Will Culturally Inappropriate Prosperity Doom Us All?

[james_davis_nicoll]

As pointed out in email

Spun right, this could a population bomb for the 21st century:

The basic story is: growth, but not evenly distributed growth. Developed countries are expected to plateau in population and energy demand, but developing countries are expected to grow like gangbusters:
[snip]
What kind of energy will satisfy all that new demand? While renewables and natural gas are expected to grow faster than ever before, and oil and coal are expected to substantially slow their growth, there will nonetheless be more oil and coal burned in 2030 than in 2011:

[Poll #1754119]

Comments

[hot-soup.livejournal.com]

This is the only reason I like feed-in tariffs. German taxpayers (technically, German ratepayers) are subsidizing the development of cheap PV, so that (i) right now Chinese manufacturers make lots of money, and (ii) 10 years from now I can buy PV from those scaled-up Chinese manufacturers for a sensible price.

Winners: late adopting Canadian buyers, Chinese manufacturers, exporters competing with Germans with their high-priced energy

Losers: Germans