Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Nuclear is one path to taking out the coal fired generating plants in the US.  If there is another cheaper path, great.

I keep going back to have a PLAN of some sort, instead of just saying "wind and solar" blah blah blah.

A plan, at least the general outline of a plan.  Will coal usage in the US go to near zero by 2030 without a plan of action?  Maybe so, then it doesn't matter what government does.

I know the EIA's projections have not been very good, so take this for whatever it's worth:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/coal-will-remain-part-of-the-us-grid-until-2050-federal-energy-projections-say/

Coal, one of the most carbon-emitting sources of energy, is still projected to provide 17 percent of the United States' electricity in 2050, and that's assuming that no carbon-capture technology has been made mandatory. Natural gas—a fossil fuel that is less carbon-emitting than coal but still a problem for climate change—will increase its share of US electricity production from 34 percent to 39 percent.

If coal does level off in the midteens by 2050, well, we would have missed a chance to implement a PLAN to cut it to near zero.

And yes, I am aware it is not far from 17% today, but I also know that the easy cuts happen first, and now we're probably looking at newer coal fired plants that are not amortized.  If the above projection is anywhere near true, what I've been saying here over and over and over is CLEARLY reality.

Interesting word, "decimate."

It originated with the custom in the Roman army of punishing legions that disgraced themselves by executing every 10th man.

I actually knew that!

What would be our energy mix in 2030, or gigatons of CO2 produced in the US, under the following scenarios:

1.  Republicans are largely elected and little is done, or
2.  Democrats are largely elected and they do what they want for the most part?

If wind and solar are cheaper, won't that continue to replace fossil fuels fairly quickly?  What's the hold up here?  Does some government policy need to change to make this happen?

Presume normal economic growth, where will the US be in 2030 versus today?  

The answer to that question is simple: what is the optimal climate?

The one which supports human life on this planet. There is an acceptable range of climate variance in which we can continue to grow crops, to live in most regions of the planet, to support a population of 7-10B people.

The concern is that we drift outside that range, what are the implications?

The earth doesn't give af. It's undergone 5 mass extinctions in history, and it's still here. So the question isn't what is the earth's optimal climate--it's what climate allows US as humans to thrive.

I think it's clear that climate is warming, and it's clear that a portion of that warming is due to CO2. That is undisputed.

The question is whether a warmer climate is adverse to our future?

True, but our burning of fossil fuels is equivalent to huge "natural" climate events happening every day, every month, every year, and always in the direction of adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Your point--that there are huge natural events that can swing climate--is valid. But most of those events are transitory or cyclical, not continuous. 

Agreed, and that IMHO is one of the blinds spots of the climate change alarmists. I think that many of them know NOTHING about economics. They assume that we can just stop producing CO2 and it won't have any negative effects, or that we can magically/economically transition to renewables by fiat.

It's why Cincy frames his argument the way he has done so--we're running this experiment through. Economically, the many third world nations trying to climb out of poverty--which are relying on cheap fossil fuel energy--will NOT simply give up their future economic success unless there's a breakthrough that makes renewables economically feasible to power their growth. That day may come, but it's not yet here.

I don't know. The world of 10,000 years ago wouldn't support 7B humans in an industrial society, so maybe we should try to avoid swinging the climate too far from a climate that we know actually WILL support 7B humans in an industrial society.

I think you're discounting the level of havoc that mankind could wreak. CO2 may be the least of our problems. We have enough nukes across the world that we could make Earth uninhabitable for humans in less than a day, and more and more nations trying to get them.

Which--if climate change really DOES cause adverse affects to our climate, may be more likely. What happens if we swing the pendulum far enough that we affect climate to the point where we can only grow enough crops for ~1B people? How much war, how much destruction, how much terror will occur to try to be one of those 1B rather than one of the other 6B?

You make a lot of valid points, but I do want to address the one in red. 

While I don't have the data in front of me and am really too busy go find it at the moment, there is debate as to whether or not C02 is a cause of warming is disputed. There is no concensus that it causes warming. There are those that believe that it is simply a by product of warming. 

And my point about the sun dictating out climate is that there is nothing we can do about that. The climate will do what the sun dictates. As for a massive nuclear event, if that happens, the climate will be the least of our worries. 

Well, it surely sounds as if we don't need any government action here, nor a plan, nor any kind of concise analysis, it's all going to happen, like magic.

I'm not so optimistic, nor so naive.