Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
News hot off the presses, the madness spreads …
UN calls for doubling renewable energy by 2030
(AFP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — UN chief Ban Ki-moon made a call to double global consumption of renewable energy over the next two decades in order to ensure sustainable economic development.
“It’s possible if we show political leadership,” Ban said. … “We have to be very austere in using energy… We have to completely change our behavior, at home, at the office.”
Figure 1. US energy use, 2008. Click on image for larger view. SOURCE: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories
Double our consumption of renewable energy by 2030 … what’s not to like?
Well, the first thing not to like is that renewable energy is intermittent. That means that if we add a million kilowatts of renewable energy generation, we also have to add a million kilowatts of conventional generators.
Second thing not to like is that renewable energy is expensive, typically around three times as expensive as fossil fuel. These first two things conspire to push the cost of power up, way up. Prices of electricity in California are double the prices in neighboring states because of this push for “renewables”.
More to the point, however, is the ludicrous size of what the Chief plans to do. Bear in mind that, as in California, the CO2 alarmists don’t see large-scale hydropower as “renewable” … don’t ask me why, I don’t understand it, but it’s supposed to be teh eeevil regarding CO2 … and as a result, few large hydro plants are under construction anywhere. So they’re not talking about doubling hydropower, that would be a crime in their world.
So the real reason not to like this plan is that we only get a trivial amount of energy from renewables. In the US, we get a tenth of one percent of our energy from solar, half a percent from wind, and a third of a percent from geothermal. Finally, we get 3.9% of our energy from biomass, mostly in industries that generate said biomass as a waste product. Total? A whacking great 4.8% of our energy comes from renewables.
If we double that over the next 18 years, we’ll increase the solar share to a resounding two tenths of a percent … and wind energy will go up to 1% …
Gosh, if we continue at that rate, with solar energy increasing by 0.09% every 18 years, solar will provide ten percent of the US energy by … let’s see, divide by 2, carry the 1 … well, by the year 4012.
10% solar energy by 4012 … that’s some goal there, Chief.
My main problem with the Moon Unit and his bizarro plans is that they are based on the idea that we need to decrease energy use by increasing the price of energy. They are doing that in Britain already, it’s called “fuel poverty”, and it causes old folks to shiver in the winter because they can’t afford to heat their houses. The fact that the Chief is advocating more expensive energy and thinks that reduced energy use is a path to “economic development” is just plain sick.
The opposite is true. We need to increase energy use, and to do that we need less expensive energy, particularly for the poor. Inexpensive energy is the best friend that the poor ever had. The UN’s Chief Moon-ki wants to increase energy prices. That increases prices for all products and services, because from food to clothing to medicine, everything contains energy. The Chief pretends to be a friend to the poor, but his actions do nothing but shackle the poor to a lifetime of energy poverty.
w.
PS—There are a some countries and societies (e.g. the Solomon Islands) that use 50% or more renewable energy, in the form of burning wood, sticks, twigs, and cattle dung for cooking and heating. This leads to indoor and outdoor pollution, lung disease, and eye problems, particularly affecting women. Having been in a number of those countries, I can assure you that the poor people living there would like nothing more than to get OFF of renewable energy … and Mr. Ki-moon is being willfully and criminally blind if he does not know that.
Jim Cripwell says:
April 22, 2012 at 3:43 am
“I always wonder with this sort of discussion, how cellulose ethanol is classified. Is it considered to be renewable energy? If so, then I think the inclusion of the Poet/DSM plant now under construction is warranted. Admittedly, 20 million gallons a year is not much, but if the plant is economically viable, and it is being built entirley with private, not government, money, then 16 billion gallons a year is a disctinct possibility by 2020.”
The feedstock for a cellulosic ethanol plant contains a lot of water, which you transport to the plant even though you don’t want the water, you only want the cellulose. Then you have the necessity for that enzymatic process to break the cellulose down, so the process also happens in a watery solution, and in the end you have to distill it to concentrate the ethanol – getting rid of excess water.
All of these steps require energy; and that makes the process uneconomic. If the process were economically viable, somebody would already do it without the subsidies.
Robertvdl says:
April 22, 2012 at 3:39 am
“If I’m not mistaken, all major cultures in the past could only be ‘major’ because there was a surplus of energy. A poor hungry population is not capable to build a pyramid and spent more than 20 years to do so.”
It has been said that all historical high cultures had to have an energy resource with an EROEI above 3 to maintain their culture. Such an energy resource can be agriculture. When conditions became unfavorable, usually through climatic cooling, and the EROEI dropped below that, the culture ceased to exist – people became too busy just surviving and wouldn’t have the expendable resources necessary to maintain their culture/temples/bureaucrat class.
As for the poor hungry population building a pyramid in more than 20 years: well, according to the estimates of egyptologists, even quarrying the granite for ONE OBELISK would have taken 50 years with manual labor… so Chris Dunn concludes that they absolutely MUST have had machinery, as historical documents indicate that such quarrying took only seven months…
Philip Bradley says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:28 am
**A substantial proportion of biomass come from venting methane from landfills and there a finite number of suitable landfills.**
Absolutely. But there’s no reason not to collect as much methane from landfills as possible. We probably are not doing so.
**Much of the rest of the biomass is forestry ‘waste’. I doubt forestry waste has been burnt in situ in the USA for a long time**
Burlington(Vermont) has a 25 Megawatt power plant in service burning forest waste (at reasonable cost per kw/h BTW). But Vermont is a rather remote rural region with lots of trees and not too many people. Not too extensible. We aren’t going to power Boston or New York City with wood. Nonetheless several million — mostly rural — American households heat with wood. Within limits, it works. No reason that I am aware of that can not be expanded some in the US and elsewhere..
**Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the subject could enlighten me, but it appears to me that most of the justification of biofuels reducing GHG emissions is based on eliminating methane emisions, as clearly all biofuels increase CO2 emissions.**
I believe that the argument is that biofuel carbon is recycled — biofuel to CO2 to new biofuel — relatively quickly — years, decades, maybe centuries … but quickly. Fossil carbon takes millions or 10s of millions or 100s of million years to recycle. In the meantime, it hangs out in the atmosphere … or somewhere … we’re not all that clear on how much goes where.
….Bear in mind that, as in California, the CO2 alarmists don’t see large-scale hydropower as “renewable” … don’t ask me why, I don’t understand it….
….
That is easy to explain Willis, hydropower is messing with Mommy Earth, and disturbing her little fishies. Humans are supposed to become “one with nature” though how anyone who supports a desert covered with solar panels and mountain tops covered with bird shredders can justify not supporting hydropower is beyond me… Oh, wait! Follow the Money! Hydropower WORKS and supports humans and industry. Solar panels and bird shredders only support transfer of tax dollars into the pockets of political buddies. The ecological damage doesn’t matter, the money transfer does.
I want to call to your attention the site (and the man) http://www.mauricestrong.net/.
If you are concerned about e extreme climate positions and the UN’s involvement in the MMGW industry, studying Strong’s background is important.
You will find out, for example, he is a United Nations activist and advisor who was a prime mover ( with Barack Obama) in forming and supporting the defunct Chicago Carbon Exchange.
Much of what you will find will give you a creepy feeling that some people would prefer a world with only a few people on it, obviously of their own ilk.
DirkH says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:13 am
“As for the poor hungry population building a pyramid in more than 20 years: well, according to the estimates of egyptologists, even quarrying the granite for ONE OBELISK would have taken 50 years with manual labor…”
…and just piling on, I’ve been looking for this for a while now; here’s a photo of the ORIGINAL Dendra Relief, showing ancient Egyptians holding what could be light bulbs with cables attached to them…
http://ritemail-places.blogspot.de/2009/09/did-we-already-have-electricity-2000.html
Such misinformation:
willis: …, it’s called “fuel poverty”, and it causes old folks to shiver in the winter because they can’t afford to heat their houses. The fact that the Chief is advocating more expensive energy and thinks that reduced energy use is a path to “economic development” is just plain sick.
please have a read http://www.poverty.org.uk/80/index.shtml
Cherry picked quotes:
“This is three time the number of households that were in fuel poverty at the low point in 2003, and there have been increases in each year since 2003. It is, however, still lower than the number in the mid-1990s.”
“•Despite their much lower average incomes, those in social rented accommodation are only a bit more likely to be in fuel poverty than owner-occupiers. This is partly because very little social housing is energy inefficient ”
The EU has high fuel prices.
It therefore has energy efficient transport (60+mpg(uk) petrol vehicles are common)
It therefore as regulations about efficiency on new builds of housing.
It therefore has free or subsidised home insulation programmes.
Wall-warts used to have standby powers of 3+watts idle. Legislation forces standby currents to be much lower less than 1watt.- This simple change could lead to a saving of 1/2th a large nuclear station output in UK alone.
willis – The opposite is true. We need to increase energy use,
Why???? Why not increase efficiency?
willis – and to do that we need less expensive energy, particularly for the poor. Inexpensive energy is the best friend that the poor ever had. The UN’s Chief Moon-ki wants to increase energy prices. That increases prices for all products and services, because from food to clothing to medicine, everything contains energy. The Chief pretends to be a friend to the poor, but his actions do nothing but shackle the poor to a lifetime of energy poverty
Oh come on! Cost of medicines is not driven by energy but by greed and cost of research.
Clothing is labour costs (hence now made in india/china etc.
How will you provide cheap power to the masses in the 3rd world.
Large nuclear plants? Who will pay for the infra structure – Electric Grids, waste,
Micro nuclear (toshiba 4S) – 25 years then requires refuelling, 10MW so too much for 1 village so more power lines? But, mainly, where does the water come from for the steam turbines?
Coal – water and fuel problems
Diesel – fuel problems
Gas – water and fuel problems
OK let’s assume that there is an abundant local electric source ( perhaps wind and solar feeding a hydrogen gas generator?!)
Who is going to provide and maintain the cooking stove, fridge. Who is going to provide lamps and space heaters, who is going to maintain the electric pump.
The right technology has to be tailored to the group it is helping
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Rik Gheysens says: April 22, 2012 at 2:19 am
There are several reasons to question the validity of the reasoning of Ban-Ki-moon. I will only say some words about REEs (Rare Earth Elements).
Electric motors need much REEs. A wind turbine contains about 100 kg neodymium!
—————
Chose the right suppler and you have
no gears – less noise longer life
no rare earths see http://www.enercon.de/en-en/1337.htm
but also remember when you recycle your wind turbine, it is easy to reclaim your rare eearth magnets.
When Ban Ki-moon says, “We have to be very austere in using energy…We have to completely change our behavior…” does not mean UN’s not going to have any further climate conferences in places like Durbin and Cancun? Me thinks not.
Full disclosure: I haven’t read all the comments so if I repeat, please forgive me.
These people are not “stupid”,they are malicious. The idea is to use “renewables” as the Trojan Horse for eliminating the “evil” fossil fuels that are destroying their god, Gaia. Humans are, in their world, an infection on the Earth (except for them). Reducing the Earth’s population to “sustainable levels” is the goal. This goal cannot be met without herding people into camps (you KNOW how that will go) as long as there is cheap, abundant energy. Reduce the cheap and abundant energy and only the elite will have it while the rest of us cook over fires from sticks and dung. Conspiracy theory? Maybe. But it is already being discussed in influential circles. That tells me the plan is in motion. http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/
Since they don’t include hydro as renewable, doubling renewable usage over the next 20 years seems quite a modest goal. A bit of solar hot water in warmer places, better collection of methane from landfills. Some PV solar off the grid — maybe even some on the grid. Some windmills up to the capacity of the grid to handle them, and in places where intermittent power isn’t a big deal (petroleum stripper wells, some agricultural uses) Maybe a little more geothermal where heated material is a available (e.g. Hawaii, Japan). More efficient use of scrap wood in places where there is lots of it. Maybe a little tidal generation. It all adds up
None of that seems economically questionable or infeasible. So, let’s do it.
But we’re ignoring other big issues:
– In about a century — give or take a little — we’re probably going to start to run out of fossil fuels to burn. Recoverable energy resource estimates are very hazy. There is no guarantee that they are being underestimated although they might be.
– Some of us e.g. Tom Fuller http://3000quads.com/ think that the future energy needs of the developing world are being substantially underestimated. We might not even have a century.
– I’m guessing that biofuels are more or less a dead end. They’d work fine in a world with a billion people. With 10 billion people, the land and resources will probably be needed to grow food.
– Unless and until better energy storage technologies make large scale wind power economically viable, it’s not going to be as extensible as environmentalists want it to be. Wishful thinking does not power light bulbs or refrigerators.
– Shutting down (most) nuclear plants is a popular, but clueless concept. There are exceptions (e.g. Some of Japan’s reactors probably would not have been built where they are had we known as much about plate tectonics in 1960 as we know today).
– AFAICS, in 2112, we will need to provide energy for about 10 billion people — almost all hopefully living at a high standard of living. “Renewables” (including hydro) are unlikely to come close to meeting that need. The three sources with a high enough energy capacity to make up the difference would appear to be nuclear fission,nuclear fusion, and solar. We don’t really have the fusion or high capacity solar technologies in hand today. Nuclear fission? With today’s technology? Maybe … If we had to.
What if we went back to living like before we came out of Africa.
Walking naked, foraging for berries, dying at 20-25.
That should take care of energy and population problem in one fell swoop.
After you, Mr. Moon
Don K says:
April 22, 2012 at 6:04 am
“- AFAICS, in 2112, we will need to provide energy for about 10 billion people — almost all hopefully living at a high standard of living. “Renewables” (including hydro) are unlikely to come close to meeting that need. The three sources with a high enough energy capacity to make up the difference would appear to be nuclear fission,nuclear fusion, and solar. We don’t really have the fusion or high capacity solar technologies in hand today. Nuclear fission? With today’s technology? Maybe … If we had to.”
I think you’re far too pessimistic about fossil fuels…
http://www.bgr.bund.de/DE/Themen/Energie/Downloads/Energiestudie-Kurzstudie2010.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3
…and too pessimistic about solar – costs continue to come down with 20% a year so what is controversial and subsidized now will become quite commonplace in 2020…
…and you forgot to mention LENR technologies as a possibility for the near future.
Radio interview with Lewis Larsen of Widom-Larsen Theory fame:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVRLcC21F14
Andrew30 says:
April 22, 2012 at 4:03 am
Q. If an animal builds a dam for its own benefit is that natural?
A. If the animal is a beaver then it is natural, if the animal is a human then it is not natural.
Q. If an animal digs a watering hole its own benefit is that natural?
A. If the animal is an elephant then it is natural, if the animal is a human then it is not natural.
Q. If an animal kills another creature to feed itself and its group is that natural?
A. If the animal is a lion then it is natural, if the animal is a human then it is not natural.
Q. If an animal builds a trap in the wild to capture and kill another creature is that natural?
A. If the animal is a trap door spider then it is natural, if the animal is a human then it is not natural?
I think you see the patern.
Very well said. It is not about science or logic of any type. If it was simply about something sensible like reducing human’s imprint and using hydro and nuclear correctly, I think most people including sceptics wouldn’t have an issue. The issue comes in when you attempt to “seperate” man from nature as if that is possible or as if we in man is a cancer on this world.
That is just a real sick kind of thinking. Its about a belief system that is morally bankrupt.
That is why we get so much hypocrisy and double standards from the green movement and from like in this post about how certain power sources are equal but others are more equal then others to quote animal farm. (as in some are considered sustainable but others are not when obviously hydro is sustainable by their very definition).
And yet, at the end of the day, you can trace how the carpet baggers as I call them have jumped onto this band-wagon and take advantage of these gullible people today. From people who are scared of “running out or resources” or people who want to be “greener for future generations” you have super rich people jumping on the bandwagon and making milions at the expense of the lower class and the middle class who pay more in taxes and in energy bills.
All for giant wind turbines and solar panels which really do not serve any purpose but to make these super rich people richer.
We are all told that the wind turbines are friendly to the environment because they emit no CO2 but nuclear does that too and does not kill birds! Solar does not take up so many square miles of desert…
And so the drum-beat goes on where the environmental movement obviously lost its plot. They just want us to pour more and more money into a corrupt system that is like you said at the start nothing but a very strange and rather insane belief system that man is a cancer on this world. Who in their right mind believes that nonsense?
“Gosh, if we continue at that rate, with solar energy increasing by 0.09% every 18 years, solar will provide ten percent of the US energy by … let’s see, divide by 2, carry the 1 … well, by the year 4012.
10% solar energy by 4012 … that’s some goal there, Chief.”
That’s not quite the way it works.
If we develop renewable energies and the technologies that come along with, then it is pretty much expected (at least I expect it) that the price of producing such energies will also come down. For example: to make a dozen solar panels is pretty pricey, but to make 200,000 will make the price of each individual until come down, or the really big ones will be cheaper, or the really small ones- I don’t know, but something will pop up or be developed that will make it cheaper. Or maybe it will be something that no one sees coming like converting water into electrical energy into liquid fuel like they are doing at UCLA.
The point is that your math is flawed, not in your application of it, but in your theory of it relating to the future.
We need a big push now to get the development going. The only way that funding and research to get renewable energies will happen will be to use said renewable technologies.
Now, certainly there has to be a rational limit. I’m not willing to put in say, 40 years of effort to not have results. However, we are at the beginning. Hopefully the long term results will discover renewable sources, whatever they may be. To sit here and continue to use something that is running (non-renewable energies) out without trying to search for other options strikes me as the highest level of stupidity.
And yes, the poor. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to have places like the UN, and people who can afford it to develop the new energies, and allow the poor to continue to use the older energies until renewable resources develop to the point to be available to support the main population? No one is forcing the poor to use wind power to heat their homes after all. But long term, don’t you think that the poor will suffer if we completely run out of energy one day too?
I apologize if my argument seems disjointed. This was off of the top of my head. I’m happy that people are watching and talking!
The graph is hard to understand because of the term Rejected Energy. The best way to explain why rejected energy is so high is to look at this graph. http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx
Most forms of power generation can’t be turned off and on at will. A coal or natural gas plant takes a long time to cycle up so under normal conditions they are maintained in a hot stand by mode where they can be brought into service in a short period of time. This requires fuel to be burned to maintain a hot stand by state.
Atomic reactors also have this problem because changing the power level is a baby step process. You bump up the power a little and wait to see what you have. It’s better to leave them at one output level than adjust them for the change in load over the course of the day.
Only the evil hydro power is easy to adjust at the flick of a switch but in some cases, a utility may run more hydro because the decision becomes generate power or let the water run out the waste gate.
Another UN group, WHO, wants to reduce renewable energy. Cooking and heating with biomass like dried cow patties is very dirty. Give me an all electric-house any day.
The problem with wind and solar is that it is not sustainable. While the natural resource is sustainable, the equipment and human resources are not. I can not make a decent living producing power with wind and solar. I can make a living selling equipment that does not work very well to rich people who pretend that their power is not coming from a coal plant,
For a few years, I heated with wood until I decided it was too dirty. There are people who make a decent living selling fire wood which is sustainable on a small scale in rural areas. I could provide heating for 10 families.
My share of power from a nuke plant where I am part of team, supplies power to a 1000 families. Being productive meas that I earn more than a decent living. So how are the nuke plants that I was at when they started up doing. They are going to run for 60 years at least. They might run for 80 years but I will not be alive to see it.
Asking someone at a nuke plant how it is running. The answer is like a Swiss clock and better than 20 years ago. If you can find a 20 year old wind or solar system, has how is it doing? Still make a great picture but still not making much power.
Solar makes a big contribution to heating our houses just by coming in the window. I’ve seen numbers as high as 17% of total heating load. http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/irc/doc/pubs/nrcc18674/nrcc18674.pdf
….his bizarro plans is that they are based on the idea that we need to decrease energy use by increasing the price of energy. They are doing that in Britain already, it’s called “fuel poverty”, and it causes old folks to shiver in the winter because they can’t afford to heat their houses. The fact that the Chief is advocating more expensive energy and thinks that reduced energy use is a path to “economic development” is just plain sick…..
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It may be sick but it is also politically very astute.
Social Security as it now works in the USA (and the EU ) is a pyramid scheme based on plentiful Baby Boomers. The Boomers are now retiring and with the drop in the fertility rate there are simply not enough wage earners left to support the large draw on SS or equivalent. Therefore finding a way to kill-off the old without saying that is what they are trying to do is needed. The voting block of those over 55 years of age is 22% of the US population (2004) so you really do not want to tell them you plan on their early demise to save the government money. Best to keep them guessing as to your real motives.
Killing “useless eaters” (tm Club of Rome) is certainly not a new concept. It started in the 1870s, when Oxford lecturer John Ruskin instilled his students, like Cecil Rhodes, with the concept that they were of the “best northern blood” and should rule the world. (White Man’s Burden and all that crap) The term “eugenics” was first used in 1883 by Francis Galton. It is full blown in George Bernard Shaw’s writings.
George Bernard Shaw was a founding member of the Fabian Society along with the Webbs. The Webbs were the founders of the London School of Economics where our current world leaders in politics and finance are trained and Eugenics has been around ever since. From Fabian, Sir Julian Huxley the first Director-General of UNESCO, to 1984 Democrat Vice Presidential nomination Barbara Marx Hubbard and her “Agents of Conscious Evolution”
In her Book of Co-Creation, she reveals her mindset:
More on Barbara Marx Hubbard- Tipping Point is a Planetary Birth I would consider the woman a bit of a looney if she had not been a VP nominee.
Politicians do not want to take the knock that is looming around the corner as the number of elderly (and the draw on the treasury) doubles. I think what we are seeing is a scramble to completely revamp the political system and tighten control before the dumb-downed masses wake-up and throw a screaming temper tantrum complete with tar and feathers.
This Liberal democrat’s speech to the Tea Party link shows exactly what is planned for us as our access to energy is removed. To back that up are the 2011 California Evictions and The ugly battle between rural residents and alternative energy mandates in California (WUWT)
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”– H.L. Mencken
I am not at all happy about the “Safety” these politicians are leading us towards. Smell an awful lot like serfdom/slavery to me.
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:39 am
Setting that aside, you are right that increases in efficiency are easier to achieve than new energy sources.
There are diminishing returns for efficiency gains. It’s getting ridiculous with demands to raise fleet CAFE standards [1]. The new level to be reached in 2016 is 34.1 mpg for cars and light trucks [2]. Congress is apparently beginning to think there is no upper limit beyond which the CAFE stands can not go (argumentum moti perpetuis). In the practical sense, I want a massive vehicle at times to protect my family. I may want to transport 7 people in one vehicle, and do so safely. Am I supposed to buy two Corollas instead of one Suburban? Good luck towing a heavy commercial wood chipper with a Corolla. And what gas milage would I have for two Corollas instead of my one Suburban? It’s about the same, maybe slightly better with the Suburban. I’ll let fuel economics and other factors influence my decisions regarding what vehicle I drive and when. I don’t need some bureaucrat deciding what I am allowed to drive, especially when they force the vehicles to be made of aluminum foil, tissue paper, and gum.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy
2. http://green.autoblog.com/2010/04/01/new-federal-cafe-standards-officially-released-34-1-mpg-by-2016/
Dirk H. writes “If the process were economically viable, somebody would already do it without the subsidies.”
Pedantically correct. However, Poet/DSM is now building a plant with about $200 million of private money, to come into production in 2013, with a capacity of 20 million gallons per year. If you are interested search for Project Liberty. The estimate was that this project would be profitable if the wholesale cost of gasoline is more that $2 per gallon. The current price is in excess of $3 per gallon.
So I am not clear how cellulose ethanol should be classified. If POET/DSM is successful next year, then the whole subject of renewables, if cellulose ethanol is a renewable, will have to be rewritten.
It’s great to see Mencken quoted twice! in this thread.
If I were the Sun, I’d do a sustainable polar flip every time Moon announced a renewable energy plan. Moon probably thinks that it is he who controls the tides while Obama controls the sea levels. For sure, both have it in mind to control…whatever.
Plugging so many desynchronized sources onto the grid will make it more unstable and prone to crashes. Actually, a permanent grid crash and death of 90% of the population is the true Green Dream, and renewables are the sabotage that ensures it.
Philip Bradley says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:28 am
A substantial proportion of biomass come from venting methane from landfills and there a finite number of suitable landfills.
Much of the rest of the biomass is forestry ‘waste’. I doubt forestry waste has been burnt in situ in the USA for a long time, and clearly leaving it on the ground will produce less CO2 than turning it into fuel and burning it…..
_______________________________
To us farmers “Forestry waste” is the precurser of compost and should be left to enrich the soil. Burning compost is a major sin in my book because it wipes out your soil fertility. Even with commercial fertilizers a soil without organic matter does not produce. That was why the farm I bought was sold. ZERO topsoil and therefore stunted crops. (I am rebuilding the topsoil by turning it into pasture)
The saddest part of CAGW and the drive for “Renewables” is the amount of real ecological damage that is being done. From the bird chopping windmills, to the rare earth mining pollution in China to get the Neodymium needed for the magnets for latest wind turbines to the thin-film solar panels, require indium—another rare earth metal, 100 percent of which is produced in China.
The use of “Biomass” for energy is just as nasty.
Palm Oil: http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/palm-oil-biofuel.html and http://ran.org/cargills-problems-palm-oil
Corn biofuel From our “friends” at New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12283-corn-biofuel-dangerously-oversold-as-green-energy.html
Amazing how the rush towards “renewables” has caused more problems and solved none.
Ian E says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:59 am
gallopingcamel says: ‘I used to think of the likable George Monbiot … ‘
Goodness, you’re not his Mum, are you? [‘Son of a galloping camel’ – sounds like a suitably phrased Arab curse!]
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Actually it is Son of a Syphillitic Camel per Grandad.
This renewable energy shortfall was predicted by Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and me in September 2002, at:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
This was NOT a high-risk prediction – we knew this with confidence a decade ago.
Since then, a trillion dollars has been squandered on renewable energy nonsense.
Scientific conclusion: We are governed by scoundrels and imbeciles.
Regards, Allan
P.S. We may still find some sources of renewable energy that make sense economically and environmentally and we should keep trying – but not continue to delude ourselves with energy nonsense. To date, grid-connected wind and solar power and corn ethanol are energy nonsense.