Guest post by David Middleton
IN BRIEF
- In the midst of a coal shortage in 1917, one writer predicted that solar energy would replace coal by 2017.
- Coal is still very much in use, but perhaps his premonition was just a few decades short of the target. Solar power is growing at such a rate that we won’t have to wait another 100 years for the prediction to come true.
LOOKING AHEAD
In the course of a century, people made a lot of predictions about the future of technology.
Some were right—like H.G. Wells who, in 1903, described metal-hulled warships on land that could be considered the precursor to military tanks today; or George Orwell’s vision of 1984 (written in 1949), where the world was monitored by an interconnected web of security cameras; even John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, who wrote his version of 2010 back in 1969, and it basically described the reality of 2013.
Others were way off—like Ken Olsen who said no one would ever want a computer in their home back in 1977. Or the President of the Michigan Savings Bank who said horses were here to stay and automobiles would be nothing but a fad.
Some, however, foresaw a future that stood at the cusp of possibility; like the writer who wrote a piece for the Lincoln Evening Journal called Looking Forward. In it, he describes 2017 as a world that is no longer dependent on coal for energy. The author envisioned a future where technology would be able to harvest energy from the sun and run it through pipes for electricity.
Obviously, we’re not quite there yet.
[…]
The rest of the article is just a bunch of nonsensical babble about climate change and solar power. However, the irony of the “In Brief” bullet points is simply priceless: Including a future failed prediction in an article about a past failed prediction!
Coal is still very much in use, but perhaps his premonition was just a few decades short of the target. Solar power is growing at such a rate that we won’t have to wait another 100 years for the prediction to come true.
Three fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—have provided more than 80% of total U.S. energy consumption for more than 100 years. In 2015, fossil fuels made up 81.5% of total U.S. energy consumption, the lowest fossil fuel share in the past century. In EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2016 Reference case projections, which reflect current laws and policies, that percentage declines to 76.6% by 2040. Policy changes or technology breakthroughs that go beyond the trend improvements included in the Reference case could significantly change that projection.
In 2015, the renewable share of energy consumption in the United States was its largest since the 1930s at nearly 10%. The greatest growth in renewables over the past decade has been in solar and wind electricity generation.Liquid biofuels have also increased in recent years, contributing to the growing renewable share of total energy consumption.
[…]
In EIA’s Reference case projection, petroleum consumption remains similar to current levels through 2040, as fuel economy improvements and other changes in the transportation sector offset growth in population and travel. Coal consumption continues to decline, especially in the electric power sector. Natural gas consumption increases in the industrial sector and the electric power sector.
Some electric fuels, such as nuclear and hydroelectric, remain relatively flat in the Reference case, with little change in capacity or generation through 2040. Biomass, which includes wood as well as liquid biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, remain relatively flat, as wood use declines and biofuel use increases slightly. In contrast, wind and solar are among the fastest-growing energy sources in the projection, ultimately surpassing biomass and nuclear, and nearly exceeding coal consumption in the Reference case projection by 2040.
[…]
Based the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s, Monthly Energy Review, Annual Energy Outlook 2016, it looks as if coal will still be in use well into the 22nd Century…
Of course, the EIA’s forecast included Obama’s soon-to-be-erased Clean Power Plan.
And the EIA forecast is just for these tenuously United States. The rest of the world will also continue to burn coal..
Wind and solar won’t be providing 85% of the world’s electricity in 2040 and coal will still be generating twice as much electricity as wind and solar.
I enjoyed the incorrect attribution to our Mr Berra. The Yogi Berra quote should really be called a re-quote. It is possible he said it, he was a humorous man. But no-one actually can find a precise time he did. It is probably a poor attribution. And hence why i like seeing people repeat it, as I then explain that the knowledge of the commons is frequently entirely wrong! Much like climate science.
HOWEVER, the origin of the saying is in Denmark, of all places, and we have record of it from Quote investigator:
Timo, Yogi also said,”I didn’t say all those things they say I said.”
That being said, he was my favorite philosopher. I especially like
“When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”
Some of Yogi’s classics:
He would have been a good climate scientist… 😉
As a starter don’t let the government decide the winners.
If that had been the case fracing would never have happened. Even from within the oil industry up until just a few years ago there was considerable skepticism that it would work.
Can you imagine the current world without fracing.
Oil at $120/bbl
Gas $16/Gj or more everywhere.
Coal demand huge everywhere prices also
renewables would be even more the flavour.
Etc.
Let the commercial imperatives prevail.
Oh and Putin the leader of the world just forgot. Ah the watermelons would rejoicing in a new Marxist planet.
I’d have no problem with Government deciding the winners if Government didn’t have so many politicians in it. (Along with all those other people.) 😎
If oil as at $120.00 a barrel then the world would be in a financial mess.
Many of the worlds economies couldn’t stand with oil that price.
David Middleton If you are the DM of plant stomata, I have some information
for you. The reason that plant stomata vary greatly around the world as an
indicator of CO2 uptake is that CO2 is not well mixed in the atmosphere.
Plant stomata reflect an amount of CO2 that is mixed but mostly they reflect
the CO2 which up wells from the topsoil immediately under them.
The very rich topsoil in Kansas, for example, is very rich due to the amount
of natural gas up welling from deep in the earth being eaten by microbes,
oxidized, making the soil rich, fertilizing the plants once. The oxidized hydrocarbons
(CO2) enrich again through the stomata, causing people who translate
stomata to CO2 ppm confusion.
Look at world soil maps as an indicator of ongoing hydrocarbon enrichment
and a predictor of CO2 immediately available to plants.
The above are absolute proof that hydrocarbons up well continuously
and always have, a constantly renewed resource.
Coal consumption in Central Asia as a domestic heating fuel is on the rise. Concomitant with this trend is the development of extremely clean burning stoves that are being widely praised for functionality – not just smokelessness. Whatever the claims were for ‘health impact’ they are about to be disrupted. The in-home generation of electricity using TAG’s and TEG’s is also on the rise. Given the right opportunity, these changes may arrive a lot sooner than sector experts expect.
In 1917 coal use meant something particular – furnaces. In all fairness by that description nobody uses coal anymore. Second, we produced approximately as many short tons of coal in 2016 as in 1917, but the population has more than tripled. So nobody has coal in their houses, and the per-person use is 1/3 what it was.
If you are feeling generous to our WWI era counterparts they really didn’t miss the mark by all that much.
I can understand predicting solar power would replace coal back in 1917.
Solar power was a fairly new technology back then. (Yes, solar power dates back before the turn of the 20th Century.)
But doing so after the technology has had 130 years to mature?
We’re talking about technology introduced while Queen Victory still ruled the British Empire. Writing about Victorian era technology running the world is fine in a work of fiction (it’s called Steam Punk), but it doesn’t work that well when tried in reality.
“ordered shuttered”
Exactly who ordered what, Kip? Some states have not provided financial incentives to overcome cheap natural to keep some nukes operating past original design life. The operators of these plants made preparations necessary to keep them open.
Just for the record, I do not think politicians in California and New York represent the views of the people living near the plants.
Watts Bar 2 just came on line, two reactors in S. Carolina, and Two in Georgia are under construction. Places that welcome new nukes plants include Richland, Wa; Hollywood, Al; Berwick, Pa; Calvert County, MD.
The NRC responds to ‘Science’.
Retired Kit P: “The NRC responds to ‘Science’.”
RKP, do you think Donald Trump, Rick Perry, and the Republicans in Congress will restart the Yucca Mountain project, or will they instead do the sensible, the practical, and the affordable thing and send our spent nuclear fuel to an interim storage facility on the surface; and send our defense wastes to the WIPP facility in New Mexico?
Having worked on Yucca Mountain reviewing much of the science to ensure that meets the NRC criteria (e.g. traceable and traceable), my opinion is that there are many solutions.
I personally would divide it between the backyards of Harry Reid, Obama, Clinton, and Jane Fonda.
Give me the money spent by DOE and I could make it disappear and no one would ever find it. Me my co-conspirators would keep the left over money.
However, the courts told Obama that even POTUS must follow the laws enacted by congress or get congress to change the law. From a practical point of view, what better place to put it than where we did underground nuke weapons testing.
Retired Kit P: “However, the courts told Obama that even POTUS must follow the laws enacted by congress or get congress to change the law. From a practical point of view, what better place to put it than where we did underground nuke weapons testing.”
Just my personal opinion here, but as things stand today, it makes no sense at all to be burying our spent nuclear fuel underground — anywhere, at all, for any reason.
Ninety-percent of the original fuel’s energy is still left in it, and the true dangers of storing spent nuclear fuel on the surface are minimal and easily managed.
Now, it is quite true that twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years may pass before reprocessing and recovery of our civilian SNF’s remaining energy content becomes economic.
But so what. Using deep geologic storage as a means of interim SNF management is massively more expensive than storing it on the surface. And for what actual gain in nuclear risk reduction?
None that is worth the enormous trouble and expense.
Sure, the Obama Administration’s decision to shut down Yucca Mountain was a violation of the Nuclear Waste policy Act (NWPA). But the Congress was complicit in that decision by not funding the NWPA. The Republicans could have restored funding for Yucca Mountain in 2014, but they chose not to.
It’s better they didn’t, because the NWPA is an unworkable law. It mixes valueless defense wastes with civilian material that is a combination of valueless waste and potentially valuable spent nuclear fuel.
The waste management approach embodied by the NWPA is a sure prescription for failure and has been recognized as such by many nuclear advocates in and out of government.
Let’s store our valuable spent nuclear fuel on the surface in one or more localities that want to host it, and let’s send the valueless civilian and defense wastes to the WIPP geologic repository in New Mexico for permanent underground disposal.
“Colarado flows south”
Rivers flow downhill last I checked. How checking the elevation MarkW. The general direction from Lake Powell to through Grand Canyon is west, then the river curves north before turning south after the Hoover Dam.
And abortion rites normalized in liberal societies. I wonder if anyone predicted that a moral and cultural Renaissance would progress to human sacrifice.
Coal and oil will always be pulled out of the ground as long as it is there because unlike wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear sources of energy, coal and oil also give us a huge slew of other useful products from plastics to cosmetics, lubricants, solvents, paints, fabrics, dyes, and yes, even air and water purification devices. The list goes on for miles. As long as we continue to make those products, we might as well use the byproducts for making energy.
Fossil fuels are a miracle in that they give us so much in energy and products while never depriving any living thing on Earth because plants and animals have no use for it.
Some other organisms do use fossil fuels, but there is plenty to go around, and we make more of it available for them. That includes those which have recently evolved to consume FF products, like nylon-eating bacteria.