Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. announced they will get all of their energy from renewables in a few years, another show of corporate support for climate action running counter to U.S. President Donald Trump’s view on the issue.​

BLOOMBERG — The New York-based banks are aiming for their operations to be carbon-neutral, Morgan Stanley by 2022 and Citi by the end of the decade, according to separate statements from the companies. Both plan to buy power from clean energy projects.


“Morgan Stanley has been committed for over a decade to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions through strategic energy efficiency in our buildings and adding new renewable energy capacity to the grid from on-site power generation at our own properties,” said Vice Chairman Tom Nides.


The statements is another sign that business has different views from Trump on climate after the president vowed to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement involving almost 200 nations in a pledge to cut pollution. That promise requires cutting fossil-fuel emissions and boosting use of clean forms of energy such as wind and solar power.


“We’re committed to using renewable power sources for our global operations while continuing to provide financing for our clients’ renewable energy and energy efficiency projects around the world,” said Citi CEO Michael Corbat.


Both banks also are joining RE100, an initiative that brings together over 100 large companies that are working towards only running on clean energy. Other members include HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of America Corp and Swiss Re AG.


Private companies are signing deals to buy electricity from renewable-power generators. Corporate buyers of power-purchase agreements include Apple Inc. which said it reached 93 percent clean-energy use in 2015.

Solar power's rise has felt unstoppable. Clean energy development has shattered records for years. And new figures show the U.S. solar power market experienced more record growth in the second quarter of 2017. Solar made up 22 percent of new electric capacity this year. But the game's far from over.


CNBC — There are signs that rooftop solar may be feeling the effects of political attacks. Those attacks could hinder efforts to fight climate change and reduce the resiliency of America's power grid.

As we witness the violent effects of climate change across the country – from rampant, destructive wildfires to back-to-back, devastating hurricanes – our elected leaders should be doing all they can to rapidly transition away from dirty fuel sources.

Instead, politicians influenced by fossil fuel and utility companies are working feverishly to stifle renewable energy growth.

In 2015, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill that allowed utilities to charge rooftop solar customers extra. The state's solar industry was effectively frozen as a result. Within a month three major solar companies, SolarCity, Sunrun and Vivint, announced they were forced to leave the state and terminate hundreds of jobs.


"Politicians influenced by fossil fuel and utility companies are working feverishly to stifle renewable energy growth.  This slowdown of rooftop solar growth is problematic, and not just for solar customers and renewable energy companies."


In Florida, customers can only purchase solar power from utilities. And both Indiana and Arizona have decided to roll back net metering policies, which allow solar customers to be compensated for excess energy they produce and send back to the grid.

These policy changes seek to drive up the costs of residential solar and make it unaffordable for many Americans.

And it's becoming clear that these tactics are working. Much of the impressive solar power growth in 2017 was led by large-scale and utility installations. Distributed solar – those smaller systems often put on rooftops and parking lots – only grew one percent in the second quarter.
​
This slowdown of rooftop solar growth is problematic, and not just for solar customers and renewable energy companies.

Distributed solar has the potential to supply electricity during grid outages resulting from extreme weather or other emergency situations. That means that, on top of reducing our fossil fuel dependence, rooftop solar helps to make our cities more resilient in the face of climate change.

It's also good for the environment – solar energy on existing structures doesn't create pollution during generation, it requires negligible water use and it doesn't take up additional land. That makes it better for our planet and the most wildlife-friendly form of energy.

And although utility-scale solar growth continues to break records, we can't take it for granted either. There is pressure building that could stifle these projects as well as smaller distributed ones.

The federal government is considering a trade petition that could, if successful, gut the solar industry. And the petition is moving forward under the guise of protecting U.S.-based solar panel manufacturers from international competition. If approved, it could double the price of solar panels in the United States. This price hike would decrease demand, potentially forcing the loss of one-third of domestic solar jobs and dropping installations by two-thirds.

Rather than letting polluters drag their feet, we need to make it easier for rooftop solar to flourish. We need politicians to enact solar-friendly policies rather than work to eliminate them.

States can enact policies that allow for third-party ownership, which allows companies other than utilities to sell solar panels. States also need to establish strong programs that ensure homeowners and businesses with solar panels get reimbursed for the extra energy they produce. In addition, federal renewable energy tax credits, along with programs to support renewable research and development, can help spur rooftop growth.

But most importantly, policymakers need to take into account the true value of solar – including its benefits to people, climate and wildlife – especially as utilities continue their attacks on distributed renewable energy. It's time to put a price on the social and environmental costs of the outdated monopoly model, which solely considers utility profits. Some states are beginning to do so by requiring utilities to consider the social cost of carbon in their rate-making decisions.

Yes, solar growth continues to impress, but it's not time to rest on our laurels. As polluters continue their anti-renewable energy campaigns, we must keep a watchful eye on rooftop solar markets to ensure that more people are able to gain access to clean, wildlife-friendly energy sources. We need to work hard to build on the incredible success of solar to build a more resilient grid, help prevent the destructive effects of climate change, and create a healthier, more equitable future for humans and wildlife alike.

​


​The cost of renewables is plunging faster than forecasters anticipated just a few years ago as as technologies like gigantic wind turbines arrive on the market.

BLOOMBERG — That’s the conclusion of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, whose founder Michael Liebreich estimated that clean energy will reap 86 percent of the $10.2 trillion likely to be invested in power generation by 2040​
In a presentation to the research group’s conference in London on Tuesday, Liebreich said technology that’s slashing the costs of wind and solar farms makes it inevitable that clean energy will become more economical than fossil fuels for utilities in many places. The most visible advance is in the scale of wind turbines, highlighted by the chart below.

​When it started collecting data in earnest in 2004, BNEF already could see a trend toward bigger machines in the wind industry that deliver more spark to the grid. The scale of those turbines will grow with models planned by Siemens AG and Vestas Wind Systems A/S that already are delivering ones with wing spans bigger than the Airbus A380 double-decker jetliner.

The promise of bigger machines early in the next decade prompted developers of offshore wind farms in Germany to promise electricity without subsidy on their next projects.

“One of the reasons those offshore wind costs have come down to be competitive without subsidies is because these turbines are absolute monsters,” Liebreich said. “Imagine a turbine with a tip height that’s higher than The Shard.’’

The same process of producing more electricity for a lower cost is making photovoltaics cheaper. Liebreich predicted two “tipping points” where the cost of renewables will make power generation fueled by natural gas and coal increasingly unattractive.

“The first is when new wind and solar become cheaper than anything else,” Liebreich said. The slide below from his presentation indicates that in Japan by 2025 it will be cheaper to build a new PV plant than a coal-fired power generator. That milestone will be passed in India for wind power by 2030.

When it started collecting data in earnest in 2004, BNEF already could see a trend toward bigger machines in the wind industry that deliver more spark to the grid. The scale of those turbines will grow with models planned by Siemens AG and Vestas Wind Systems A/S that already are delivering ones with wing spans bigger than the Airbus A380 double-decker jetliner.

The promise of bigger machines early in the next decade prompted developers of offshore wind farms in Germany to promise electricity without subsidy on their next projects.

“One of the reasons those offshore wind costs have come down to be competitive without subsidies is because these turbines are absolute monsters,” Liebreich said. “Imagine a turbine with a tip height that’s higher than The Shard.’’

The same process of producing more electricity for a lower cost is making photovoltaics cheaper. Liebreich predicted two “tipping points” where the cost of renewables will make power generation fueled by natural gas and coal increasingly unattractive.

“The first is when new wind and solar become cheaper than anything else,” Liebreich said. The slide below from his presentation indicates that in Japan by 2025 it will be cheaper to build a new PV plant than a coal-fired power generator. That milestone will be passed in India for wind power by 2030.

At that point, anything you have to retire is likely to be replaced by wind and solar,” Liebreich said. “That tipping point is either here or almost here everywhere in the world.”

The second tipping point, a little further off, is when it’s more costly to operate existing coal and gas plants than to take power from wind and solar. The chart below, from BNEF forecasts, indicates that point may arrive in the middle of the next decade in both Germany and China.

Because energy costs vary widely from country to country, it’s difficult to make firm conclusions about when renewables might be able to overtake fossil fuels on the grid. For example, Brazil relies heavily on hydroelectric dams and France on its nuclear reactors -- technologies in much lower use in most other places.

For Liebreich, the economics of wind and solar are becoming compelling enough that it’s unlikely coal be able to hold onto its dominant position in the global power mix no matter what incentives President Donald Trump implements in the U.S.

“This is going to happen,” Liebreich said. “Coal is declining in the U.S. Nobody is going to make coal great again.”
​

As scientists worry that climate change is stoking deadly hurricanes in the Atlantic and punishing wildfires in the West, a new study seeks to drive change by casting blame, connecting global warming to a roster of 90 companies topped by Bay Area-based Chevron.As scientists worry that climate change is stoking deadly hurricanes in the Atlantic and punishing wildfires in the West, a new study seeks to drive change by casting blame, connecting global warming to a roster of 90 companies topped by Bay Area-based Chevron.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — The products these companies generate — mostly oil, gas and coal — have caused half of the increase in global temperatures since the 1800s, according to the report published in the journal Climate Change. Some of the firms have been responsible for nearly 3 percent of the total carbon dioxide driving global warming, the report said, though they knew in some cases that their actions were harmful.

The study is the latest piece of a broad effort to tie individual companies to climate change in a bid to pressure them and force reforms. It comes as scientists hone their ability to assign accountability for the cost of a warming planet, and as President Trump leads an administration that is stripping away rules designed to curb emissions of problematic greenhouse gases.​

With the vacuum of federal regulation, some legal experts and environmental advocates said, the fight over global warming — and the emerging question of who should pay for its damage — will increasingly move to the courts. There, studies like the one published last week may be powerful evidence.

“We’re seeing a lot of litigation around climate change and environmental issues now because the government is walking away from its obligation to protect human health and welfare,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York. “This (new report) is exactly the sort of study that plaintiffs will rely on in seeking to attribute blame for climate change.”

So far, the legal effort to address global warming has focused primarily on getting regulators to do more. But lawsuits filed this summer by Marin County, San Mateo County and the Southern California city of Imperial Beach (San Diego County) target oil companies directly.

In the closely watched case, the three communities are suing 37 fossil-fuel producers over damage they say is caused by rising seas.

The new report is authored by a group of researchers connected through the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy group. San Mateo County attorney John Beiers called the report, which suggests that the 90 companies responsible for increasing temperatures are behind 30 percent of sea-level rise, an “important peer-reviewed study that confirms key elements” of his lawsuit.

Some legal experts said the study could also bolster high-stakes investigations led by attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts over ExxonMobil’s contribution to global warming. The issue there is whether the company misled investors about the damage it was doing.

Neither ExxonMobile nor Chevron responded Tuesday to requests for comment. The science of attributing climate change to specific companies remains young, and critics of the latest report have said the methodology is simplistic and the conclusions riddled with error. Another difficult question is how much responsibility consumers bear for using products and services they know contribute to global warming.

The study built on a 2013 report that estimated 90 companies were responsible for nearly two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions. Using similar models that quantify the amount of heat-trapping gas released through the extraction and development of fossil fuels, the study attributed levels of emissions to individual companies. The new study goes a step further, calculating how much a company’s emissions contributed to climate change.

The biggest culprits, it said, were in the business of oil, gas and coal, many with household names, while a few were cement manufacturers. Investor-owned Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell were each said to be responsible for 2 to 3 percent of increasing temperatures and sea-level rise between 1880 and 2010. State-owned companies in Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Kingdom posted similar numbers.

Peter Frumhoff, one of the study’s authors and the chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the findings on emissions provide evidence needed to begin going after those behind global warming.

“We can put a number on the contribution to climate change on specific companies,” he said. “That’s been a missing link in the conversation about responsibility, including legal responsibility.”

With hurricanes Harvey and Irma causing tens of billions of dollars in damages this month, and one of the worst wildfire seasons causing hundreds of millions in losses in the West, Frumhoff predicted an uptick in such lawsuits, especially with federal regulators sitting on the sidelines. While identifying exactly how much global warming contributed to each of these disasters remains difficult, there’s consensus among scientists that warming raised the probability the events would occur and worsened the blow.

“The costs of climate change are enormous and growing,” Frumhoff said. “It seems to me that it’s appropriate for decision-makers at all levels to determine whether there are actionable steps, as were taken against tobacco, asbestos and lead companies.”

Burger, at Columbia University, cautioned that fighting for government regulators to take action on greenhouse gas emissions remains imperative. The science showing the benefit of regulating the gases is unequivocal.

“The role of the science in litigation is not going to get ferreted out for years,” Burger said. “Why isn’t the existing science moving the government to take direct action? That seems to be the primary problem.”

Here is a message to investors in the oil industry, whether pension and insurance funds, university endowments, hedge funds or other asset managers: Your investments are going to sour. The growing devastation caused by climate change, as seen this month in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean, are going to blow a hole in your fossil-fuel portfolio.

CNN — Not only will the companies you own suffer as society begins to abandon fossil fuels in earnest, they will also be dragged through the courts here and abroad for their long-standing malfeasance and denial of what they have done to the world.

Climate change deniers, mainly politicians in the pay of the oil industry, protest that there is no proof that destructive storms and floods are the result of human-induced global warming. Who can say that a Hurricane Harvey or Irma wouldn't have occurred in the past?

Such a defense -- the cynical shrug -- will not play for much longer, either in the court of public opinion or in courts of law in the United States and abroad. The risks of climate-related disasters are real and rising, and soon it won't matter politically or legally that any particular event might have occurred even without human-induced global warming.

The issue is of probability, not certainty. Of course, there have been weather-related disasters in the past. But global warming makes us more vulnerable to these events. Scientists emphasize that hurricane damage, for example, may rise for three reasons: higher sea levels (due to warming) cause larger storm surges; warmer oceans add energy to hurricanes; and warmer air holds more water vapor that can cause torrential downpours.

Insurance companies know that climate risks are rising, scientists know it, and an increasing number of investors know it. And more of the general public knows it, too.

In climate science, the link between specific events like Harvey and Irma and the general rise in risk due to global warming is called "attribution." It's a problem we grapple with in many contexts. When a miner gets lung disease, a homeowner with asbestos insulation develops a rare cancer, or a smoker succumbs to lung cancer, we can never be sure that the particular case was linked to coal dust, asbestos or cigarettes.

But the courts have been ready to read the probabilities, and hold companies liable for damages when the likelihood of causation is high enough.

The courts have also linked liability with the standard of care exercised by the defendant. When a company understands the risks but ignores them, or even worse, lies about them, the court or jury is far more likely to agree to a large claim.

The tobacco companies relentlessly misled the public about their products. Some oil companies have done the same about climate change. ExxonMobil, for example, knew internally for decades that its products contribute to global warming, according to a peer-reviewed Harvard University study published last month, but publicly downplayed the linkages and the resulting risks (Exxon denies this).

The Koch brothers, owners of refineries and oil pipelines, have manufactured doubts about climate science and spent vast sums to oppose decarbonization policies and to elect politicians to do the same.

But the science of climate attribution is rapidly becoming more sophisticated, leaving the oil industry more exposed than ever.

Consider, for example, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) project. This is an effort by a consortium of scientific institutions, including the University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the University of Melbourne and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

This project has recently shown, that human-induced climate change dramatically raised the likelihood of the record-breaking heat wave in western Europe this summer. The team found that climate change "made the intensity and frequency of such extreme heat at least twice as likely in Belgium, at least four times as likely in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and central England and at least 10 times as likely in Portugal and Spain."

The project is now analyzing whether human-induced global warming raised the likelihood of the rainfall brought by Harvey.

American politics has long been manipulated by Big Oil, with massive campaign financing as well as backroom lobbying not seen by the public. The federal government and oil states like Texas have been as derelict as the companies, and could well find themselves also as defendants in cases brought by Americans and others who are hit by climate disaster.

Many Caribbean islands were devastated by Irma, and their leaders are appealing for aid. Soon, the cries around the world will change to a call for "compensation" or "civil damages" instead of just aid.

When climate justice comes -- and it will -- those who have been in denial will pay a heavy price. And those who have invested in companies that behaved recklessly and irresponsibly will share the heavy losses on that day of reckoning.

Tanner Lee Swiger graduated from high school in Wayne County, West Virginia this spring. His father and grandfather both worked in West Virginia’s coal industry. But not Swiger, or any of his high school classmates.

PRI — Nobody from his graduating class is working in coal, says Swiger. “[They’re] honestly working in fast food, or not working at all.”

Not Swiger. He has a job installing rooftop solar panels. He says his family is delighted with it.

"They’re excited that I’m actually doing something different,” says Swiger. “A lot of people ain’t doing this in West Virginia, a lot of people are against it actually. A lot of people want to go back to coal.

“I ain’t against it, I love solar. It’s way better than coal, I think.
Solar panels can save people money on their electricity bills and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, which fuel climate change. With battery storage, found in some home set-ups, solar can also allow people to continue to power their homes off the grid during power outages.

Swiger is working as an apprentice with Solar Holler, which was founded four years ago by 32-year-old Dan Conant. Conant doesn’t see solar energy and coal at odds with each other.

“The way I think about it, as a West Virginian, is that West Virginia has always been an energy state, and this is just the next step. It’s the next iteration,” says Conant.

West Virginia’s economy has long been reliant on coal. Metallurgical coal, which is found in the state, is used in the steel-making process. But when steel-making largely shifted from the US to overseas in the 1970s and '80s, West Virginia’s coal industry took a big blow.

Then, as the country turned to cleaner, and now cheaper, sources of energy, West Virginia’s coal industry was hollowed out, leaving many, like Conant, thinking beyond coal. He left his job at the US Department of Energy to start Solar Holler, to try to help slow his state’s economic slide. By many metrics, West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the country.

The ability of some residences and businesses to stay functioning as the power went out around them shows the growing potential of local generation and microgrids. Now those batteries just have to get a lot cheaper.

FAST COMPANY — When Hurricane Irma blew out a transformer on his block in Orlando on the night of September 10, Andy Green–like most of the people on his street, and millions of people throughout Florida–lost power from the grid. But Green, who installed Tesla’s Powerwall home battery storage in early August, kept his lights on.

“We didn’t have full power–we couldn’t have the whole house running–but we cut it down to the bare minimum, like air conditioning, refrigeration, internet, that sort of thing,” says Green. Though power is still out in parts of Orlando, electricity on his block came back from the grid 21 hours later. While it was off, Green’s Powerwall, connected to the solar panels on his roof, kept going. When the clouds parted the next day, the battery started recharging.

Typically, rooftop solar panels send power directly back into the grid. Power customers usually get a discount on their electric bill, but in a disaster, the fact that solar panels keep generating power isn’t useful. The rise of new home battery storage products like the Powerwall is changing that.



The battery can be set up to use excess electricity generated during the day at night, or configured as a backup. Before the storm, Green set the system to fully charge. As soon as the power went out, the battery kicked in. Green’s house is large, at roughly 5,500 square feet, and the number of solar panels installed on his roof isn’t designed to power all of it. But with rationed electricity use and enough sunshine to recharge the system during the day, he believes that he would have continued to have basic power even if a repair hadn’t happened quickly. (The battery can also be used to charge Tesla cars, and if roads are passable in a storm, could be a renewable source of fuel if gas runs out; before the storm, Tesla also pushed out a temporary software update to give drivers in the evacuation area extra capacity to store power in their cars, which otherwise is turned off to increase battery life).


Of course, if a storm is strong enough to tear solar panels off a roof and the battery can’t recharge, this type of system wouldn’t work for long. It’s also expensive: A single Powerwall unit, which can store 14 kilowatt-hours of energy, costs $5,500 plus supporting hardware and installation that can cost up to $2,000. A similar battery from Mercedes-Benz ranges from $5,000 to $13,000 for a 20 kilowatt-hour system including installation. In the U.K., where Ikea now sells both solar panels and batteries, its batteries are also nearly $4,000 at current exchange rates. Beyond cost, if someone rents an apartment or house and can’t install solar panels, it’s not an option.


But the cost is likely to drop, and battery storage and solar power could also be used in community solar projects, where customers don’t have solar panels at their own homes, but invest in or buy power from a nearby microgrid. In Orlando, customers can buy solar energy from a 12-megawatt solar farm built on top of a landfill; while the power is currently sent back to the grid, in the future, it’s possible that it and other community solar farms could use batteries to provide local backup power from multiple locations in emergencies.

​The battery can be set up to use excess electricity generated during the day at night, or configured as a backup. Before the storm, Green set the system to fully charge. As soon as the power went out, the battery kicked in. Green’s house is large, at roughly 5,500 square feet, and the number of solar panels installed on his roof isn’t designed to power all of it. But with rationed electricity use and enough sunshine to recharge the system during the day, he believes that he would have continued to have basic power even if a repair hadn’t happened quickly. (The battery can also be used to charge Tesla cars, and if roads are passable in a storm, could be a renewable source of fuel if gas runs out; before the storm, Tesla also pushed out a temporary software update to give drivers in the evacuation area extra capacity to store power in their cars, which otherwise is turned off to increase battery life).



Of course, if a storm is strong enough to tear solar panels off a roof and the battery can’t recharge, this type of system wouldn’t work for long. It’s also expensive: A single Powerwall unit, which can store 14 kilowatt-hours of energy, costs $5,500 plus supporting hardware and installation that can cost up to $2,000. A similar battery from Mercedes-Benz ranges from $5,000 to $13,000 for a 20 kilowatt-hour system including installation. In the U.K., where Ikea now sells both solar panels and batteries, its batteries are also nearly $4,000 at current exchange rates. Beyond cost, if someone rents an apartment or house and can’t install solar panels, it’s not an option.


But the cost is likely to drop, and battery storage and solar power could also be used in community solar projects, where customers don’t have solar panels at their own homes, but invest in or buy power from a nearby microgrid. In Orlando, customers can buy solar energy from a 12-megawatt solar farm built on top of a landfill; while the power is currently sent back to the grid, in the future, it’s possible that it and other community solar farms could use batteries to provide local backup power from multiple locations in emergencies.

Nicola Sturgeon outlines plans to 'massively expand' pilot projects to encourage uptake of electric vehicles 

INDEPENDENT — The Scottish government has pledged to phase out new petrol and diesel cars and vans across Scotland by 2032, eight years ahead of the UK Government target.​
Nicola Sturgeon outlined plans to "massively expand" charging points and set up pilot projects to encourage uptake of electric vehicles​
The SNP leader also said there were plans to make the A9 Scotland's first fully electric-enabled road and that an innovation fund would be set up to encourage climate-change solutions such as charging vehicles in areas with a high concentration of tenements.

“Our aim is for new petrol and diesel cars and vans to be phased out in Scotland by 2032,” Ms Sturgeon said.

In July, Britain said it would halt the production of new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 to cut pollution. 

The plans replicate those already made by France and cities such as Madrid, Mexico City and Athens
The Government said the commitment was necessary due to the avoidable impact poor air quality was having on people’s health. 

Jesse Norman, the parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Transport, confirmed the Government’s plans. 

The Government has a manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans on our roads to be zero emission by 2050. We believe this would necessitate all new cars and van being zero emission vehicles by 2040,” Mr Norman said in a written answer to the Commons. 

It comes after Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, pledged that London’s entire transport system would become zero emission by 2050, with a “zero emission zone” by 2025. 

All taxis and minicabs in the capital will be non-polluting by 2033 while the entire bus fleet will be zero emission by 2037, the mayor’s office said.

Solar power, driven by exponentially-increasing nanotechnology, will satisfy the entire world's need for energy in less than twenty years.

BIGTHINK — Currently, solar power supplies less than 1% of the world's energy needs, which has led many to disregard its future significance. Where they're wrong is that they fail to understand the exponential nature of technology, says eminent inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Just like computer processing speed—which doubles every 18 months in accordance with Moore's law—the nanotechnology that drives innovations in solar power progresses exponentially, he says

During his latest Big Think interview, Kurweil explained:

"Solar panels are coming down dramatically in cost per watt. And as a result of that, the total amount of solar energy is growing, not linearly, but exponentially. It’s doubling every 2 years and has been for 20 years. And again, it’s a very smooth curve. There’s all these arguments, subsidies and political battles and companies going bankrupt, they’re raising billions of dollars, but behind all that chaos is this very smooth progression."​

So how far away is solar from meeting 100% of the world's energy needs? 

Eight doublings, says Kurzweil, which will take just 16 years. And supply is not an issue either, he adds: "After we double eight more times and we’re meeting all of the world’s energy needs through solar, we’ll be using 1 part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the earth. And we could put efficient solar farms on a few percent of the unused deserts of the world and meet all of our energy needs."



Reducing this bold of a prediction to simple mathematics sounds absurd, but it has served Kurzweil in the past. Using this formula, he accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, chessmaster Garry Kasparov's defeat to a robot, and the proliferation of the Internet—as well as over 100 other predictions. (He also says that humans will merge with machines in 2045!)

Why Should You Care?

Needless to say, the implications of cheap solar power would be truly staggering, revolutionizing virtually every aspect of life and geopolitics. Potentially dangerous nuclear power would become obsolete; dirty energy sources like coal and oil would be a thing of the past; and the world would no longer have to kowtow to corrupt governments that just happen to be resource-rich. 

So many other global issues—like impending water and food crises—would also no longer be issues if a cheap, renewable energy source existed. "We’re awash with water, but most of it's salinated or dirty," says Kurzweil. We have the technology to desalinate and clean water, but it is very costly. Cheap solar would change that. If we had inexpensive energy, scientists could also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables, supplying the growing demand for food and "recycling all the nutrients and materials so there's no ecological impact at all." They could even "grow meat without animals by cloning muscle tissue," eliminating the need for disastrous factory farming, he says.



​

Hurricane Irma was strengthening ahead of an all-but-certain collision with southern Florida after devastating the Caribbean islands and threatening to become the most expensive storm in U.S. history.

BLOOMBERG — With top winds of 155 miles (249 kilometers) an hour, the life-threatening storm grew in size, meaning most of Florida will face hurricane-force winds as it cuts a path through the peninsula into Georgia. Now a Category 4 system, Irma is forecast to regain power through Sunday when it may reach Category 5 again, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said late Friday. It has already left at least 21 people dead, thousands homeless across the Caribbean and threatens to rack up as much as $200 billion in damages.

​

​Much of Florida, especially the southern half, is in for a really long and horrible day on Sunday,” said Todd Crawford, lead meteorologist at The Weather Company in Andover, Massachusetts. Another example of “the power of nature on a heavily populated part of the U.S. coastline is imminent, and the costs will be great.”


Mandatory evacuations were issued across Florida, with around 650,000 people fleeing Miami-Dade as part of the largest evacuation the county’s ever attempted. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was evacuated, along with the rest of Palm Beach.


“Prepare for the worst possible,” Trump said Friday as he boarded Marine One, bound for Camp David.


Irma is one of three hurricaneschurning in the Atlantic Basin. Jose, the third major one of the 2017 season with top winds of 150 miles per hour, is forecast to turn northeast and miss the U.S. In the Gulf of Mexico, Katia was expected to come ashore in Mexico by early Saturday, delivering a dangerous storm surge. The country was just struck by a powerful earthquake on Friday, shaking buildings in the capital and triggering a tsunami warning.

Irma’s hurricane-force winds now extend for 140 miles, creating a danger zone that would reach from West Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast to Fort Myers on the Gulf of Mexico. That’s an “insurance industry nightmare” as every county in the state could see damaged roofs and power outages so vast it overwhelms repair efforts, said Chuck Watson, a Savannah, Georgia-based disaster modeler with Enki Research.

Damages could easily top $135 billion in Florida, with other economic losses pushing the price tag as high as $200 billion, Watson said. Preliminary estimates show losses across the Caribbean nearing $10 billion. CoreLogic said 8.5 million properties in Florida may be damaged by Irma’s winds.

Total losses from Katrina reached $160 billion in 2017 dollars after it slammed into New Orleans in 2005.


“Wind damage is totally going to throw a wrench into the insurance industry,” Watson said. “You are talking about companies failing.”

About 9 million of Florida’s 20.6 million people may lose power, according to the state’s largest utility Florida Power & Light Co. Irma may also curb natural gas demand in one of the largest U.S. markets and threaten $1.2 billion worth of crops.

Officials were taking steps to ensure adequate supplies of gasoline after residents filled up cars, boats and back-up generators ahead of the storm. “We’re bringing in as much supply of refined fuel as possible,” White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said Friday.

Irma was 315 miles southeast of Miami and is forecast to approach the north coast of Cuba and the central Bahamas before striking southern Florida Sunday morning, the hurricane center said.

Related Article: Why We Expect More Havoc From Hurricanes Like Harvey: QuickTake

The hurricane comes just two weeks after Harvey smashed ashore in Texas, knocking offline almost a quarter of U.S. oil refining capacity and causing widespread power outages and flooding.

In other storm news:

-One of the biggest evacuations of aircraft on record is under way as owners move planes out of Irma’s path.

-Comcast Corp.’s Universal Parks and Resorts division closed three theme parks in Orlando, and Walt Disney World Resort will shut early Saturday.

-The storm is threatening the two biggest fuel-sucking ports in Florida: Tampa and Port Everglades.

-Gasoline demand surged in Florida ahead of the storm, and the U.S. is allowing foreign flag vessels to bring in fuel to help with shortages