OT: Windmills and all of the Jobs and the Blowing

theyolksonyou

PigBeanUs said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

I’ve always said nuclear needs to be part of the picture.  

There’s probably a lot of methane coming from your property that could be used.  

HeavyG

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Turbines are being developed with anti-icing systems for the blades and those will be able to run properly down to about -50°C.

Soyknee

HeavyG said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Turbines are being developed with anti-icing systems for the blades and those will be able to run properly down to about -50°C.

That’s fine but do they retrofit they 1500 existing wind turbines? 3000MW of generation not being able to be utilized is a lot on a cold day when people need heat. 

littlerascal56

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Dude....I’m with you 100%.  I came from the steam turbine world.  People don’t understand that wind is not “dispatchable”, and sometimes doesn’t blow on the hottest days of summer.  And the fact that there is a 300 year supply of high Btu coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.  I’m lucky that my career just closed out after 41 years in the industry.  

theyolksonyou

littlerascal56 said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Dude....I’m with you 100%.  I came from the steam turbine world.  People don’t understand that wind is not “dispatchable”, and sometimes doesn’t blow on the hottest days of summer.  And the fact that there is a 300 year supply of high Btu coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.  I’m lucky that my career just closed out after 41 years in the industry.  

Maybe capture the hot air from DC.  That seems dispatchable 

Soyknee

littlerascal56 said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Dude....I’m with you 100%.  I came from the steam turbine world.  People don’t understand that wind is not “dispatchable”, and sometimes doesn’t blow on the hottest days of summer.  And the fact that there is a 300 year supply of high Btu coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.  I’m lucky that my career just closed out after 41 years in the industry.  

If people only realized how the power market worked. It’s pretty sad that wind can bid into the market at $0 a MW because of subsidies. 

Fortunately for me I am 38 and Work as an I&C tech. I am also a journeyman electrician so I shouldn’t have an issue finding a job when we are forced to shut down. 

nolaegghead

Soyknee said:

littlerascal56 said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Dude....I’m with you 100%.  I came from the steam turbine world.  People don’t understand that wind is not “dispatchable”, and sometimes doesn’t blow on the hottest days of summer.  And the fact that there is a 300 year supply of high Btu coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.  I’m lucky that my career just closed out after 41 years in the industry.  

If people only realized how the power market worked. It’s pretty sad that wind can bid into the market at $0 a MW because of subsidies. 

Fortunately for me I am 38 and Work as an I&C tech. I am also a journeyman electrician so I shouldn’t have an issue finding a job when we are forced to shut down. 

I could only hope that people in an industry would understand, at the very least, their own industry.  Sadly, humanity has me shaking my head once again

littlerascal56

Politics play a huge role in what’s “politically correct” in the utility industry.  Technology follows the subsidies.  I put in 1350 solar panels at one of our plants (per board of directors requests), and sold all panels to our customers.  In the past 4 years we have experienced 22 inverter failures, so those buyers have not recouped much of their investment.  Basically an expensive “science experiment”!

HeavyG

Soyknee said:

HeavyG said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

Turbines are being developed with anti-icing systems for the blades and those will be able to run properly down to about -50°C.

That’s fine but do they retrofit they 1500 existing wind turbines? 3000MW of generation not being able to be utilized is a lot on a cold day when people need heat. 

If the operators of existing turbines crunched the numbers and the numbers say to upgrade their existing equipment I'm sure they would do that. Otherwise I'd assume they would replace them with "Great White North Turbines" as existing gear reaches end of life.
Nobody expects that turbines will be the sole provider of power 24/7/365 for most locations on the planet - that's why other means of production will also always exist.

lkapigian

100 years from now , none of this matters .....

nolaegghead

littlerascal56 said:

Politics play a huge role in what’s “politically correct” in the utility industry.  Technology follows the subsidies.  I put in 1350 solar panels at one of our plants (per board of directors requests), and sold all panels to our customers.  In the past 4 years we have experienced 22 inverter failures, so those buyers have not recouped much of their investment.  Basically an expensive “science experiment”!

I don't understand.  Line inverters typically have a 12 year warranty and the inverter systems a 25.  You pay for the inverter and you get a working inverter for that amount of time.  Typically panels will loose 10+% efficiency in the 25 year working life. 

Solar is a commodity with a known, predictable ROI.  Were you doing this in the 1980s?

nolaegghead

BTW, if anyone hasn't noticed, this FlyOverCountry troll just copied Trump's quotes direct from transcripts and pasted them here, changing some spelling/grammar here and there to make it look like he typed it.

nolaegghead

PigBeanUs said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

I’ve always said nuclear needs to be part of the picture.  

Personally, nuclear makes sense to me.  We need to adopt the latest tech and science to design and build reactors that are as "fail-safe" as possible, and that use fuel and waste products that can't be used for fission bombs.  Also, we need a safe place to store it.  Politics are the largest hurdle generating more of our energy via nuclear.

nolaegghead

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

The biggest problem with coal and what is causing it to decline is that it is expensive.  I'm sure if we eliminate all environmental regulations, burn the cheapest strip mined anthracite and just dump all the fly ash into lakes, rivers and landfills, probably would be competitive.  But we have a glut of natural gas and it burns clean with almosthalf the CO2 emissions per KWH.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Wind-Solar-Are-Now-The-Cheapest-Sources-Of-Power-Generation.html

Obviously there's no one energy source in existence that meets our needs.  Nuclear plants can't throttle quick enough to match demand.  Wind - wind varies.  Sun varies, none at night.

Google some pictures of Chinese cities.  That's what it would look like here if we had no environmental regulations and just burned coal for all our electricity.  I guess everyone's kids coughing their lungs out is fine if you can keep your coal plant job.  (can you not get a job in another plant?)

I'd like to see all coal plants replaced, where possible, with natural gas turbines.  These are modular, spin up and down quick, don't release mercury, don't generate fly ash, you can pipe the fuel rather than barge/train it.  Coal is what you burn when you're a third world country.  We're smart, at least I like to think so, but the market will make the adjustments.  There's enough momentum behind wind/solar that they're selling in markets where there are no incentives.  Plus much of the wind federal incentive will expire in 2020.  But people are still building wind farms.  People don't invest foolishly. 

Talking about incentives, oil/gas and coal also are subsidized by the government.

nolaegghead

lkapigian said:

100 years from now , none of this matters .....

Is that because we'll be living in an Idiocracy(tm) or we'll have annihilated ourselves by then?  Or we'll invent fusion reactors?

Eoin

nolaegghead said:

PigBeanUs said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

I’ve always said nuclear needs to be part of the picture.  

Personally, nuclear makes sense to me.  We need to adopt the latest tech and science to design and build reactors that are as "fail-safe" as possible, and that use fuel and waste products that can't be used for fission bombs.  Also, we need a safe place to store it.  Politics are the largest hurdle generating more of our energy via nuclear.

Nuclear is great, until you have to decommission it.

YukonRon

Spaightlabs said:

YukonRon said:

I sleep occasionally. I thought this was funny and I thought I was making a joke.

Explains the lump of coal I am getting for Christmas.

Cheers.

Clean beautiful coal, or the regular kind?

Kentucky bituminous coal.

DoubleEgger

nolaegghead said:

lkapigian said:

100 years from now , none of this matters .....

Is that because we'll be living in an Idiocracy(tm) or we'll have annihilated ourselves by then?  Or we'll invent fusion reactors?

Greta says we only have a couple of years left...

GATraveller

nolaegghead said:

lkapigian said:

100 years from now , none of this matters .....

Is that because we'll be living in an Idiocracy(tm) or we'll have annihilated ourselves by then?  Or we'll invent fusion reactors?

Because Blues Traveler said so.......
https://youtu.be/_Xs7zeof-NA

HogFather

There will be no Christmas next year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/deaths-of-200-reindeer-in-arctic-caused-by-climate-change-say-researchers

And I say we drop wind turbines from Space. They will spin real fast.

Also charcoal is the devil. I'm switching to gas

Soyknee

nolaegghead said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

The biggest problem with coal and what is causing it to decline is that it is expensive.  I'm sure if we eliminate all environmental regulations, burn the cheapest strip mined anthracite and just dump all the fly ash into lakes, rivers and landfills, probably would be competitive.  But we have a glut of natural gas and it burns clean with almosthalf the CO2 emissions per KWH.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Wind-Solar-Are-Now-The-Cheapest-Sources-Of-Power-Generation.html

Obviously there's no one energy source in existence that meets our needs.  Nuclear plants can't throttle quick enough to match demand.  Wind - wind varies.  Sun varies, none at night.

Google some pictures of Chinese cities.  That's what it would look like here if we had no environmental regulations and just burned coal for all our electricity.  I guess everyone's kids coughing their lungs out is fine if you can keep your coal plant job.  (can you not get a job in another plant?)

I'd like to see all coal plants replaced, where possible, with natural gas turbines.  These are modular, spin up and down quick, don't release mercury, don't generate fly ash, you can pipe the fuel rather than barge/train it.  Coal is what you burn when you're a third world country.  We're smart, at least I like to think so, but the market will make the adjustments.  There's enough momentum behind wind/solar that they're selling in markets where there are no incentives.  Plus much of the wind federal incentive will expire in 2020.  But people are still building wind farms.  People don't invest foolishly. 

Talking about incentives, oil/gas and coal also are subsidized by the government.

Nola coal is cheap. It is expensive if plants aren’t mine mouth fed. Our plant burns lignite. In the 15 years I’ve been in the industry we have added a scrubber, an SNCR, mercury reel diction, and an ash dewatering system so any water we use that touches bottom ash gets recycled. The plant I worked for before made synthetic natural gas from coal and they sequestered the CO2. I am hopeful that there will be technology available soon to do the same for coal fired plants. We dump our ash in a landfill where the coal was mined. There was recently an article in a newspaper saying how bad our landfill is that is complete BS.  They skew the numbers to make it look like the ash is full of hazardous waste. 

Natural gas is cheap right now and you are right we have a pile of it. Will we always have cheap gas? We have a lot of gas generation too. However they aren’t really designed to be “base load” generators. If I was a betting man I’d bet the wind incentives get extended. 

The thing I find interesting  is some people  don’t want coal and they don’t want fracking. However they still want gas. How’s that going to work? In my opinion we need fossil fuels. 

I am all for change but there will be thousands of job lost if coal goes away. 

JohnInCarolina

What is the environmental cost of burning all that carbon?  That doesn’t seem to be part of your calculation that coal is “cheap.”

dbCooper

I retired from the electric utility field last Jan.  IT Security was my area, but you pick up things just by being around them, so I have some amount of familiarity with generation, distribution and the marketplace Power Pools.

As others have noted, there is no true green energy, Greta et al. notwithstanding.  For right, wrong or indifferent coal is the boogie man and likely to stay that way, Trump et al. notwithstanding.  Nuclear has many attractions but it seems impossible any new generation will be brought online in the US.

Also as noted by others, renewables have a challenge when the wind don't blow or the sun don't shine.  There is much research taking place with energy storage to address this, over the coming years one would expect developments in this area. 

Here is one such system that is in use in Britian that achieves over 70% efficiency.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/16/geeks_guide_electric_mountain/

I remain confident in the middle ground between Greta and Trump developing viable solutions.  None will be truly green and entropy will still get us in the end, plus a rogue solar flare, volcanic eruption  or asteroid could make all this moot.

alaskanassasin

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dispatch.com/news/20191223/ohio-gas-well-blowout-released-more-methane-than-some-countries-do-in-year-researchers-find%3ftemplate=ampart

wardo

DoubleEgger said:

nolaegghead said:

lkapigian said:

100 years from now , none of this matters .....

Is that because we'll be living in an Idiocracy(tm) or we'll have annihilated ourselves by then?  Or we'll invent fusion reactors?

Greta says we only have a couple of years left...

The "Person of the Year" says:  How dare you!

HeavyG

Soyknee said:

nolaegghead said:

Soyknee said:

I work in a coal fired power plant and I despise wind turbines. I thought I’d be able to have a secure job until I could retire. The wind subsidies are a killer. If people wouldn’t die I would love for all the coal fired units to go offline on either the coldest or hottest days of the year. I realize we need we need new forms of generation but wind and solar isn’t the answer. Where I am located we have A LOT of wind turbines and last winter they couldn’t run because it was -20. However we were able to back them up. 

The biggest problem with coal and what is causing it to decline is that it is expensive.  I'm sure if we eliminate all environmental regulations, burn the cheapest strip mined anthracite and just dump all the fly ash into lakes, rivers and landfills, probably would be competitive.  But we have a glut of natural gas and it burns clean with almosthalf the CO2 emissions per KWH.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Wind-Solar-Are-Now-The-Cheapest-Sources-Of-Power-Generation.html

Obviously there's no one energy source in existence that meets our needs.  Nuclear plants can't throttle quick enough to match demand.  Wind - wind varies.  Sun varies, none at night.

Google some pictures of Chinese cities.  That's what it would look like here if we had no environmental regulations and just burned coal for all our electricity.  I guess everyone's kids coughing their lungs out is fine if you can keep your coal plant job.  (can you not get a job in another plant?)

I'd like to see all coal plants replaced, where possible, with natural gas turbines.  These are modular, spin up and down quick, don't release mercury, don't generate fly ash, you can pipe the fuel rather than barge/train it.  Coal is what you burn when you're a third world country.  We're smart, at least I like to think so, but the market will make the adjustments.  There's enough momentum behind wind/solar that they're selling in markets where there are no incentives.  Plus much of the wind federal incentive will expire in 2020.  But people are still building wind farms.  People don't invest foolishly. 

Talking about incentives, oil/gas and coal also are subsidized by the government.

Nola coal is cheap. It is expensive if plants aren’t mine mouth fed. Our plant burns lignite. In the 15 years I’ve been in the industry we have added a scrubber, an SNCR, mercury reel diction, and an ash dewatering system so any water we use that touches bottom ash gets recycled. The plant I worked for before made synthetic natural gas from coal and they sequestered the CO2. I am hopeful that there will be technology available soon to do the same for coal fired plants. We dump our ash in a landfill where the coal was mined. There was recently an article in a newspaper saying how bad our landfill is that is complete BS.  They skew the numbers to make it look like the ash is full of hazardous waste. 

Natural gas is cheap right now and you are right we have a pile of it. Will we always have cheap gas? We have a lot of gas generation too. However they aren’t really designed to be “base load” generators. If I was a betting man I’d bet the wind incentives get extended. 

The thing I find interesting  is some people  don’t want coal and they don’t want fracking. However they still want gas. How’s that going to work? In my opinion we need fossil fuels. 

I am all for change but there will be thousands of job lost if coal goes away. 

Perhaps your location is the exception when it comes to dealing with fly ash disposal and the potential problems it represents.
In the past decade or so in a few states along the east coast there have been catastrophic breaches of fly ash landfills/impoundments as a result of extremely heavy rainfall that have then flowed downstream. Some other fly ash disposal sites are leaching into the surrounding water table. It is very expensive to have to deal with these old disposal sites.
The content of fly ash will vary depending on where the coal was mined - maybe your coal is relatively free of hazardous metals but that certainly is not true of all coal.
Coal may well have a future - in the future - when better technologies emerge for dealing with the negative aspects of burning so much coal. Until then there are far better options currently available.

Eoin

dbCooper said:

I retired from the electric utility field last Jan.  IT Security was my area, but you pick up things just by being around them, so I have some amount of familiarity with generation, distribution and the marketplace Power Pools.

As others have noted, there is no true green energy, Greta et al. notwithstanding.  For right, wrong or indifferent coal is the boogie man and likely to stay that way, Trump et al. notwithstanding.  Nuclear has many attractions but it seems impossible any new generation will be brought online in the US.

Also as noted by others, renewables have a challenge when the wind don't blow or the sun don't shine.  There is much research taking place with energy storage to address this, over the coming years one would expect developments in this area. 

Here is one such system that is in use in Britian that achieves over 70% efficiency.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/16/geeks_guide_electric_mountain/

I remain confident in the middle ground between Greta and Trump developing viable solutions.  None will be truly green and entropy will still get us in the end, plus a rogue solar flare, volcanic eruption  or asteroid could make all this moot.

Pumped storage is good technology. Tidal works the same, but no pumping needed, which makes sense for a country like ours (UK) with a long coastline. 

Reducing fossil fuel use by a large amount is achievable, it might cost more and be less convenient at times, but it is achievable. The big problem is that it needs planning, regulations and updated infrastructure. Like the US, our Government is not keen on regulations, so in spite of our previous PM setting a date of 2050 for net carbon neutral, we're not doing much about it.

Botch

I've got some interesting info to add to this party, regarding costs if we don't clean up our act (I'm not trying to pick on coal specifically here).
 
I'm the MILCON (new military construction, anything over $2M) coordinator for the Ogden Air Logistics Center (ALC) at Hill AFB.  We perform depot maintenance on most AF fighter aircraft (A-10, F-16, F-22, F-35 (F-15 is done at Warner-Robins, no idea why)).  Our MILCON projects awaiting funding from congress include a Radar Cross-Section Test Facility for the -22s and -35s, Composite Aircraft Radar Calibration Facility, the T-7A Maintenance Complex, and the F-35 Maintenance Complex.  The first three are in the tens of millions of dollars, the F-35 complex in the hundreds of millions in cost.  We've already run out of room to do this work already, and are running three shifts in some areas; ie these projects are critical to get funded.  
 
As such, I've spent a lot of time this past week going thru the 600+page FY20 NDAA, $1.4 trillion dollars, that trump just signed Friday afternoon, averting yet another guv'mint shutdown by midnight.  Lots of disappointment and one stunning figure, that I get to brief to Senior Leadership come January:
-  ALC Existing Mission MILCON funding:                        $0
-  ALC New Mission MILCON funding:                              $0
-  Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (not part of ALC)     $33M
-  Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM) storage             $6.5M
-  Emergency MILCON due to Global Warming                  $5.6 Billion
 
The Emergency MILCONs are at other bases, Tyndall and Seymour Johnson AFBs (hurricane damage) and Offutt and Barksdale AFBs (last spring's flooding).  And it looked like Navy and USMC facilities got hit worse (location!), haven't gotten that deep into the NDAA yet.  
 
These numbers are only going to get worse.  And it isn't just military installations.  Something's gotta change, folks.  

Spaightlabs

@Botch but it is soooo much easier to just do nothing...

wardo

Let's think about something that NO ONE talks about except to vilify.  The Money.  If we assume that people and institutions that have money and they don't want to lose it, and ideally make more.....

Then why on earth do banks and private investors continue to make loans for property on the coasts and buy up land there?  Why is real estate booming in Florida when it was supposed to be under water like 10yrs ago?  Why are small beach towns and communities continuing to grow and boom?  According to the talking heads, the beaches are gonna be washed away and because of the ice caps melting, the majority of the southeastern US is supposed to be under water.  If that's the case, then why would anyone lend money or invest in anything in these areas?

Either these folks (people and institutions) with all the money are just so stupid that they're gonna lose everything OR they know that this whole discussion is simply political jockeying to achieve a certain end for interested parties.

There's literally no science to any of the claims and the investment behavior suggests that the whole argument is a bunch of proverbial hot air.  Oh and fun fact, the US is actually leading the world in carbon reduction but even if we cut carbon emissions by 100%, the global change would be like 1%.  Greater Asia is responsible for the plurality of plastic and carbon waste being released into the ecosystem.  If there's really something to be done (no science available to even suggest a fix at this point), the starting place is the developing world.  I doubt that developing countries would be interested in killing their growth and causing their collective standards of living to retreat.  Perhaps we could verify this by looking at how unbelievably bad China and India alone are when it comes to environmental friendliness.

If you step back from the emotional side of the argument and look at the economic behavior, it's kind of interesting...