A Stanford University professor says the world can go totally green by spending $73 trillion.

Totally Green

Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson wants to spend $73 trillion for the world to go totally green. Not only that, supposedly it will pay for itself in 7 years.

You can download the 119 page PDF from [One Earth](https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdfExtended/S2590-3322((19%2930225-8).

The report is called Impacts of Green New Deal Energy Plans on Grid Stability, Costs, Jobs, Health, and Climate in 143 Countries.

Jacobson claims Going 100% Green Will Pay For Itself in Seven Years.

It would cost $73 trillion to revamp power grids, transportation, manufacturing and other systems to run on wind, solar and hydro power, including enough storage capacity to keep the lights on overnight, Mark Jacobson said in a study published Friday in the journal One Earth. But that would be offset by annual savings of almost $11 trillion, the report found. “There’s really no downside to making this transition,” said Jacobson, who wrote the study with several other researchers. “Most people are afraid it will be too expensive. Hopefully this will allay some of those fears.” The report published Friday looked at 143 countries that generate more than 99% of the world’s greenhouse emissions. The savings would come from not extracting fossil fuels, using higher-efficiency systems and other benefits of shifting entirely to electricity. It follows a paper Jacobson published in 2015 laying out a state-by-state plan for the U.S. to convert to 100% renewables.

AOC's Green New Deal

The article notes that Jacobson 's work "underpinned" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) Green New Deal.

On February 25, I commented AOC's Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing.

AOC's the Boss

On March 26, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put AOC's Green New Deal to a vote. Hypocrite Democrat Senators Refuse to Back the New Deal and it failed 57-0.

Doug Jones (Ala.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), along with Independent senator Angus King (Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats voted against the deal.

At a press conference ,the Senate bill’s primary sponsor Ed Markey (D., Mass.), claimed he stood behind the proposal. “It is the national-security, economic, health-care, and moral issue of our time,” he said.

But he did not vote for it.

PNAS Review of Jacobson's Plan

A PNAS study (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA) did a Review of Jacobson's Plan

Jacobson et al. (11) along with additional colleagues in a companion article (12) attempt to show the feasibility of supplying all energy end uses (in the continental United States) with almost exclusively wind, water, and solar (WWS) power (no coal, natural gas, bioenergy, or nuclear power), while meeting all loads, at reasonable cost. Wind and solar are variable energy sources, and some way must be found to address the issue of how to provide energy if their immediate output cannot continuously meet instantaneous demand. The main options are to (i) curtail load (i.e., modify or fail to satisfy demand) at times when energy is not available, (ii) deploy very large amounts of energy storage, or (iii) provide supplemental energy sources that can be dispatched when needed. It is not yet clear how much it is possible to curtail loads, especially over long durations, without incurring large economic costs. There are no electric storage systems available today that can affordably and dependably store the vast amounts of energy needed over weeks to reliably satisfy demand using expanded wind and solar power generation alone. We show that refs. 11 and 12 do not meet these criteria and, accordingly, do not show the technical, practical, or economic feasibility of a 100% wind, solar, and hydroelectric energy vision. As we detail below and in SI Appendix, ref. 11 contains modeling errors; incorrect, implausible, and/or inadequately supported assumptions; and the application of methods inappropriate to the task. In short, the analysis performed in ref. 11 does not support the claim that such a system would perform at reasonable cost and provide reliable power.

Implausible Assumptions

The energy storage capacity consists almost entirely of two technologies that remain unproven at any scale. To give an idea of scale, the 100% wind, solar, and hydroelectric power system proposed in ref. 11 envisions UTES systems deployed in nearly every community for nearly every home, business, office building, hospital, school, and factory in the United States, although only a handful exist today. Although both PCM and UTES are promising resources, neither technology has reached the level of technological maturity to be confidently used as the main underpinning technology in a study aiming to show the technical reliability and feasibility of an energy system. The relative immaturity of these technologies cannot be reconciled with the authors’ assertion that the solutions proposed in ref. 11 and companion papers are ready to be implemented today at scale at low cost and that there are no technological or economic hurdles to the proposed system

Alleged Costs to Go Totally Green

US Contribution to Greenhouse Gasses

If the US spent $7.8 trillion, and it worked perfectly, we would rid the world of 14.75% of the alleged US contribution to global warming.

Hooray?

No Transmission Modeling

The PNAS review debunked assumptions that Jakobson made regarding capital costs, ability to ramp up hydroelectric power as required, and land constraints for wind turbines.

Moreover, and a PNAS points out, the authors do not perform any modeling or analysis of transmission. As a result, their analysis ignores transmission capacity expansion, power flow, and the logistics of transmission constraints.

Thus, not only would there be insufficient capacity, even if by some magic capacity was adequate, there would be no way to store that power for periods in which wind and solar were insufficient.

To that I would add the environment impacts of damming waterways that harm the environment by silting up, kill fish, etc.

And what about millions of dead birds that would be killed by the wind farms? Are the environmentalists suddenly not concerned about such things?

Lies, the Best Way Forward

Does Mark Z. Jacobson really believe what he says?

Occam's razor suggests the simplest explanation is the one that is most likely. Thus, when "stupidity" is one of the answers, it's usually a decent bet.

In this case, however, I believe Jacobson has seen PNAS and other reviews of his previous work and chooses to purposely lie as the best way forward.

After all, he did get activists like AOC to latch on to the idea as her own. He also has the UN on his side.

This came up yesterday in Dave Collum's Satirical, Comedic, Insulting Year in Review.

Climate Change

“Nobody on the planet—not one person—knows what will happen to the World’s climate and ecosystem 50 years from now. We are all guessing, some more than others.” Me [David Collum] “Vintners in France haven’t seen such a succession of hot weather and dry harvest since the 14th century, during a time called “the Black Death.” Bloomberg news, inadvertently noting it was hot 600 years ago. “We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right things in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” Tim Wirth, Senator, chair of Clinton-Gore Campaign, and UN official “…one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth…” Ottmar Edenhofer, IPCC official speaking in November 2010

Please pay attention to quotes 3 and 4.

So, is Mark Z. Jacobson a Stupid Liar (for his faith in global warming nonsense)?

Or is Jacobson Lying Stupidly (by promoting technologies he knows don't scale if they exist at all)?

Any votes for both?

Global Warming Religion

This article is as likely to change global warming views as the Pope is to announce his belief in Hinduism.

But can we at least stop the blatant lies?

Unfortunately not. It takes fearmongering and lies to spread the Global Warming Religion.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock