Carbon Emissions Reached Record High In 2010

iONiUM writes "Last year, greenhouse gas emissions rose to a record amount of 30.6 gigatons, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. From an article at the Guardian: 'Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. "These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a 'business as usual' path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path... would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100," he said.'" jamie points out a recent report that the cost of solar cells has dropped about 21 percent this year, leading to predictions that solar power may become cheaper than nuclear and fossil power within five years.

Re:Technology will solve these problems.

[bunratty]

Even if we immediately stop burning any fossil fuels, it should still get warmer. It takes hundreds of years for the carbon cycle to take the excess out of the atmosphere. We're committed to continued warming right now. The only thing we can do is commit to less warming or more warming.

Re:50% Chance

[bunratty]

Sea level rise wiping out coastal cities [newscientist.com], droughts [grist.org], flooding due to excessive rainfall [tumblr.com], to name the most important problems with warmer temperatures.

Re:I was waiting for it, and you did not deliver

[TapeCutter]

Not sure what your definition of a "major boom" is, but PV production has been doubling every two years for the last decade [wikipedia.org].

Re:I was waiting for it, and you did not deliver

[mspohr]

If you do accept history, then you can see that the cost of solar cells has been dropping steadily since their invention and demand has been increasing rapidly since their invention. Initial cost in 1954 was $250 a watt and it has steadily declined to about $1 a watt (for the cell itself).

Demand has increased at 20 to 40% a year as the cost has gone down. (Demand curve, efficiencies of volume production, etc... basic economics).

You don't need a crystal ball. Fortunately, there is no "silicon cartel" to restrict the supply of raw materials so people who are expert at manufacturing (such as GE) can predict their costs accurately.