Google engineers: Renewables can’t fix climate change

[Geee]

Watchdog.org:

It hasn’t received much play in the media, but two Google engineers assigned by the company to show how renewable energy can tackle climate change each came to a blunt conclusion:

 

It can’t be done.

 

“Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach,” engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork said after analyzing a four-year project called “RE<C” — which means Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal.

 

The goal was to show that renewables — such as solar power and wind turbines — can generate electricity cheaper than a coal-fired power plant.

 

But they couldn’t pull it off.

 

“We had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change,” the engineers wrote when posting their findings online Nov. 18. “We now know that to be a false hope — but that doesn’t mean the planet is doomed.”