I wish it would but it won't. The US is either the biggest polluter or second biggest. 23% of your population denies the reality of climate change (including at least one poster on this board) and, let's be honest, they're generally Republican. So one party is already predisposed to think global warming is a hoax those godless scientists created to distract us from creeping Maoism. And now, you add in that your campaign financing system is now just outright bribery and that the polluting industries have a lot of money to throw around. And the two combined means that nothing will get done.

Our best bet is to push for NASA funding so we can get the hell off this rock before the polar bears actually combust.

Based on the trends I stumbled across and posted on this thread here - http://www.democraticunderground.com/112767760 - I did a very stupid & simple projection for US usage of renewables in electricity, which that report correctly focuses on. If solar continues at an 80% increase per year - the last two years were both +100% - and wind continues at the low end of its range, which is +20% per year, you get the following result:

- By 2021 renewables are 50% of the energy mix for electricity.
- Solar overtakes wind by 2021.
- By 2023, no more fossil fuels.

Remember, the US up until now has been lagging. Whereas renewables make up 23% of the global electrical production energy mix, they only make up 13% of the US's.
Obviously this isn't really going to happen, as adoption will slow from the above rates as the numbers get larger. But the point is, given that both wind and solar seem to have crossed some sort of threshold for adoption in the US, wind back in 2008, solar in 2011, getting to where we need to be by 2050 isn't nearly as impossible as it now seems, as the EU is way ahead of the US on this. China and India need to get on board, but China is already profiting from the changeover, as they make something like 80% of the solar panels now being installed worldwide. I don't think persuading them is going to be that hard, if it's needed at all. India might be harder.

I recently read a feature in the Globe and Mail ( a very status quo, somewhat conservative Canadian newspaper) that noted China added more electrical capacity last year from wind/solar than from coal.

When you consider that the capacity factor of wind and solar are typically ~25% while the capacity factor of a coal plant is 85%+, the picture changes dramatically.

But I am not sure if they were talking average base load or peak capacity. I grant those are different, but they were talking in terms of a large country, so they could have meant average load, since the wind will tend to equalize over a sufficiently large area.

China has very serious pollution problems, a relatively small fossil fuel capacity compared to demand, and a political will to avoid relying on others for crucial strategic commodities. Given those factors, they are more committed to renewables than most people think. Their motives for moving away from fossil fuel are basically self interest, so they can probably be trusted to carry on in this fashion. Same goes for Germany.

Which is the 25% or so I mentioned.

Is that max capacity if everything is running properly on the device?

On edit: Declared Net Capacity looks more useful for wind, from what I see.

Though fossil fuels are reliable on a day to day basis in a plant, over mid range time periods they are subject to huge variations in price, availability, and political/military/environmental costs. Smart countries are adjusting accordingly.

Their investments into renewables are being dwarfed by their new coal "mega-bases": http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/theres-a-coal-base-in-china-the-size-of-la

I'd rather see another BP-size oil blowout than a hydrate deposit destabilization event.

Methane is 25X as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and a massive methane burp would make controlling climate change effectively impossible.