Oil and natural gas will continue to provide 55% of the world’s primary energy through 2040. While wind and solar will continue their meteoric rise to 4%… Yes, I know meteors don’t climb.While wind and solar capacity will grow rapidly, utilization will lag.
Even if we zero-in on electricity generation, wind and solar don’t fare much better…
Wind and solar won’t be providing 85% of the world’s electricity in 2040. Coal will still be generating twice as much electricity as wind and solar.
What about plug-in electric vehicles (PEV)? Won’t they save the world from climate change?
Full hybrids are expected to reach 15% of the global fleet. PEV’s will be a bit shy of 5%.
The US Energy Information Administration also came up with similar numbers. The “futurists” projecting 100% renewables and PEV’s in every garage aren’t bound by numbers.
tony mcleod
January 4, 2017 11:14 pm
Wind and Solar to Provide 4% of Global Primary Energy by 2040!
Not if Big Carbon have anything to do with it, oh wait, Rex… forget it.
chadb
January 5, 2017 4:18 am
One more try at this…
Exxon’s predictions from 23 years ago would have missed fracking. It would have missed the leveling of total energy in developed countries, and the decline in energy per capita in developed countries. It would have missed the improvements in gas fired power plant efficiencies, and certainly would not have guessed policy changes. Overall if I could find their release from 1994 I am betting it would have missed the contribution of Nat Gas to the total energy mix in 2017 by quite a bit.
5 years is a bit better, but not much. In 2007 the market crash would not have been predicted, and ever since then greater recovery has been predicted than has occurred.
I don’t believe their multivariable predictions of the future. We can argue about what policies should be or what technologies might be developed. However, we do not know these things. The Exxon projection of 4% is no more accurate than anything produced by the IPCC. Basically, don’t treat 23 year future projections as if they are anything close to reality just because they confirm your bias.
Chad,
As I said before your dreams are not realistic for a long term energy plan.
ExxonMobil have to make business plans to make investment decisions around the world, they do this making adjustments every year to stay in business, apparently successfully since they are the biggest private company in their business . Business plans cannot make assumptions about some magic breakthrough, otherwise the government would fine them for exaggerating their profits to increase stock prices (Gee I recall the fool Attorney General for NY is already accusing them of something like that that). Believe it or not Energy companies like Exxon Mobil have teams of the brightest and most highly paid scientists and engineers working on Technology to provide energy for the future even beyond fossil fuels. Trust me they were the larges holder of Us coal reserves in the 80’s when coal conversion looked attractive at 100 dollar a barrel crude. The challenge in the oil business is that there is a long lead time between making business decisions and realizing results. I recall in the late 60’s there was the announcement of oil finds in Alaska which we are still enjoying although production has been recently declining because Obama has restricted additional development to fill the Alaska pipeline.
I don’t think any of the magic breakthroughs you dream of are realistic, but that is just my opinion based on 50 years working in the energy business on transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks, and electricity generation. Unfortunately in this endeavor I have worked on numerous Research projects including biofuels, coal liquefaction, coal gassification, cellulosic ethanol, municipal waste conversion and other super high temperature concepts which have failed misearbly either economically or just because the process really did not work, like government financed Range Fuels (which failed).
Based on my experience I tend to be skeptical of the numerous wild claims of breakthroughs which come out of universities and other sources everyday. Fortunately I have also worked on many development projects that have also been successful and the pride of the team is rewarding to experience even though they have yet to find a replacement for the huge demand for fossil fuels .
Chad, you may have different experience regarding replacements for fossil fuels or oil, if so please share them so we could be more optimistic about alternative fuels, especially liquid transportation fuels which should not be conflated with electricity generation. They are quite different and present different challenges until we have a useful battery and a greatly expanded electricity capacity in the grid which will not happen soon. .
“especially liquid transportation fuels which should not be conflated with electricity generation. ”
Cat
I agree at the present time. Ten years ago we were looking at High Temperature Gas Cooled (HTGCR) to produce hydrogen for refineries and electricity.
“I don’t believe their multivariable predictions of the future.”
Chad is lying, he depends on these predictions so his power company can keep his lights on and oil companies to fill his tank so he can get to his job of manufacturing pixie dust.
With 100% confidence, I predict that 0 % of Chad’s food water, sewage treatment and energy needs will be from his pixie dust. Surely Chad will point to failed prediction without understanding the purpose.
People who have the responsibility for meeting society’s needs make conservative predictions about the future. For example, many years ago a large number of nuke plants were ordered based on increasing demand. When I was in high school nuclear power was an exciting career choices.
Because of the association with nuclear weapons, anti-nukes said it was a failed technology citing the number of nuke plants cancelled because of TMI. I checked, 1/3rd of the nukes plants in the US were cancelled before TMI because demand for power had leveled off.
When Bush was POTUS, the US NRC received letters indicating 30+ application for new nuke plants and existing nuke plants were extending their license for 20 more years. Demand was increasing and the cost of natural gas was going through the roof. Of course demand leveled out and fracking resulted in lower natural gas prices.
So while 100% of the demand for power has been met, the prediction of the mix depends between coal and gas depends on economics.
Wind and solar predictions are different. Wind and solar are not built based on demand or economics but on the desire for pixie dust solutions. Pixie dust works well for make believe problems. Wind and solar is Mickey Mouse.
Another way to say this is that there is not a compelling reason for wind and solar to be part of the power mix. I think there are compelling engineering and environmental reasons for wind and solar to not be part of the mix.
Yes, I am biased. Working in the power industry for 40 years I tend to be biased based on thermodynamics and engineering.
ACThinker
January 9, 2017 7:37 am
I’ve recently done an audio book called “how the west was made” by Rodney Stark.
In it he details how in the middle ages-he doesn’t give a specific date, water and wind power was being adapted by the Europeans. He documents two points that I found interesting and related to this discussion.
1. It was at one point that every 70 feet or so on the Seine River there was a water mill. Granted the power extraction is low because the Seine doesn’t have the drop of other river, but where are those water mills today?
2. With wind power so many wind mills were put up that lawsuits were generated over ‘wind stealing’. Or to put it another way, there were to many windmills and all the power that could be generated from them was extracted.
Now I grant that with efficiency of machines going from unoiled wood parts to properly machined, lubricated metal parts that todays water and wind generated power is more efficient. But since say 1300 or energy per capita has gone up what x100? x1000? so any increase in efficiency has been over taken by increased consumption. Which is a long way to go to suggest that there just isn’t enough wind energy – or hydro- to generate the power needed for modern man.
It seems Exxon-Mobil came up with the same figures as Bjorn Lomberg. They can’t all be wrong.
The US Energy Information Administration also came up with similar numbers. The “futurists” projecting 100% renewables and PEV’s in every garage aren’t bound by numbers.
Wind and Solar to Provide 4% of Global Primary Energy by 2040!
Not if Big Carbon have anything to do with it, oh wait, Rex… forget it.
One more try at this…
Exxon’s predictions from 23 years ago would have missed fracking. It would have missed the leveling of total energy in developed countries, and the decline in energy per capita in developed countries. It would have missed the improvements in gas fired power plant efficiencies, and certainly would not have guessed policy changes. Overall if I could find their release from 1994 I am betting it would have missed the contribution of Nat Gas to the total energy mix in 2017 by quite a bit.
5 years is a bit better, but not much. In 2007 the market crash would not have been predicted, and ever since then greater recovery has been predicted than has occurred.
I don’t believe their multivariable predictions of the future. We can argue about what policies should be or what technologies might be developed. However, we do not know these things. The Exxon projection of 4% is no more accurate than anything produced by the IPCC. Basically, don’t treat 23 year future projections as if they are anything close to reality just because they confirm your bias.
“The future’s not what it used to be” – Irish aphorism
Chad,
As I said before your dreams are not realistic for a long term energy plan.
ExxonMobil have to make business plans to make investment decisions around the world, they do this making adjustments every year to stay in business, apparently successfully since they are the biggest private company in their business . Business plans cannot make assumptions about some magic breakthrough, otherwise the government would fine them for exaggerating their profits to increase stock prices (Gee I recall the fool Attorney General for NY is already accusing them of something like that that). Believe it or not Energy companies like Exxon Mobil have teams of the brightest and most highly paid scientists and engineers working on Technology to provide energy for the future even beyond fossil fuels. Trust me they were the larges holder of Us coal reserves in the 80’s when coal conversion looked attractive at 100 dollar a barrel crude. The challenge in the oil business is that there is a long lead time between making business decisions and realizing results. I recall in the late 60’s there was the announcement of oil finds in Alaska which we are still enjoying although production has been recently declining because Obama has restricted additional development to fill the Alaska pipeline.
I don’t think any of the magic breakthroughs you dream of are realistic, but that is just my opinion based on 50 years working in the energy business on transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks, and electricity generation. Unfortunately in this endeavor I have worked on numerous Research projects including biofuels, coal liquefaction, coal gassification, cellulosic ethanol, municipal waste conversion and other super high temperature concepts which have failed misearbly either economically or just because the process really did not work, like government financed Range Fuels (which failed).
Based on my experience I tend to be skeptical of the numerous wild claims of breakthroughs which come out of universities and other sources everyday. Fortunately I have also worked on many development projects that have also been successful and the pride of the team is rewarding to experience even though they have yet to find a replacement for the huge demand for fossil fuels .
Chad, you may have different experience regarding replacements for fossil fuels or oil, if so please share them so we could be more optimistic about alternative fuels, especially liquid transportation fuels which should not be conflated with electricity generation. They are quite different and present different challenges until we have a useful battery and a greatly expanded electricity capacity in the grid which will not happen soon. .
“especially liquid transportation fuels which should not be conflated with electricity generation. ”
Cat
I agree at the present time. Ten years ago we were looking at High Temperature Gas Cooled (HTGCR) to produce hydrogen for refineries and electricity.
“I don’t believe their multivariable predictions of the future.”
Chad is lying, he depends on these predictions so his power company can keep his lights on and oil companies to fill his tank so he can get to his job of manufacturing pixie dust.
With 100% confidence, I predict that 0 % of Chad’s food water, sewage treatment and energy needs will be from his pixie dust. Surely Chad will point to failed prediction without understanding the purpose.
People who have the responsibility for meeting society’s needs make conservative predictions about the future. For example, many years ago a large number of nuke plants were ordered based on increasing demand. When I was in high school nuclear power was an exciting career choices.
Because of the association with nuclear weapons, anti-nukes said it was a failed technology citing the number of nuke plants cancelled because of TMI. I checked, 1/3rd of the nukes plants in the US were cancelled before TMI because demand for power had leveled off.
When Bush was POTUS, the US NRC received letters indicating 30+ application for new nuke plants and existing nuke plants were extending their license for 20 more years. Demand was increasing and the cost of natural gas was going through the roof. Of course demand leveled out and fracking resulted in lower natural gas prices.
So while 100% of the demand for power has been met, the prediction of the mix depends between coal and gas depends on economics.
Wind and solar predictions are different. Wind and solar are not built based on demand or economics but on the desire for pixie dust solutions. Pixie dust works well for make believe problems. Wind and solar is Mickey Mouse.
Another way to say this is that there is not a compelling reason for wind and solar to be part of the power mix. I think there are compelling engineering and environmental reasons for wind and solar to not be part of the mix.
Yes, I am biased. Working in the power industry for 40 years I tend to be biased based on thermodynamics and engineering.
I’ve recently done an audio book called “how the west was made” by Rodney Stark.
In it he details how in the middle ages-he doesn’t give a specific date, water and wind power was being adapted by the Europeans. He documents two points that I found interesting and related to this discussion.
1. It was at one point that every 70 feet or so on the Seine River there was a water mill. Granted the power extraction is low because the Seine doesn’t have the drop of other river, but where are those water mills today?
2. With wind power so many wind mills were put up that lawsuits were generated over ‘wind stealing’. Or to put it another way, there were to many windmills and all the power that could be generated from them was extracted.
Now I grant that with efficiency of machines going from unoiled wood parts to properly machined, lubricated metal parts that todays water and wind generated power is more efficient. But since say 1300 or energy per capita has gone up what x100? x1000? so any increase in efficiency has been over taken by increased consumption. Which is a long way to go to suggest that there just isn’t enough wind energy – or hydro- to generate the power needed for modern man.