[aerohead]

Partner in crime,AeroStealth,loaned me the Great Courses' The Science of Energy,24-lecture series of 2016,with PhD Michael E. Wysession,of Washington University,St. Louis.
I'm in lecture 16 right now,but have a few observations to share.
*while Michael says that fossil fuels dominate our energy landscape and probably will throughout our lifetime,he does discuss transitioning to clean,renewable forms of energy as a matter of health and safety,not to mention climate.
*true costs of coal are 3X the purchase cost.
*China will exhaust their coal by 2045.
*the rest of humanity's future will be dominated by renewable energy.
*anthropogenic greenhouse gases are adding 3-Watts/ meter-squared to Earth's surface.
*Methane is rising faster than carbon dioxide (20X more potent than carbon dioxide),from 715 ppbv (1750),to 1800 ppbv (2015).
*solar output has been decreasing since 1960,and rapidly since 1995,while Earth continues to set records for warmest temperatures in history.
*the last time Earth had today's carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration,sea-levels were 75-100-feet higher.
*while it took 3-weeks for the Larsen-B ice-shelf to collapse,the Wilkins ice shelf disintegrated in one day.
*grid-scale photovoltaic electricity hit economic parity in 2014,at under 10-cents/kWh.
*in 2015,large PV arrays came online at $0.05/kWh.
*in 2015,PVs made their cost back in 2-years or less.
*in 2014,wind-sourced electricity made up 4.4% of total US production.
*in 2014,aside from hydro-electric,wind power was the cheapest form of electric power,compared to coal and natural gas combined cycle-plants,if carbon capture and sequestration were factored in.
*in 2015,some US wind farms' capacity factor were as high as hydro-power (45%-world-wide average).
*while wind turbine rotors kill 200,000-400,000 birds/bats/year,cats kill 1.4-million-to-1.7-million,and cell-phone towers kill about 7-million/year.
*some carbon mitigation geoengineering schemes are estimated at $20-trillion/year.
*Professor Wysession considers it economically advantageous to not release the greenhouse gases in the first place.
*the extant,anthropogenic greenhouse gases will continue to warm the planet for the next 1,000-years,even if all emissions stop today (2015).
*Michael cited the U.S.Energy Information Administration and National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the US Dept. of Energy for data.
PS: passive solar homes would cut domestic power consumption by 50%.