An energy revolution in America would let us take the lead in global action.

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COMMENTS: 
*  Climate change is one of those problems that is not susceptible to a single technological solution. There isn't going to be magic. Dr. Krugman has the right idea.  We're only going to reduce the impact of this problem successfully by mostly making good decisions, and mostly avoiding bad ones over a VERY LONG period of time.  A small example of that would be, oh, say the President appointed a FEMA director that was egregiously incompetent, followed by a large and powerful hurricane striking a low lying city.  Hekuva job, Brownie!
*  Even if Sanders gets in, I don't think he can stop the collapse of this empire and the eventual collapse of civilization onto the end of our species--more is at stake than anyone is willing to say. The rails are set and the train is racing toward a cliff. All Sanders can do is act as brakemen, not a switch man, and only for a short while. Clinton would lean on the throttle but either way, the train will wreck. The financial engineers driving, Krugmen among  the stokers, only see the fire box and not what's  dead ahead--more coal! 
*   Inefficient? After the initial outlay for turbines and maintenance it's all gravy. What does the wind and the sun cost? Battery tech is better every day soon a homeowner will be able to store their own power on cloudy days. Don't worry about those poor utility companies they're doing fine thank you and when they don't...good riddance.
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Paul Krugman: Nothing less than the fate of the world is at stake in this election

A GOP victory could set the state of the world back a decade, if not more

By Scott Eric Kaufman, February 1, 2016

In his New York Times column Monday, economist Paul Krugman argued that the only thing at stake in the next election is “the fate of the planet,” given that the past 8 years of Democratic support has driven the price of renewable energy sources down, whereas even 4 years of a Republican administration would no doubt drive it right back up.

Contrary to the orthodoxy spouted at the GOP debates — most notably by Marco Rubio, who insisted that any environmentally friendly policy would be “devastating for our economy” — “things are actually much more hopeful…thanks to remarkable technological progress in renewable energy.”

Krugman cited statistics from the investment firm Lazard that indicate that the price of producing electricity via wind power has fallen 61 percent since 2009, while the cost of doing so via solar power has fallen 82 percent over the same period. He continued, asking,

So what will it take to achieve a large-scale shift from fossil fuels to renewables, a shift to sun and wind instead of fire? Financial incentives, and they don’t have to be all that huge. Tax credits for renewables that were part of the Obama stimulus plan, and were extended under the recent budget deal, have already done a lot to accelerate the energy revolution. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which if implemented will create strong incentives to move away from coal, will do much more…

Read the rest at the New York Times…
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