a site that launched many copycats but no one ever matched it.<\/li>\n
  5. His sites work thanks to trust built up between readers and writers, and it works because editors help maintain integrity since the day it launched.<\/li>\n
  6. He did it all in a place far, far from the tech hubs of SF and NYC, in Honolulu. Where he gets to surf almost daily.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And here\u2019s a bonus for today: large dogs surfing<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Smart Investing,<\/p>\n

    David Dittman
    \nEditorial Director, Wall Street Daily<\/i><\/p>\n

    The post Energy: Does Going Green Mean Making Peace?<\/a> appeared first on Wall Street Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By WallStreetDaily.com The world is adding more renewable energy capacity. But it may be too little, too late. It may be the most consequential Valentine\u2019s Day ever: February 14, 1945. That\u2019s the day King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia boarded the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal to meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97294,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97282\/revisions\/97294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}