I spend a huge amount of time in academic libraries studying energy and the environment, and have been doing so for 30 years.,
I believe that my journal in this space reflects how and what I read.
On November 13 of this year, the International will release the 2019 edition of the World Energy Outlook, the editions of which I have read every year in this decade.
In many posts here, I have referred to the 2018 edition and the data therein; I do not expect 2019's edition will be any different.
Here's what I routinely write say about the 2018 edition's contents:
In this century, world energy demand grew by 164.83 exajoules to 584.95 exajoules.
In this century, world gas demand grew by 43.38 exajoules to 130.08 exajoules.
In this century, the use of petroleum grew by 32.03 exajoules to 185.68 exajoules.
In this century, the use of coal grew by 60.25 exajoules to 157.01 exajoules.
In this century, the solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy on which people so cheerfully have bet the entire planetary atmosphere, stealing the future from all future generations, grew by 8.12 exajoules to 10.63 exajoules.
10.63 exajoules is under 2% of the world energy demand.
2018 Edition of the World Energy Outlook Table 1.1 Page 38 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)
You know what's wrong with so called "renewable energy?" We spent on this planet two trillion dollars on it in the last 10 years alone and it has done
nothing, nothing at all, to address climate change. It didn't work. It isn't working. It won't work. The reason is physics.
Does anyone ever stop to ask why, with a population less than 1/8th of modern populations, humanity abandoned so called "renewable energy" in the 19th century?
From the data available at the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory:
We hit 415 ppm of CO2 in the planetary atmosphere this spring. In the 20th century the average rate of increase in the dangerous fossil fuel waste was as follows:
1961-1970: 0.898 ppm/year on average.
1971-1980: 1.339 ppm/year on average.
1981-1990: 1.554 ppm/year on average.
1991-2000: 1.541 ppm/year on average.
In the age of the rise of "renewable energy will save us" beginning with Germany:
2001-2010: 2.038 ppm/year on average.
2011-2018: 2.418 ppm/year on average.
The 20th century average annual increase overall: 1.31 ppm/year
The 21st century average annual increase overall: 2.12 ppm/year
The last 5 years annual average increase: 2.55 ppm/year
Are we tired of so much winning yet? Do we care a shred for the planet we are leaving behind for our children, our grandchildren and their great grandchildren?
Now. I'm an old man, approaching the end of my life, deeply ashamed of what my generation has done to all future generations. In my adult life I've been hearing nonsensical bull about how wonderful so called "renewable energy" was, and for many years I
believed it because I took a lazy unquestioning approach to all this posturing and talk.
Fossil fuels must be banned, but destroying pristine wilderness with wind turbines that will be landfill in 20 years is not ethical; it is a crime against all future generations, because we did not
think.
The
only environmentally acceptable form of energy is nuclear energy. We, on the left, have been trained like Pavlov's dogs to react to nuclear energy with all sorts of scientifically illiterate bullshit about so called "nuclear waste," which has not killed anyone in more than half a century in this country, while we routinely accept dangerous fossil fuel waste, which combined with biomass combustion is responsible for 7 million deaths per year. This means 130 people will die from dangerous fossil fuel and biomass combustion waste in the 10 minutes it takes to write this post.
Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks:
Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to
air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.
We say nuclear power is "dangerous." But we don't give a shit when home blows up from a gas leak, or when gas pump guys get leukemia from benzene exposure. Our claim, our criminal claim, is that
only nuclear power be absolutely risk free or other forms of energy can kill at will. Nuclear energy is
not risk free. It never will be. However nuclear energy need not be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.
And I['m really, really, really reluctant to here mindless crap about how "expensive" nuclear energy is. The highest household electricity rates in the OECD belong to both Denmark and Germany in that order. If you have to built two systems to do what one system can do, and the redundant system kills people
whenever the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, whenever it operates, that's not either economically nor environmentally nor morally acceptable to me.
The fact is that we are willing to spend ten billion dollars to prevent a single death from radiation, and not willing to spend two hundred dollars to vaccinate a kid without insurance. This is criminal selective attention, driven by fear and ignorance.
The United States built more than 100 nuclear reactors in about 25 years using primitive technology developed in the late 1940's and 1950s. During that time, it produced the lowest electricity prices in the world. Now we hear that what has already happened is impossible.
Does any person who parrots this continuous nonsense ever stop to thing for a New York minute,
how that has become accepted wisdom, that nuclear energy is "too expensive?"
No.
The problem is that nuclear plants are built to last 80 years, not the 20 years that wind turbines and solar cells will operate before becoming materially intense landfill. Thus they are a gift from our generation to all future generations. We don't give a shit about future generations. We treat them with contempt, insisting that they will do with so called "renewable energy" what we have consistently unable to do, and do so robbed of resources and with a destroyed atmosphere. My father's generation left mine nuclear power plants. My generation is leaving my son's generations waste dumps, the biggest one being the planetary atmosphere.
History will not forgive us, nor should it.
Excuse me if I'm unimpressed with your links. I've heard it all before, and have been hearing it for more than half a century.
Have a nice day.
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