The International Energy Agency just came out with their estimate of the costs to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% by the year 2050. According to the IEA, it going to cost $45 trillion. Wow. How’s that money going to be spent? They say we need to build around 32 new nuclear plants a year for a total of 1400 before 2050 (the world only has 440 operating right now), and add 17,000 windmills per year, or 740,000 during the period. Wow again.

Let’s do some math on those windmills. Assuming the windmills would be the industry standard GE 1.5 MW wind turbine with a 77 meter blade, and based upon a required spacing of 1 per 50 acres for that standard unit; this number of windmills would cover about 57,000 square miles of land, or enough to cover the state of Iowa and leave some over for Nebraska.

The report also says that $27 trillion will have to be borne by developing countries.

Does anyone have a Plan B?

You can read an article about it here.

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