Half a century of dealing with Neoclassical economists has taught me to expect them to have zero comprehension of the bleedingly obvious, when the obvious conflicts with their established beliefs. That experience was confirmed in spades last week, with the publication of my letter to
Hi @Steve Keen, would it be possible for you to recommend any academic textbook to read for Macro 101 student that teaches in the same heterodox way as yourself?
Can you say what was the reading on your recent curriculums for students at Kingston for instance?
I am looking to find an anti-Taylor & Mankiw book in other words.
J. K. Galbraith talks about this in his excellent book "The Affluent Society" (published 1958!). The "conventional wisdom" is not characterized by being right but by being acceptable. He then goes on to say that:
"In some measure, the articulation of the conventional wisdom is a religious rite. It is an act of affirmation like reading aloud from the Scriptures or going to church. The business executive listening to a luncheon address on the immutable virtues of free enterprise is already persuaded, and so are his fellow listeners, and all are secure in their convictions. Indeed, although a display of rapt attention is required, the executive may not feel it necessary to listen. But he does placate the gods by participating in the ritual."
People will say anything to pretend their wealth, status, and privilege. Classical economics assumes natural resources to be infinite. This is a fairly significant error and invalidates everything else they say, as one "cannot eat more and shit less.". My solution to the problem can be found here: www.global-climate-compensation.org.
It's not about climate change, at this point that is a minor issue. It's all about rational effective mitigation strategies. So far virtually all the climate change alarmists (with a few exceptions like Jim Hansen) are advocating nutty scam solutions that have zero chance of significantly reducing emissions. Anyone who advocates wind & solar is advocating for worsening climate change.
Wind & solar are intermittent & seasonal so they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
If you really care about climate change that means advocating for a rapid expansion of nuclear energy. Otherwise forget about it. Don't even mention the subject.
I suppose demand for things like water wings will grow but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be enough to offset climate related disruption and rising sea levels.
Hi @Steve Keen, would it be possible for you to recommend any academic textbook to read for Macro 101 student that teaches in the same heterodox way as yourself?
Can you say what was the reading on your recent curriculums for students at Kingston for instance?
I am looking to find an anti-Taylor & Mankiw book in other words.
Thanks in advance
J. K. Galbraith talks about this in his excellent book "The Affluent Society" (published 1958!). The "conventional wisdom" is not characterized by being right but by being acceptable. He then goes on to say that:
"In some measure, the articulation of the conventional wisdom is a religious rite. It is an act of affirmation like reading aloud from the Scriptures or going to church. The business executive listening to a luncheon address on the immutable virtues of free enterprise is already persuaded, and so are his fellow listeners, and all are secure in their convictions. Indeed, although a display of rapt attention is required, the executive may not feel it necessary to listen. But he does placate the gods by participating in the ritual."
People will say anything to pretend their wealth, status, and privilege. Classical economics assumes natural resources to be infinite. This is a fairly significant error and invalidates everything else they say, as one "cannot eat more and shit less.". My solution to the problem can be found here: www.global-climate-compensation.org.
It's not about climate change, at this point that is a minor issue. It's all about rational effective mitigation strategies. So far virtually all the climate change alarmists (with a few exceptions like Jim Hansen) are advocating nutty scam solutions that have zero chance of significantly reducing emissions. Anyone who advocates wind & solar is advocating for worsening climate change.
Wind & solar are intermittent & seasonal so they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
If you really care about climate change that means advocating for a rapid expansion of nuclear energy. Otherwise forget about it. Don't even mention the subject.
I suppose demand for things like water wings will grow but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be enough to offset climate related disruption and rising sea levels.