A couple of days ago, we noted that this year’s edition of BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy report on global energy use is out, and it contains one of the most telling charts about the failure of the climate crusade’s “war on coal” ever presented.
Most of the lamestream media coverage has focused on this particular chart from the BP report, which shows coal having a small uptick in 2017 after several years of decline. Doesn’t look like much, does it? Just a blip. Nothing for the enviro-faithful to worry about, the net trend is still down, right? They are blaming president Trump for it.
But, despite Trump’s focus on putting coal miners back to work during his presidency, that really doesn’t figure in much for the rest of the world.
Here is the real kick in the pants for environmentalists from the BP report:
(drum roll please) …….
Coal has the same share of global power generation it had 20 years ago
In 1997, coal power had a 38 percent share of global power generation.
And….in 2017, despite billions being thrown at renewable energy, it still had a 38 percent share of global power generation.
BOOM!
The idea that Al Gore, Bill McKibben, and their army of trained flying monkeys hell bent on stamping out coal use have made a difference in the past 20 years of climate crusading just went up in smoke. But, get this, their buddy, George Soros, has invested millions in coal, according to the Guardian.
Old “weepy Bill” is gonna need more tissues.
Meanwhile, in the USA, greenhouse gas production drops for the third straight year,
h/t to Marc Morano (via email)
UPDATE: WUWT Author David Middleton adds this graph in comments, noting that CO2 emissions from coal use have risen sharply.
That’s why the planet is greening.
Take a graph, focus in, increase the scale of the axees, and BOOM, it says what you want it to!
The graph shows the same relationship at any scale.
Arithmetic was not Matt’s best subject.
LOL! Total failure on the part of MattS. 38% in 1997 is still the same as 38% in 2017, no scaling will change that.
I’d think MattS was suggesting you clip the graph 2013-mid2016 and so show continuous decline in coal and surging non fossil
Yes, I think you’re right.
The only graph that has undergone a dramatic change is that of WUWT-appearing trolls in recent days. Apparently, there was again fresh money from Soros after he flew out of Hungary. He probably spared that on his Internet troll army.
However, he should have paid more attention to the intelligence of his soldiers.
“However, he should have paid more attention to the intelligence of his soldiers.”
???
A reiteration:
QUESTION: Why waste billions on The Great Search for an Alternative Energy that is not now/won’t be economically feasible or demanding . . . unless . . . it’s not about finding an alternate energy? You could put a wind farm on every mountain and solar panels on every open spot in America and still not make a dent in the energy needs of the nation.
QUESTION: So . . . why are the financial Wizards of Oz trying to sledgehammer nations’ economies by forcing this alternate energy lie on the world? Australia is taking it on the chin from these money changers who’re trying to force industries onto solar/wind and . . .it’s . . .not . . . working? Facts, families, workers and economies don’t seem to mean a damn thing to these money changers.
(1) IMMUTABLE MARKET LAW: He who gets there first with the most at a good price gets to build the platform
(2) The platform for cheap energy is built on coal, oil, natural gas.
(3) Why force the façade of trying to demonize—using paid political stiffs, shills, pimps, carnival barkers, and storefronts—the world’s cheapest energy platform without a proven replacement unless it’s to siphon government billions for theft and kickbacks for the boys behind the curtain while they’re ripping the energy guts from nations’ economies?
(4) The United States, like China and many other nations, have unlimited supplies of coal, oil, natural gas
(5) The Power Industry cannot burn FREE fuel (old tires, woodchips, etc) and produce electricity any cheaper than they can burn coal
(6) There is no world oil shortage. No such thing as peak oil. Never has been. Oil IS NOT solely dependent upon decaying matter for its existence.
(7) The world energy platform uses roughly 1,000 barrels of oil a second, 24/7/365. Surely lucid leaders grasp the millions of jobs worldwide that rest on cheap energy, do they not?
(8) So . . . instead of a “desperate search for alternate energy with which to “. . .save the earth”, all we’re really looking at are cabal of slick thieves building unaccountable “campaign funds” by sending truckloads of tax dollars to confederate alternate energy ‘entrepreneurs’ to siphon and “. . . whatever ‘chump change’ might be left over, well, a campaign or other ‘contributions’ would be greatly appreciated. . . ”
A sampler of the government-backed alternate energy money pit from the government itself:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-150T
Just a small aside, back in the Jimmy Carter days one of the ideas was to chip waste tires and burn them as fuel. The USA imported tons of waste tires from Asia. Florida had “tire farms” in several places. One problem was that no one had figured out how to chip steel belted radials. Even when the figured out how to do so power companies didn’t want to burn them because of the steel. The tire farms did make national news several times because they would catch on fire. They burned for days and weeks. Fire departments would only contain the fires from spreading since they were hard to put out. Yet the real “monster” in this idiocies was that we imported a nasty, day time biting mosquito, the Asian Tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Aedes albopictus fills a similar niche as Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito. While aegypti tends to be more of a warm temperate-tropical species the Asian Tiger is more temperate. Both are disease vectors.
In addition, it’s 38% of a bigger pie, meaning an absolute increase. Focus in on that MattS!
” 38% in 1997 is still the same as 38% in 2017,”
I don’t think so…..The percentage may have stayed the same..
But production has greatly increased
It’s the same percentage….but now it’s a percentage of a much bigger number
I haven’t seen anyone post that they noticed BP cherry picked the start of their graph…..
…where is 2011? and what happened from 2001 to 2011?
Ratios are too hard for lefties to understand.
That’s due to the fact that ratios involve context.
They can’t handle more than one number at a time.
Which is also why they are dead set against using context to examine numbers.
They have trouble with fractions,
lefties understand percentages, …… as long as it is always 97%.
They probably don’t realize that a percentage is also a ratio.
Percentages and ratios are all they have to hang on to….so the only good news for them is the percentage increased
Even though the real numbers crashed on them
But rationing is something they do understand and are fully in support of.
Only so long as it’s other people’s stuff getting rationed.
That is generally true. We’ve observed it many times.
The other thing you have to watch is what’s being graphed. The graph shown above shows coal as a percent of total power. If you look at the actual consumption of coal, it has more than doubled since 1980. link
World energy consumption has been increasing steadily in recent decades. link Even if the percent contribution of coal were to decrease, the amount of coal (in tons) could increase.
Anyway, your point is well taken. You always have to be aware of what’s being graphed and how the graph is presented. WUWT
It is against the rules to ask a liberal arts major to do math.
“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.” Robert A. Heinlein
“It was now 1934, the depths of the Great Depression. Robert A. Heinlein was 27 years old and living in Los Angeles…[h]e applied for admission to graduate school in physics and mathematics at UCLA, was accepted, and enrolled in classes there. But he dropped out after only a few weeks…partly because he had become interested in politics and wanted to devote his time to working for Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign instead of studying math and physics.
Sinclair was an outspoken and self-identified socialist, whose campaign as the Democratic nominee for governor of California in 1934 was an outgrowth of his EPIC movement. ‘EPIC’ was an acronym for End Poverty in California.”
https://mises.org/library/was-robert-heinlein-libertarian
Heinlein…embodies a typical mathematics major does he?
🙂
Bada bing!
Say, if doing math puts one so high up on the intellectual ladder, why is it that the seeming overwhelming majority of those doing it professionally in and around climate science can’t think their way out of a paper bag?
Yeah. I used to do calculus for fun. Now I can’t even integrate simple stuff. But, then, I am 87 years old and my brain has shrunk to the size of a pea.
MattS,
Then what is your level of outrage over the abuse of graphs to deceive people about temperature and SLR?
Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me!
“Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” – Sen. Tim Wirth
You’ve been watching NPR again, haven’t you.
Can you show or link to those graphs?
If they are sufficiently outrageous, I may have to have another drink.
Seriously, I have no idea regarding the graphs you mean.
John F. Hultquist
Glad to shee thrs nuther huumun drvn toooooo alc’hl by lefty forkers.
B’tm’s up ole pal!
Hic!
MattS wrote:
I thought that this was the EXACT procedure climate alarmists employ. Funny YOU should mention it.
Let’s consider what it means, when the same percentage shows up, even when the world population using coal has gone up tremendously. It means that more coal, by weight, is being used, because more people, by sheer number of them, are using coal. What does this mean? ANSWER: It means that no matter how many people have come into existence over the period under consideration, people (in general, no matter how many of them there are) STILL prefer coal as an economically feasible, abundant and accessible source of energy.
Even with all the expenditure of resources and hype about renewable sources by all the people who have come into existence, STILL coal stands out as an overriding preference.
What does THIS mean? It seems to mean that renewable sources are not and cannot equal the status of coal. It’s NOT a matter of choice. It’s a matter of practical possibility, … a matter of engineering feasibility, … a matter of economic reality.
Wake up from your dreamworld. Even if you cannot do the math, look at the math that the math experts have done, and try to grasp the significance of the applied aspect of it. We’re not talking about string-theory math. We are talking about survival math, applied math, engineering math — the kind of math that gets the world built and keeps civilization functioning.
Oil and gas has increased, but non-fossil has reduced, presumably due to proportionally less nuclear. Intermittent ruinables have done very little, except to drive up energy costs. The only renewable that is any use is hydroelectricity.
Wind doesn’t suck everywhere… Pun intended.
Hydro and Geothermal are of use in the right locations.
Tidal could be of use. Although it is expensive, it is reliable and dispatchable.
Wind and Solar are a special case of stupid.
There are a few places where solar isn’t totally stupid, like deserts. And onshore wind has decent economics where there is a sufficient wind resource and lots of flattish land (Texas, Iowa).
The problem with putting solar in the deserts, is that people don’t live in the deserts, which means the electricity generated has to be shipped a long way.
Even so, you still can’t get over the fact that it’s dark half the day, and even in the deserts, the monsoon season means clouds can make your power unreliable.
There’s no place on earth where the wind blows 100% of the time. Without that, wind never makes sense.
“people don’t live in the deserts”
.
MarkW has never been to Las Vegas.
There’s also Tucson, however my point still stands.
If you call staying in Las Vegas “living”….
Here’s an even cooler graph from the US Energy Information Administration…
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/exec_summ.php
Global CO2 emissions from coal have roughly doubled since 1990.
And an even more cooler graph…
Global coal consumption has doubled since 1990 and projected to remain stable through 2040.
“projected to remain stable through 2040”
But a reducing share. Here is the detailed brwakdown plot of shares of primary energy. Coal black, oil green, gas red:
Ah, projections, projections. What would we do without projections?
Computer games, really.
And what would we do without Nick, providing us with nonsense to debunk?
Rich: All Nick did was to show a chart from the same BP review that the head post is using. He has made a perfectly valid observation that projections where coal consumption is shown as a percentage, convey a somewhat different message from the absolute number projections used by David just up-thread.
Weren’t you making some derisive comments about understanding fractions earlier in this thread? Sauce for the goose……..
I suspect that Nick is too bright to be a real alarmist, and he may be trapped by circumstances into pretending to be one.
“I suspect that Nick is too bright to be a real alarmist, and he may be trapped by circumstances into pretending to be one.”
“Nick’s too smart to be a real alarmist, so he pretends to be one instead.”
Interesting.
Pretending that Nick is an alarmist doesn’t make him one. Too much of that rubbish goes on here because he will go into details, and not just cheer along with the mutual back-patting crowd. Apparently that makes him alarmist even if the things he says and information he presents isn’t alarmist. You’ve got to make it explicitly clear what side you’re on to avoid that label if you dare to disagree with the echo chamber.
In a lot of cases, renewables are just fossil fuel use in disguise. But wait it’s worse, coal conversion to fuels and chemicals via direct liquefaction and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is on the rise, particularly in China.
Anyone can guarantee to make you a millionaire. First, they get more than a million from somewhere (and pocket the extra). That’s basically how renewables work, where the money comes from ratepayers, taxpayers and their indebtedness.
Renewables are nuclear energy in a weak and almost useless form.
The sun is a dangerous nuclear reactor and we are made from nuclear waste.
If you knew the future you’d have won the lottery at least once by now … QED.
… or at least the commodities markets…
That is what I like so much about these forecasting programs. If they were so good, why don’t the major brokerage houses and hedge funds use them to long or short the natgas, coal and petroleum futures market?
At least these green studies would be self-funding. Looking at their future chart, it isn’t a straight line, it shows undulations, as if they are predicting spot prices months and years in advance. Rather than hitting up taxpayers to underwrite their models, they should put their money where their mouths are and play the markets as their climate models suggests.
You would think with a little more tweaking they could predict the agricultural markets like corn, wheat and OJ to make a killing.
“But a reducing share”
Nick, consumption and production have massively increased…it’s a tiny percentage..of a much bigger number
Usually, points on a graph represent actual measurements, not extrapolations. The points should be removed and the projected lines changed to dashed lines. I know that you didn’t make the graph, but it was a poor choice.
Nick only does projections, reality bites.
Yes, I didn’t make the graph. It is from the BP Energy Outlook, introduced by WUWT here. And it is in response to a projection from that document posted by David Middleton. So I didn’t introduce the notion of projecting either. Just trying to show the whole story.
The BP document didn’t project anything. It described a minor drop in coal consumption from 2013-2016 as a “free fall.” The US EIA image is not significantly different, despite lacking the minor drop from 2013-2016. The difference is probably due to how coal gasification and liquification are accounted for… But I haven’t dug into the data deeply enough to figure out why there is a minor difference
It may even be a simple matter of optics.
BP 1992-2017 in MTOE:
US EIA n1990-2040 in quad Btu…
“But a reducing share.”
Nick, They are predicting a smaller percentage…..of a much bigger number.
David’s emissions graph even shows emissions going up…emissions can’t go up unless more coal is produced
Normally, I don’t try to rain on Nick’s parade, but projections are guesses at best, and nothing more.
Ergo, Nick, counting projections as part of real-world stuff does not work. Any financial analyst will tell you the same thing. It is guessing. It is NOT reality.
“Ergo, Nick, counting projections as part of real-world stuff”
So why didn’t you raise that with David Middleton, in the post to which I was replying. He started with a projection from the same document.
This is how it goes so often here. I respond to a projection, or a trend over some interval or some such, with what I think are the right figures. Then all the perceived sins of projection, or the trend interval chosen or whatever, are heaped on me.
That’s a fair point. I did post an EIA projection that coal consumption would bemain relatively flat until at least 2040 (which doesn’t substantially differ from the BP graph…
That renewables, including hydro, would rise at about the same rate as natural gas…
That renewables, including hydro, would rise from 12 to 17% by 2040, while coal hovered in the 20’s…
And that non-hydro renewables were the absolutely stupidest path to lower-carbon energy…
Which pretty well projects that the “TOTAL FAILURE of the climate crusade” will be with us until at least 2040…
“And that non-hydro renewables were the absolutely stupidest path to lower-carbon energy…”
If the Brookings Institution analysis to which you refer was ever valid (I’m not sure it ever was), it’s certainly not valid in 2018.
The failure of wind and solar isn’t due to the cost. It’s due the 20-30% capacity factors. It takes 3-4 MW of solar or wind to cut the same volume of carbon emissions as 1 MW of nuclear power. The reduction of capacity costs doesn’t affect the reduction of emissions. Relative to coal, nuclear and natural gas reduce far more carbon emissions per MW of capacity than solar or wind do.
With nuclear it’s a 100% reduction. Natural gas is about 50%.
On a capacity-factor basis:
Solar 0.25 * 1.00 = 0.25
Wind 0.33 * 1.00 = 0.33
Natural gas 0.87 * 0.50 = 0.435
Nuclear 0.95 * 1.00 = 0.95
Nick, it would be interesting to see how this would effect energy prices on the whole. Renewables may be more expensive in and of themselves, but there share would take the heat off the markets for other sources (as would the growth of NG as well). That could be a complex analysis because prices change depending on demand which in turn changes with boom/bust economic cycles. As an example, diversification of sources of oil was the advantage that the Reagan economy had over the Carter economy. (competition kept prices low)…
Nick
genuine inquiry.
Were the CO2 and material inputs to each of those primary energy sources be included in the calculations, I wonder what the real value of CO2 output for each of them look like?
I know it’s slightly OT but you seem to be able to dig up obscure information.
After all, CO2 is what climate alarmism is all about.
AFAIK, these are just forecasts of gross consumption, regardless of CO₂ implications. Remember, this BP document was introduced by the article and head post, not me.
And it didn’t have any projections…
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal/coal-consumption.html
“Were the CO2 and material inputs to each of those primary energy sources be included in the calculations, I wonder what the real value of CO2 output for each of them look like?”
It looks to me like you’re asking about what are called “life cycle” CO2 emissions from various electrical power sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
Median values in grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour (gCO2eq/kWh) from 2014 IPCC analysis:
Pulverized Coal (PC): 820
Natural gas combined cycle = 490
Photovoltaics utility scale = 48
Photovoltaics rooftop = 41
Wind onshore = 11
Nuclear = 12
Mark
Thank you for that, very useful.
Being that Natural gas is now credited with reducing CO2 emissions in the US with a score of 490, how much less CO2 would be emitted by the least efficient renewable (well we know that, 48) but at what cost to replace natural gas with it?
If that makes any sense whatsoever.
HotScot,
You’re welcome.
Regarding costs…costs are a tremendously complicated subject, and any decent analysis needs to come with a host of listed assumptions. Among the important considerations of the cost of photovoltaics and wind versus natural gas are:
1) Location, location, location. The cost of electricity from photovoltaics in particular are sensitive to the location. Photovoltaics are much more competitive in places like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico than in Germany or Britain. Hence the recent contract in Nevada for 25 years of photovoltaic power for about 2.4 cents per kWh. (No escalation!)
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nevada-beat-arizona-record-low-solar-ppa-price#gs.ufmAj_c
2) Battery costs. Utility batteries have rapidly come down in costs.
3) Exports of natural gas. If the U.S. begins exporting significant amounts of natural gas, the price would rise with the increased demand.
4) The shape of the demand curve. Photovoltaics are well-suited to hot dry climates, because the air conditioning demand fits well (but not perfectly) with photovoltaics supply.
Any decent analysis would have to be location-specific…and even then, the situation has been changing quickly, with photovoltaics and batteries so rapidly coming down in price. So the short answer to your question is, “It depends.”
🙂
Look it’s a renewable hockeystick … do we get odds that it won’t remotely meet that line?
its all about where the line ends, eh.
“TOTAL FAILURE of the climate crusade”
Well, another number not separated by the grouping here is that the share of non-hydro renewables is now up to 8.4%. Here is the breakdown
LOL! Nick is putting on a brave face, trying to salvage something, anything, from the total failure.
The more detailed breakdown graph is below. Renewables have been rising exponentially. Coal has been holding on, at the expense of oil and nuclear.
. . . and renewables are going to save us from what? Prosperity? Long healthy lives? A greening earth? Beautiful scene scapes w/o BWBWs (Big White Bird Whackers)? Fewer gov rent seekers? etc. etc.
“Renewables have been rising exponentially”….
Well of course it has……it’s filling a new niche market…and government money is funding it…even while they are forcing it
…but that new niche market is not a bottomless pit either
You are right! The number two renewable, coal, is rising. Good catch. The number 1 renewable, gas is rising exponentially, so, yea, you are right, yet again.
“Never give up, never surrender.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_V5Eqg6C34E#
And as every troll knows, any trend that I approve of will continue to infinity.
Nick, you’re on a roll! Specifically, rolling the same thing that a dung beetle rolls….
Solar and wind are not seeing exponential growth.
They are seeing pair-a-bollocks growth!
..8.4% of nothing is still nothing ! LOL..Nice try though…
Then I guess you could say 38% of nothing is nothing. But I don’t see the point.
“but I don’t see the point”
….not for the first time, Nick
(is this the same Marcus who used to chime in here at WUWT all the time?)
Yes, 8.4% of unreliables, mostly intermittent, highly subsidised and harmful to the grid (apart from all that wood and dung which is burnt and causes huge numbers of deaths in third world countries).
Phillip Bratby
“(apart from all that wood and dung which is burnt and causes huge numbers of deaths in third world countries)”
That’s 120,000,000 deaths by 2050 (only 32 years away) WHO*. Many of them children.
3,750,000 people dying per year.
10,300 people dying per day.
428 people dying per hour.
7 people dying per minute.
Because they lack clean energy.
Then there’s 2,000,000 people in developing countries going blind and dying, mostly children, from lack of vitamin A which can be stopped by golden rice, a harmless inclusion of a beta carotene gene rabidly objected to by Greenpeace.
That’s 5,500 people dying per day.
230 people dying per hour.
4 people dying per minute.
In the time it’s taken me to write this, about 40 people have died as a consequence of ‘green’ initiatives to save the planet.
Save the planet for what?
We privileged western select?
Thanks, but no thanks. I would rather we allowed these people (children) to live productive lives now, and use human ingenuity to deal with any climatic problems that MIGHT occur.
*World Health Organisation.
Greenpeace has nothing to do with the fact that golden rice is not already widely available. The developers have had a hard time getting yields of the various strains of golden rice to match their non-golden counterparts.
It’s fallacious reasoning to say that people are dying and will die “because they lack clean energy” then say it’s due to green initiatives. Given that you didn’t cite a particular WHO study or webpage it’s hard to know what exactly you’re talking about (what is the cause of death), but I don’t see how you can attribute lack of electricity to greens. It costs money to build coal-fired plants and a transmission network, and the poor in the developing world don’t have that money. The Green Climate Fund has many projects that focus on getting electricity to those who need it using locally-supplied renewable energy. Which is better – solar power or no power?
Solar Philippines installed about 6000 solar panels that along with Tesla batteries supply 24-hour electricity to a city of 16,000 that was connected to the grid, but had frequent brownouts. The company plans to do the same for 100s more towns and cities across the nation. There are a few grid-capacity batteries currently in development.
What is your answer? What are those who are against renewable energy doing to supply electricity to those who need it? Do you have a Brown Climate Fund building power plants in poor countries? Unless the “anti-greens” are doing something constructive, what sense does it make to blame the greens for people dying due to lack of “clean energy”? And what is clean energy to you? Don’t you mean cheap energy? Does it make sense to build coal-fired power plants that increase ambient air pollution in order to lower in-home air pollution? What if locally-supplied solar is cheaper than coal in some areas (small island nations, for example)? One has to also consider that the price of coal fluctuates, and will always have a cost to it, while the sun will always shine for free.
None of these issues has anything to do with climate change or CO2 emissions. It’s ridiculous to blame millions of deaths on the greens. Greens are not responsible for poverty or poor resource use in developing nations. If you really want to assign causes, you have to look at the problems socially and historically.
“I would rather we allowed these people (children) to live productive lives now, and use human ingenuity to deal with any climatic problems that MIGHT occur.”
Kind of like necessity is the mother of invention? Then invention is a response to necessity; how many will suffer during the time it takes for ingenuity to fill the need? What if problem-solving can’t keep up with change? Who will “deal with any climatic problems” in countries with low educational attainment and no money to spend on innovation and adaptation? What about problems that are already occurring, such as massive flooding in South Asia? Is it justifiable for wealthy nations to risk endangering those in countries that can’t afford to adapt to climate change and have contributed little to the problem? If you really care about the suffering millions, why don’t you support the Paris Accord, which has programs to alleviate suffering? (The assumption that the money will be siphoned off by the corrupt is just that – an assumption. Without knowing the organizational structure of the programs and the potential for fraud, it’s a baseless assumption.) No offense – I think it’s a common refrain, not your idea – but I find the argument that suffering is the fault of the greens weak, hypocritical and self-serving.
Is there any green hype that Kristie won’t swallow, lock, stock and barrel?
PS: I just love the way Kristie assumes that for the first time in history, throwing money at poverty will solve it.
[MODS]
Could you please change the last sentence to “… the argument that suffering is the fault of the greens weak.” I’d appreciate it.
According to Patrick Moore, it’s very much Greenpeace that’s campaigned against, and stopped golden rice.
“3.8 million people a year die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels and kerosene for cooking. Among these 3.8 million deaths:
27% are due to pneumonia
18% from stroke
27% from ischaemic heart disease
20% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
8% from lung cancer.”
http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health
It costs peanuts in relative terms to build coal fired power stations in, for example, Africa, using locally sourced fossil fuels. It doesn’t happen because of various agreements by governments not to internationally fund fossil fuel derived energy.
The Green Climate Fund is yet another bureaucratic, money hoovering concept that delivers diddly squat for the amounts poured into it, other than, of course, a few very expensive solar farms with Tesla batteries, all of which will be abandoned when subsidies are withdrawn and the poor suckers are left to pay for electricity they can’t afford. As MarkW rightly points out, you don’t solve poverty by chucking money at it, then walking away smugly imagining you have done the poor a favour.
The answer is, stop pouring money down the gullet of climate change and get on with helping these people build power stations which will last 50 years and provide income, encourage industry, stabilise health provision, build infrastructure, enable education, irrigation, flood defences, building materials, steel works, car factories. In other words, everything you have and deny them from having by imagining CO2 is a harmful gas, it isn’t!
And if you live in a modern city, try sticking your head out your window to breathe, then cook on an open fire in your living room and see which you would prefer to inhale. The UK had choking smog from coal fires in the 19th century so smokeless coal was mandated, then power station emissions were cleaned of soot, now CO2 can be scrubbed from the chimneys.
And where isolated solar and wind make economic sense, sure, why not, assuming they can afford the cost.
What you must realise is that the only empirical manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the world has greened by 14% in 35 years. And after 40 years of failed predictions of world ending weather events, the Arctic ice melting completely and the extinction of mankind well before now (yes, all these claims have been made) the one they didn’t make was that the planet would green.
“If you really want to assign causes, you have to look at the problems socially and historically.”
Nigeria was robbed of more than $400 billion, stolen from the treasury by its leaders between 1960 and 1999. That would have paid for several power stations, several times over. So just how are a few measly solar farms going to address that social and historic problem?
And your alternative to ingenuity to meet a need is? To invent a problem, project it out to 50 years and exaggerate it, to ensure mitigation against an unknown, unquantifiable threat is met with tons of money rent seekers suck up by being paid for when their wind turbines don’t produce electricity.
Do you somehow imagine that money siphoned off by the corrupt is somehow a man dressed in a striped shirt with a mask and a bag marked swag over his shoulder? It’s not, it’s government manipulation to feed crony capitalism/socialism so government officials are parachuted into cushy jobs when their political careers are abruptly terminated. It’s sophisticated and stealthy with economies manipulated for the sake of the few elite disguised by layers of bureaucracy.
Do you imagine flooding in SE Asia is something new? I was living in Hong Kong when it was nearly wiped out in the 60’s by a typhoon. Was that caused by AGW? Even the IPCC state that dramatic weather events are not caused by climate change, so why do you cite flooding as an argument.
Meanwhile, guess what? CO2 emissions in the US have been dropping thanks to fracked natural gas, a fossil fuel. And in Germany, they have risen, thanks to a nationwide drive to impose renewables. Yet another utopian green dream gone up in smoke, or rather, CO2. Nor are these computer predictions, these are observations, you know, real science.
And if you want to understand what’s really going on, do some research on Maurice Strong, his Club Of Rome, it’s ambitions for population control, it’s membership, and it’s ambitions for UN Agenda 21. Then you might understand who is making vast amounts of money from climate change (Al Gore, for one) who pulls the financial strings (Rockefeller’s, for one) and who adds some royal clout (Prince Philip, for one).
But be prepared to be shocked.
Grrr. Lost my post.
“It costs peanuts in relative terms to build coal fired power stations in, for example, Africa, using locally sourced fossil fuels. It doesn’t happen because of various agreements by governments not to internationally fund fossil fuel derived energy.”
Coal is not locally available in most of Africa. That means shipping and infrastructure to do so. Transmission lines are expensive. Africa is highly rural with dispersed, small communities. There’s difficult terrain. Violence and instability. Corruption. And I bet it’s a lot easier to orchestrate installing 40 panels in a small village than a coal plant and all its needs. But I AM NOT ADVOCATING AGAINST FOSSIL FUELS. I think they are essential, in fact, to provide the developing world with the power it needs. What I am saying, and have always believed, is that there is a place for renewables. Not just for climate change but for our own economic and national security in the long-term, as well as for many areas of the developing world. There are enough people working on batteries that I think there will be a few on the market within 5-10 years, liquid metal batteries. (e.g http://www.ambri.com/technology/) There’s a TED talk about the technology. And I think there will be advances in efficiency. There are already tidal generators. It’s foolish to dismiss renewables at this point. They’ve been around a long time, but there was never enough demand to foster innovation. Think of the market! China is getting much of it, but Spain is a powerhouse, too (no pun intended, but that was pretty good, eh?). Both have invested in American renewable projects. Shouldn’t we be doing so?
(China is about to overcome the U.S. in amount spent on scientific research. We will be in second place for the first time in over 100 years.)
“The Green Climate Fund is yet another bureaucratic, money hoovering concept that delivers diddly squat for the amounts poured into it, other than, of course, a few very expensive solar farms with Tesla batteries, all of which will be abandoned when subsidies are withdrawn and the poor suckers are left to pay for electricity they can’t afford.”
Have you ever looked at the projects? From what you say, it seems you have no idea what you are talking about.
“As MarkW rightly points out, you don’t solve poverty by chucking money at it, then walking away smugly imagining you have done the poor a favour.”
I have already said so in another thread. I agreed with him. And I don’t see how that’s relevant.
“The answer is, stop pouring money down the gullet of climate change and get on with helping these people build power stations ….everything you have and deny them from having by imagining CO2 is a harmful gas, it isn’t”
BS I’m denying them. That’s a stupid assumption. You think all of “us” are alike, we have no ability to think for ourselves. Just saying whatever we read in Mother Jones. But we are different. I am capable of thinking for myself. CO2 is not a harmful gas per se. It is necessary. Duh. But at the rate it’s increasing in the atmosphere, it is a problem.
“What you must realise is that the only empirical manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the world has greened by 14% in 35 years.”
This is willful rejection of the evidence. You are trusting the same agency to provide you with those statistics that you refuse to trust for others. Even the fact that it has greened is partly due to climate change rather than CO2 directly. You are providing evidence against your own argument.
” Even the IPCC state that dramatic weather events are not caused by climate change, so why do you cite flooding as an argument.”
Where does it say that???
http://glisa.umich.edu/climate/extreme-precipitation
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/report-findings/extreme-weather
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jgrd.50814
“Here a newly discovered empirical relationship between the wet‐day mean and percentiles in 24 h precipitation amounts was used to show that trends in the wet‐day 95th percentiles worldwide have been influenced by the global mean temperature, consistent with an accelerated hydrological cycle caused by a global warming. ”
Ach, that’s enough.
Renewables are an expensive luxury in developed nations, they can’t survive without subsidies. Even now, applications for new major wind farms has dropped to zero now subsidies have been withdrawn. Meanwhile energy billls have skyrocketed by 20% in the last year or so. The Uk government has refused to invest in a tidal scheme in the Severn estuary because it can’t make a case for it. It’s seen as the best opportunity for tidal power in, arguably, one of the best locations in the world. The Cardiff lagoon project is about to get kicked into touch as well because the numbers don’t add up.
China has also withdrawn subsidies for renewables so expect to see their new schemes go the way of the UK’s.
The UK is set to spend £300 Bn by 2050 (around £10 Bn a year) on climate change for no discernible benefit, yet our NHS (National Health service) was in the red by £2.6 Bn in 2016. It was announced this week that taxes must rise to fund the NHS. Even wealthy westerners are suffering because of this insane scam.
That being the case, how can you possibly claim renewables make sense anywhere else, especially for the poverty stricken? It might be better than nothing, but if no one can afford it, it is worse than nothing.
As for the resources required to fuel the insanity, take a look at the numbers, laid out plain and simple by the late Dr. David MacKay, a green, who demonstrates the insanity of the concept (short video, well worth watching) https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables
And then there’s Matt Ridley who demonstrates the insanity, in numerical and environmental terms. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
“CO2 is not a harmful gas per se. It is necessary. Duh. But at the rate it’s increasing in the atmosphere, it is a problem.”
Prove it. Find a credible, empirical study that directly attributes CO2 to a warming atmosphere. I’ll save you the trouble, there is none, I have looked.
And the nonsense produced by NASA I’m not interested in is computer generated predictions, so far they have been spectacularly unsuccessful. The study on global greening was empirical and therefore entirely credible.
“Even the fact that it has greened is partly due to climate change rather than CO2 directly.”
So climate change is good then, is that what you’re saying?
Besides, the researchers were careful to isolate greening from other influences if you care to read the paper. A summary is here. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
“Where does it say that???”
In the IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 2 http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
Conveniently summarised by Roger Pielke, Jr. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/10/coverage-of-extreme-events-in-ipcc-ar5.html finishing with the statement “Climate campaigners would do their movement a favor by getting themselves on the right side of the evidence.”
So, in summary, we know that
1. Renewables are expensive, destructive and frequently uneconomical to even consider, and only of use in remote regions where they are unaffordable without subsidies.
2. Empirically, the planet has greened by 14% in 35 years, attributed directly to increased atmospheric CO2.
3. There are no empirical studies that demonstrate increased atmospheric CO2 causes the planet to warm.
4. According to the IPCC, climate change does not cause extreme weather events.
5. You concede global warming is good.
There, that just about covers it.
David Mackay died? That’s a shame. I’ve seen that video before. I thought it was great. He’s not against renewables, he’s for diverse responses, just like I am. I’ve always understood the space problem and never been a fan of biofuel, but in some situations that, too, makes sense. It’s used in Brazil as a way to dispose of sugar cane debris. I don’t know that renewables make much sense in the U.K. because there’s so little space and you are at a high latitude with a lot of grey days (I hear). There’s more space in the U.S. I remember driving down I-35 through Iowa at night and seeing all these rows of blinking red lights, and it went on for miles. I couldn’t figure out what heck it was. It’s all corn fields and pasture and flat, boring land so I don’t mind the change in scenery. I think they’re kind of cool. So are oil refineries and coal plants and ports – they are visual reminders of human ingenuity and industry.
“2. Empirically, the planet has greened by 14% in 35 years, attributed directly to increased atmospheric CO2.”
“However, carbon dioxide fertilization isn’t the only cause of increased plant growth—nitrogen, land cover change and climate change by way of global temperature, precipitation and sunlight changes all contribute to the greening effect. To determine the extent of carbon dioxide’s contribution, researchers ran the data for carbon dioxide and each of the other variables in isolation through several computer models that mimic the plant growth observed in the satellite data.
“Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. “The second most important driver is nitrogen, at 9 percent. So we see what an outsized role CO2 plays in this process.” – your link
I am a little skeptical of this model. I don’t see how they could get nitrogen as an important factor from satellite data. But then, it’s a press release, so it’s silly to pass judgement. At any rate, “…and climate change by way of global temperature, precipitation and sunlight” If the response were to CO2 fertilization alone, you’d get a more even greening. Look how much there is in the high latitudes.
What do you care if the world is greening? Isn’t that the kind of thing Greens care about? It’s just an excuse to praise CO2 and show how wrong others are. It’s greening and still it’s not enough to soak up the CO2.
The IPCC does NOT say that climate change doesn’t cause extreme events! And no, I never said global warming was good.
You’re sceptical of the press release?
From memory, it has a link to the paper. No point in discussing it here, it’s unequivocal in its conclusions, so debate it with the scientists who wrote it.
So because I’m sceptical of man made CO2 causing the planet to warm, you equate that to me not caring about the planet or it’s inhabitants.
The fact is, I care a good deal more about our planet than the green alarmist fanatics do. I would far rather the planet warmed than cooled, at the very least, it’s not possible to irrigate frozen wastelands.
We very well understand the consequence of a 2°C temperature drop from our not too distant historic past when the Thames froze over enough that an elephant was taken across it. We know starvation was common thanks to shorter growing seasons, as was dying from cold.
A 2°C rise in temperature was, to a considerable degree, demonstrated during the Roman and Medieval warming periods when mankind flourished.
On the balance of probabilities, a warmer planet is likely to be a far better place to live than a colder one.
I want to see a warmer planet. I want to see the frozen wastelands of Canada and Russia relieved of perma frost, released to agriculture, to feed a growing global population. I want to see even remote African communities with access to clean water, irrigation and infrastructure. America was once no less remote and sparsely populated, but fossil fuel power brought prosperity.
It’s not possible to do that with renewable energy, it’s a con.
It’s ridiculous to condemn a country to poverty simply because it’s too big or poor to worry about, which is precisely what you are saying. It is, in fact, what the Club of Rome is driving for, population reduction by stealth, and you are supporting that. Why should they make do with solar schemes, and be forced to cook with solar ovens when you enjoy the convenience of reliable electric lighting and clean cooking facilities?
And the fact is, it’s one or the other, there is no possibility that mankind can direct the course of planetary climate, and most certainly not with a trace atmospheric gas of 0.04% when water vapour, a far more potent greenhouse gas, is around 3% of the atmosphere.
Don’t believe me though “He [Tyndall] concluded that water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature. Absorption by the other gases is not negligible but relatively small.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall
And before you embarrass yourself by rubbishing that excerpt, it’s a direct link to Wikipedia (a source I don’t normally use) from The Royal Institution http://www.rigb.org/our-history/iconic-objects/iconic-objects-list/tyndall-radiant-heat
“The IPCC does NOT say that climate change doesn’t cause extreme events!”
Again, you might want to take up that argument with Pielke jr., I suspect a far more credentialed and practised scientist on the subject than you.
“And no, I never said global warming was good.”
But in an earlier post you said:
“Even the fact that it has greened is partly due to climate change rather than CO2 directly.”
Or is greening not good?
No matter how many times these things are pointed out, you utterly refuse to accept the realities of what we are facing; and what hasn’t happened over the last 40 years of predictions of Armageddon by scientists like Hanson and Mann.
“It’s ridiculous to condemn a country to poverty simply because it’s too big or poor to worry about, which is precisely what you are saying. ”
You don’t listen too good.
““The IPCC does NOT say that climate change doesn’t cause extreme events!”
“Again, you might want to take up that argument with Pielke jr., I suspect a far more credentialed and practised scientist on the subject than you.”
So what? I can read, and apparently you can, too. Where does Pielke, Jr. say the IPCC says climate change does not cause extreme events?
““And no, I never said global warming was good.”
“But in an earlier post you said:
“’Even the fact that it has greened is partly due to climate change rather than CO2 directly.’
“Or is greening not good?”
Your logic is faulty. Something can have good aspects and still be overall not good. That’s pretty basic reasoning.
“The fact is, I care a good deal more about our planet than the green alarmist fanatics do.” Glad to hear it. I wonder how you arrived at that fact? Did you develop an index of “planet caring” and call people randomly? “Hi there. I’m conducting a poll. Are there any green alarmist fanatics in the house?”
“It is, in fact, what the Club of Rome is driving for, population reduction by stealth, and you are supporting that.”
I look at the Club of Rome website at their list of reports. I don’t know what you mean. And you obviously have no fricking clue what I support.
Tyndall, eh? I see. There has been no scientific advancement since 1860 in our understanding of the climate. Forget Arrhenius, Eckholm and thousands of scientists since then – they are all part of the conspiracy.
“Why should they make do with solar schemes, and be forced to cook with solar ovens when you enjoy the convenience of reliable electric lighting and clean cooking facilities?”
So without solar schemes they will magically have a Western lifestyle? Fine, forget solar and wind, if that’s all it takes. Poof! All African nations are fully developed, wealthy, healthy and peaceful. That was easy!
“No matter how many times these things are pointed out, you utterly refuse to accept the realities of what we are facing.” No matter what I say, you will believe that. This conversation is dull because you can’t get past your insipid assumptions about me. It’s a perennial problem around here.
I’m probably not qualified to comment at all and should refrain but I’ve wondered about how to prevent the theft of solar panels in remote areas. They are being stolen now in first world countries. If people are willing to take the risk of drilling into live oil and fuel pipelines, I’m sure they will have no problem cutting through chain-link fences and unbolting solar panels.
I think the rise in non-hydro renewables has come largely at the expense of nuclear power.
Another Epic Fail on the part of the Climatariat… They’re replacing a carbon-free source that works with intermittent sources… Good job!
“largely at the expense of nuclear power”
Oil and nuclear power. Graph below.
But was the decline of nuclear because of climate activity? Seems to me that it was well in decline in USA, and much of Europe, because of safety concerns, and lack of enthusiasm from investors.
Oil is a relatively insignificant source of electricity generation. The decline in nuclear power is due to cost, regulatory malfeasance and the public’s irrational fear of radiation.
However, as a primary energy source, which includes transportation, oil is king for the forseeable future, gas may replace coal as #2 and renewables (including hydro) lag behind with nuclear power…
From 1990-2015, renewables, including hydro, “skyrocketed” from 10 to 12%.
In terms of reducing carbon emissions, solar bites the big one, wind breaks even, nuclear reduces emissions fastest at a high cost and natural gas kicks ass…
But, but, from 10 to 12 percent? When I look at our landscape here in Europe, these two percent feel like a hundred percent increase in windmills and solar panels. How to be so deceived. So we hold: An incredible financial and material expense for two percent? How will that end when the world, as desired by the Greens, feeds on 100 percent renewable sources. A windmill every 500 meters. And a hunger dead every twenty yards?
It takes about 4 MW of windmills and solar panels to generate the equivalent of 1 MW of coal, gas and nuclear. So, in order to increase the output from 10-12&, they had to add 4 times the MW than coal, gas or nuclear would have required.
David. I think you have forgotten to add in the storage factor which requires a statistically derived capacity of 1 MW times the period of time the 4 MW wind/Solar is unavailable. An intermittency factor comes in here. 50%? 40%?, 30.? who knows?
The Dinorwic storage facility in Wales (UK) can supply 1.650 MWs for 7 Hrs. has a capacity of 9.1 GWhrs. It needs a convenient mountain and two lakes to work. A brilliant bit of engineering; but costs a bomb.
It would require circa 30 of these to have dealt with the recent Wind drought we (in the U.K.) have just experienced. And Hey! we are only taking about 1 or 2 MWs here. Think big and blow your mind.
That reminds me — Must charge up the old Ipad. Looking a bit hungry. Best stick a finger in the air. (sarc.
Hans-Georg
You will value this perspective.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
David, please provide links or proper citations when you post your graphs.
I did in my first comment.
In my first comment with a graph…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/17/total-failure-of-the-climate-crusade-coal-power-has-the-same-energy-share-it-had-20-years-ago/#comment-2380205
US EIA International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017)
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/exec_summ.php
Thanks, David. I was actually most interested in the Brookings Institution graph, though. I had a look at the site, but there’s a lot to wade through. If you don’t have it handy, nevermind.
I’ll see if I can dig up the original reference. I think I have a copy of it or a link to it somewhere. The image is from Real Clear Energy.
Here’s the Real Clear Energy link…
https://www.realclearenergy.org/charticles/2014/08/01/solar_and_wind_more_expensive_than_realized_107939.html
The Brookings paper that forms the basis of the graph is here…
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Net-Benefits-Final.pdf
Thanks, David.
(I know I’m in for some unfamiliar ideas when the report starts with a 2-page glossary!)
Oil based power has increased to provide load leveling and emergency backup to wind and solar, from what I have read.
Keep looking for that point….
Tell enough lies regarding the safety of nuclear, then blame the fact that politicians react to the fears you have created to “safety concerns”.
But was the decline of nuclear because of climate activity?
Nick, the decline in nuclear was a forerunner of the current “climate” (pun intended) today — manufactured scare-mongering and a massive, bloated bureaucracy (NRC).
David
Not just intermittent. They are sources that represent a miserable return for the destruction and use of natural resources they claim to save.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
Such a big part of skeptics’ argument against renewables is about intermittent supply. What will you replace it with when grid-capacity batteries become widely available and economically competitive?
I’ll be dead by then.
Kristie, might as well wish for turbines powered by unicorn farts.
“Such a big part of skeptics’ argument against renewables is about intermittent supply.”
Of course, because that’s the only rational way to think about the problem…or am I wrong about that?
“What will you replace it with when grid-capacity batteries become widely available and economically competitive?”
Why in the world would I argue against such if it happens for goodness’ sake?!?!
I live for the day when I can drive down a country road and find used solar panels for sale capable of reliably (and without grid support) powering each and every structure on my property.
But until then, you’re not going to convince a thinking man that renewables are worth the trouble.
From the perspective of free market economics, this is a problem. Without the demand for grid-level batteries, there are fewer people willing to invest in their development. They are available already, but I don’t know how economical they are. https://www.tesla.com/powerpack
There is a town of 16,000 in the Philippines that is using them with solar for 24 hour electricity. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/618975626/how-solar-power-is-changing-the-lives-of-some-in-the-philippines
Why would anyone be selling second-hand solar panels?
Because when better and newer of any other product comes along, that’s what people do.
But solar panels do not and probably can never pay for themselves, so they’r not a normal commodity. They are a gigantically wasteful bubble supported be Western tax and fiscal policy, taken advantage of by Chinese manufacturers and subsidy farmers like Elon Musk.
IOW, an intercontinental criminal scam, costing the world trillions in treasure and tens of millions of lives.
How is solar costing tens of millions of lives? Or trillions in “treasure” (and over what time period)? Are you factoring in the benefits – lower pollution and its effect on health, for instance? That seems to be a driving factor in China’s domestic renewable investment. Coal mining in the U.S. has been linked to high cancer rates, not just among miners but those who live near mountain-top removal mines. How about the benefits to those who would otherwise have no or intermittent electricity?
How do you calculate whether solar panels pay for themselves? Seems you’d have to rely on economic models of future fuel costs, and to me those are at least as questionable as climate models. Nor do you know how much grid-capacity batteries will cost 5 or 10 years from now.
To me it seems a complex question. That’s why I don’t advocate for either switching to (or installing) renewables everywhere or going entirely with fossil fuels. The decision needs to be made on a case-by-case basis.
As for subsidies, complaints would hold a lot more weight if they were applied to subsidies for fossil fuels, too. Subsidies for renewables have changed quite a bit in the last decade; for instance, those for biofuels were 42% of total energy subsidies in 2010 and 48% in 2016, but only 12% in 2013; overall, subsidies for renewables declined between 2013 and 2016. Subsidies for coal quadrupled between 2010 and 2016, though still only 8% of the total. This is for federal subsidies only.
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf
“According to a Congressional Budget Office testimony, roughly three-fourths of the projected cost of tax preferences for energy in 2016 was for renewable energy and energy efficiency. An estimated $10.9 billion was directed toward renewable energy; $2.7 billion, went to energy efficiency or electricity transmission. Fossil fuels accounted for most of the remaining cost of energy-related tax preferences—an estimated $4.6 billion.[28]
“According to a 2015 estimate by the Obama administration, the US oil industry benefited from subsidies of about $4.6 billion per year.[29] A 2017 study by researchers at Stockholm Environment Institute published in the journal Nature Energy estimated that nearly half of U.S. oil production would be unprofitable without subsidies.[29]”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies)
The idea that we actually have a free market economy is a fantasy. Cities and states lure corporations like Boeing, Amazon and Walmart with billions in subsidies while small businesses flop because they can’t compete. There is no equality of opportunity. Wealth accrues and the top, and wealth equals power.
Producing solar panels is also polluting, and both wind and solar massacre birds and bats, thereby increasing insect pests requiring more pesticide to kill.
Tens of millions of excess deaths have occurred over the past thirty years due to abandonment of reliable fossil fuel energy in the developed world, and its never having been adopted by developing countries.
Trillions of dollars have been wasted on “renewables” and on worse than worthless “climate change research” during the same interval.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cold-weather-uk-winter-deaths-europe-polar-vortex-a8224276.html
More than 3000 excess deaths per year in the UK from energy starvation. That scales up to over 30,000 per year in Europe, or about a million in the 30 years of the CACA craziness.
Millions more die from energy poverty on other continents.
Such a large part of the climate concerned thinking relies on magic. Like grid scale batteries.
Another part of the climate concerned mind us the diregard for environmental destruction caused by “green” energy sources.
You could just as well argue that climate-unconcerned thinking relies on ignorance of developing technologies.
Kristi,
Except that I follow the actual news and, unlike the climate concerned, still have my critical thinking skills.
I love twchnology and science, unlike most misanthropuc green posers.
So, can we agree that installing renewables absent these mythical batteries is a waste of time?
LMAO — grid-capacity batteries! Kristi, I was a professional engineer at a utility power plant & understand power, energy & grids. Sorry, but you’re obviously clueless in this regard. There’s no such thing, and will never be, a “grid-capacity battery”. The only thing that might conceptually work is a ENORMOUS & COSTLY battery-rack big enough to START a fossil fueled/nuclear plant after an emergency situation. Hydro plants are already designated for this purpose (black-starts), and we performed exercises at times to practice this.
beng135,
Maybe I’m using the wrong terminology. Is “grid-level storage” better?
You might be interested in this.
https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy/transcript
I think the decrease has multiple causes. Personally, I’m not against nuclear energy. However,
“The construction of large nuclear power plants requires a lot of money to ensure safety and reliability. For example, for the U.S. to derive one quarter of its total energy supply from nuclear would require building roughly 1,000 new reactors (both to replace old ones and expand the fleet). At today’s prices for the two AP-1000 reactors being built in Georgia, such an investment would cost $7 trillion, although that total bill might shrink with an order of that magnitude.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-nuclear-power-can-stop-global-warming/
James Hansen is pro-nuclear.
Here is the graph of percentages. Watch the dark orange one rising. Click to enlarge.
Watch the yellow one fall as the orange one rises and the red one rise as fast as the orange.
The really funny thing is that the green one is a relatively insignificant source for electricity generation, except on islands and other places with limited access. The orange one only recently rose to the insignificance of the green one.
While the black one just chugs along at 38-40%.
“the red one rise as fast as the orange”
Yes. The red is the fracking revolution that we have heard so much about. The orange is renewables.
Fracking A, bubba!
Nick, does the “renewables other than hydro” category include wood chips and ethanol?
I believe so.
Nick,
Just because the renewables are currently experiencing a subsidized growth doesn’t mean that it is inevitable that it will continue. As Australia is discovering to its dismay, there are stability and cost problems that start to become significant with ever increasing renewables. I have this mental picture of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge tearing itself apart because of design flaws.
Indeed, the more renewables there are, the greater the cost of the subsidies.
Governments will go bankrupt long before renewables reached 50% of all generating capacity.
Pure coincidence that all of the lines EXCEPT “renewables” show up and down variation in the trend lines, but the renewables line looks like a smooth mathematical formula that only ever goes up. Do not be deceived into believing the crazy idea that this is because the number is just made up from thin air and wishful thinking.
As I commented above, over 2/3 of the rise in renewables is likely due to being based on their unrealistic faceplate capacity, which is based on their running at an optimum rate all the time.
Nick, where does that 8.4% number fall if you count all energy generation (and not just electricity)?
Here’s the plot (click to enlarge). The caption notes that it is 3.6%.
Nick
“Here is the graph of percentages.”
We can all distort energy graphs with enough taxpayers money subsidising the ridiculous.
I also have a question is the graph actual consumed power or simply nameplate power of the generators?
What is that number if wood burning stoves (and other “biofuels”) were taken out of the renewables portion of primary energy?
George, “As we see, historical production of renewable energy has been dominated by traditional biomass – the burning of wood, forestry materials and agricultural waste biomass. … Today, traditional biofuels remain the largest source of renewables, accounting for 60-70 percent of the total.”
https://ourworldindata.org/renewables
“What is that number if wood burning stoves (and other “biofuels”) were taken out of the renewables portion of primary energy?”
They were not in it. BP says (p 8):
“*In this review, primary energy comprises commercially-traded fuels, including modern renewables used to generate electricity.”
Well if renewables and natural gas are rising we should be happy about that. We should not be happy about nuclear as its the biggest potential non-intermittent power source we have.
Is that 8.42% based on nameplate capacity? I suspect it is. If so, it should be cut by 2/3 or 3/4 or 4/5.
Also, is that 8.42% a share of total energy (as the other charts have been) or just of electricity production. If so, as I suspect, its share of total energy should be cut by … what? 60%?
“Is that 8.42% based on nameplate capacity?”
I don’t think it could be. They are annual consumption figures, for all sources.
” its share of total energy should be cut by … what? 60%?”
Almost exactly right. I showed the graph above – it is 3.6% of total.
Unfortunately, costs of power have skyrocketed as the renewables share has increased. Sure, we can keep pushing for more solar and wind – and we will keep increasing the price of electricity so the poor cannot afford it.
Why do you hate the poor, the 2nd, and the 3rd world? Why do you want to force them to live in squalor? Is it just a desire for virtue signaling?
Shanghai, i wonder if it’s that simple. Diversification of sources could bring price down on the whole, but is that enough to offset the high price of renewables themselves? i would think that at times of high worldwide economic growth (like now), we could use all the sources of energy that we can get our hands on. That’s a big problem that we have globally when we max out our energy markets. (costs spiraling higher) Don’t know the effects of high economic activity on electricity costs, but we all recognize the higher prices at the pump. As demonstrated back in the 70s, high energy costs are economy killers…
fonzie
UK diversification of sources has seen a 20% increase in domestic energy costs.
Renewables contribute somewhere in the low single digit percentage of our energy supplies.
God help us all if they reach 50% of our energy sources because judging by past experience, no one in the UK will be able to afford to heat or light their home. Germany is rapidly getting there and Australia seems ahead of anyone.
Perhaps we should max out our existing energy sources before moving onto something none of us can afford.
Scot, some areas are “greener” than others and, obviously, they’ll take a bigger hit. If the UK uses more renewables, then they’re presumably using less of traditional fuel sources. So, the UKs pain is someone elses gain.(my curiosity is how all this works out on the whole)…
HotScot, Are you sure that the whole increase in domestic energy costs is attributable to the switch to renewables?
fonzie, I think you’re right that things aren’t that simple. You make a good point that as more nations develop there will be higher demand for fuel, potentially leading to higher prices.
It seems that many arguments against renewables assume that costs will never decrease, technology will never advance, and power will always be intermittent. I don’t think any of these are safe assumptions. There also seems to be an assumption that cost of coal-based electricity relative to renewables is the same everywhere (and will not change), and this seems like a rotten assumption. For instance, part of the cost of bringing electricity to those who don’t currently have it is in the transmission lines, and in countries with a highly rural demographic, this cost is considerable. The situation in the developed world means changing from one energy source to another, while in much of the developing world it’s a matter of providing electricity to those who don’t currently have access. It could be that small solar “gardens” near villages are cheaper than the infrastructure required for transmission from a central coal plant to scores of remote areas, especially where access is difficult.
Then there is the issue of nations being dependent on others for their energy, and at their mercy as to supply and cost. Not all countries have the fossil fuel reserves that the U.S. does.
The choice of electricity source must take many factors into account depending on the situation, what people need and want, and future estimates of risks/benefits. It’s not just about climate change or “green” ideals.
Kristie, if you are convinced that someday in the future technology will make renewables both cheap and reliable.
So why not wait for that mythical day. Why force people to accept power that is both unreliable and much more expensive?
Diversification can bring security, but it can never bring cost reduction.
If we can use all the energy we can get out hands on, shouldn’t we be building the cheapest and most reliable? Wasting money on expensive unreliable energy just means less actual energy is available for consumers.
PS: The high energy costs of the 70’s were caused by Jimmy Carter.
Nick
Wouldn’t that mean coal, gas and wood consumption would have dropped by 8.4%?
Wouldn’t it also mean domestic energy prices would have fallen by 8.4% in the same period of renewables expansion, instead of rising by 20% in the UK over the last year or so?
The main reductions were in oil and nuclear.
‘brown coal’ counts as renewables.
Hugs, I had never thought of that. I guess the environmentalists haven’t figured out how to claim brown coal as a renewable. It is basically wet petrified wood.
the breakdown of what comes in the renewables bundle is interesting. Wind’s contribution in particular is laughable, especially in the context of the vast expense and instability that accompanies it.
Calm down, dear! The climate changing properties of Carbondioxide are greatly exagerated. It just doesn’t matter. What does is that the coal-fired power plants are state-of-the-art clean coal utilities. King Coal is far from dead. Long live the King!
Left-wing governments tend _not_ to solve problems they declare “war” on.
For example, after fifty years of “War On Poverty”, in the United States, poverty levels are now still about the same as then:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait
Why is this? I think one of the reasons is that “activism” tends not to solve problems (like “climate change” for example) is that if these problems were completely solved then the activists would be out of a job and would lose their power over society (especially in elected democracies).
So to maintain power over the electorate, it is better for the activists to let these problems become the status quo. Then they rule forever. Long live the Status Quo!
A Hunger death all 20 yards……. The desire of the greens.
The other problem is that leftists tend to misdiagnose the problem. They honestly believe all problems are a problem of too many or too few resources.
They believe that people are poor because they lack money. So they create government programs to give poor people money. They are then surprised to discover that the same people who were poor, are still poor.
Poverty is caused by behaviors that make people poor. Until those attitudes and behaviors are changed, money can’t solve poverty. The only thing it does is make poverty more comfortable, so that there is less reason for people to work at becoming not poor.
“government programs to give poor people money”
My favorite was Jimmy Carter…..welfare payments are too low
So he increased welfare payments….and immediately more people went on welfare
Poverty is caused by federal reserve monetary policy. Higher interest rates mean fewer jobs. Fewer jobs in turn mean lower wages (yes, even “real wages”)* when poor people are lucky enough to even land a job…
*even if we assume that real wages go down for poor people with a low unemployment rate and high inflation (they don’t), the solution is simple. Adjust the tax code so that there are no losers and only winners. (rich people can get richer as they look out for the poor just to satisfy bleeding hearts like you… ☺️) We’re always better off with a larger pie.
fonzie, 100% wrong.
The federal reserve adjusts interest rates to keep inflation in check.
Inflation is caused by the money supply growing faster than the supply of goods in the economy.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The tax code doesn’t create winners, it merely determines who is going to be the biggest losers.
If you think that it’s possible for government to create bigger pies, you didn’t pay attention in that economics class you didn’t take.
Markus, the problem with your logic is that the federal reserve does everything that i’m saying that they do and for the reasons that i’m saying that they do it. Fed chairs talk. And they will tell you everything that i’m telling you here. It’s a little bizarre that you’re so ill aquainted with that which is common knowledge about what the fed does. (we don’t have to guess about what they do, because they do speak)…
*Mark, i’m going to get you a link to a lecture by ben bernanke that he gave to an economics class at GWU. In it he explains the role of the federal reserve since WW2. i can’t think of a better work out there than this lecture to get you up to speed on the fed. And again, all this is common knowledge. Bernanke isn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said before. Might take a little time for me to post the video. If not here, then i’ll catch up with you somewhere…
https://youtu.be/bw0qrC4FB_l
Mark, looks like this might take me some time… ☺️ (i’ll keep at it)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bw0qrC4FB_l
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bw0qrC4FB_I
O.K., Markus, this one works here (capital i and not an l; gits me evry time… ☺️) The first half hour covers the role of the fed from ww2. The second half hour moves on to QE. There’s a lot packed into that first half hour…
Moderators,
Please closrly review and consider strictly limiting detours into federal reserve bloviation.
You misunderstand the point he is making.
They have historically used unemployment rate as a proxie for how well the economy is doing, along with a number of other proxies.
MarkW
Poverty is relative.
There are 800 children in a small African region called Alison, boys as well. They are all named after the midwife who set up a corrugated iron clinic that saved those children, and their mothers, in childbirth.
The Western world has no concept of genuine poverty.
It’s funny – I think of myself as being on the left in most respects, but what you say about the left doesn’t apply to me at all. Nor does it apply to other professed liberals I know. So who are you talking about? Is there a kindergarten kommunist movement I haven’t heard about?
“They believe that people are poor because they lack money.”
Common misconception, I agree. People can have billions and still be poor in spirit, character and integrity – that has nothing to do with monetary wealth. It doesn’t take millions to have a rich life. But poverty is hard on individuals, families and communities and comes at a cost to the nation as a whole.
You blame the impoverished for their state, suggesting it’s behavioral, and think the answer is to take welfare away. From everyone? Is there anything you would do to help those in poverty now, or to decrease poverty in the long term?
If you had read my post, you would have seen my solutions.
The only ones that have ever worked.
Teach people to not do the things that make them poor.
“Teach people to not do the things that make them poor.”
Wow, it’s that simple? Why didn’t I think of that? Does that include teaching people not to grow up in poor neighborhoods with inadequate schools? Silly kids – what are they thinking? And how foolish is it to get a job that pays $10/hr rather than hold out for the one that pays $50,000/yr with paid vacation, health insurance and a 401K?! Of course, you’d have to teach minorities not to be victims of prejudice, which could get a bit tricky.
Once again, Mark has shown himself an intellectual giant.
It looks like the Left Coast is doing a worse job than the Flyover States.
I doubt that the activists are actually sustaining what they are working against. More likely they are just ineffective. Most of the solutions the left push boil down to more socialism, and that’s never made anything better.
Hanlon’s razor – Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
~¿~
“Why is this?”
Johanus, it was a half century ago (circa 1970) when the unemployment rate was low that we we experienced a modest uptik in inflation. The economic poobahs from then on decided that low unemployment was an unworthy trade off for high inflation. So, they adopted monetary policy to deliberately keep the unemployment rate high at no less than 5% (in later years 4% under greenspan). Their thinking was that this will keep money out of poor people’s hands thus curbing demand inflation along with inflation caused by higher wages. Their “cure” was actually worse than the “disease”. In essence, they were making people so poor that they couldn’t even afford cheaper prices. People often talk about the stagnation in wage growth since the 1970s. In the decades leading up to the 1970s, “real (inflation adjusted) wages” grew. Since then, real wages have stagnated. One would think that monetary policy of creating high unemployment with its accompanying stagnant wages has something to do with it…
*the nice thing about monetary policy, as opposed to climate change, is that the people running the show tell us exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. (unlike gaia who leaves us all guessing) We can all sit around debating whether or not federal reserve policy is wise, but there is no debate as to what they’re doing…
fonzie, your paranoia is pretty ugly.
If you think the inflation rate in the 1970’s were low you weren’t alive than, and have been lied to.
If you think the poor aren’t hurt by inflation, you don’t know anything.
There is not and never has been such a thing as demand inflation. It’s impossible. If one item goes up in price, then the demand for other items drops, and their price goes down.
It doesn’t matter what the product is. Increased prices in one area always mean lower prices elsewhere. The ONLY way to get over all inflation is to inflate the money supply, and you control that via interest rates. The federal reserve either buys or sells US Treasuries.
The “war on poverty” failed because activists wanted to keep their jobs??? Interesting theory, nice way to blame those who care for the problems they care about. I suppose they’d have to try to be content in a perfect world.
How about another hypothesis – America’s wealth is accruing in hands of the wealthiest? Just an idea. At least there’s evidence for it.
“CEOs in 1965 made 24 times more than the average production worker, whereas in 2009 they made 185 times more.”
“Income inequality in the United States, measured by the standard Gini coefficient, is substantially higher than that of almost any other developed nation, and even some developing countries such as Russia and India. Income inequality in the United States, measured by the standard Gini coefficient, is substantially higher than that of almost any other developed nation, and even some developing countries such as Russia and India. ”
So it doesn’t matter how much money the poor have, if the rich have more?
BTW, around the world and across history, the ratio is pretty stable. The bigger government gets, the bigger the divide between rich and poor.
Non-fossil, which includes all renewables, went from ~ 37% to 36% over 20 years. If only some of the ENGO money spent on propaganda had been spent on subsidising yet more renewables! Me being silly. The reason so much is spent subsiding renewables is because of all the money first spent on propaganda.
Global coal production peaked in 2013 so far, four years ago.
http://www.iea.org/newsroom/energysnapshots/170808TotalCoalProduction.png
This is despite not being in a global crisis and having plenty of coal. I guess it is peak demand.
Demand didn’t “peak” in 2013… Consumption continued to rise…
Not according to BP.
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/images/energy-economics/svg/coal-consumption-by-region-stsr-bp.svg
“free-fall”
eh?
In my mind a free-fall evokes something like an unimpeded precipitous vertical fall through the air. A gentle decline is what the image graph shows instead, and the ‘recovery’ uptick, is also a gentle minor fractional percentage rise. Such drama.
Not my language, but BP’s. They are mainly a fossil fuel company. The question is that absolutely nobody anticipated a decline in coal production from 2013 to 2017.
Coal is not so fashionable these days. There is plenty but many countries don’t want to burn it.
I’m guessing freezing/frying in thedark has perhaps become less fashionable too, which would be good for coal.
So you are using the language of coals competitors in order to determine the health of the coal industry.
Interesting.
Some countries don’t want to burn coal because they have bought into the global warming nonsense.
The rest of the world is building coal fired plants as fast as they can find the money to do so.
Not that it matters, but who was in the White House in 2013?
Wait… didn’t ALL production decline over the last few years. The world economy itself went through a small decline.
~¿~
Nope. Oil and gas production have increased since 2013. The reduction was specific for coal.
It would seem that consumption is tied directly to economic health, eh?
Demand for coal dropped when nat gas prices fell. However, in the real world every action causes a reaction.
As nat gas prices fell, the demand for it went up, which is causing it’s price to rise.
As demand for coal fell, so did it’s price, which is causing demand for coal to pick back up.
Good explanation but it is not correct. Both coal and gas prices fell from 2013 to 2016, and increased from 2016 to 2017.
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal/coal-prices.html
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/natural-gas/natural-gas-prices.html
Natural gas “prices” skyrocketed from 2000-2009, which improved the economics of both coal and natural gas…
This led to a flurry a drilling activity in the oil & gas industry and some very expensive M&A activities in the coal industry… Everyone took on a lot of debt to fund growth.
The combination of the financial collapse and subsequent no-growth economy coupled with an over-supply of natural gas due to the shale boom caused a collapse in natural gas prices. When natural gas is below $2.50/mcf coal is noncompetitive. Most of the shale plays are barely economic at $2.50/mcf. By “barely economic,” I mean one step ahead of insolvency. At less than $2.50/mcf, most coal companies are one step behind isolvency.
The “death blow” to coal occurred in 2009, when natural gas prices collapsed:
However, at prices above $3.00/mcf. coal becomes increasingly profitable. And natural gas prices have been bouncing between $2.50 and $4.00/mcf recently…
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdA.htm
In the Energy Information Administration’s reference case, natural gas prices are forecast to rise to about $4.50/mcf by 2020 and climb above $5.00/mcf by 2030. Coal is extremely competitive with natural gas in EIA’s reference case. It’s even competitive in the “high oil and gas resource technology” scenario.
To paraphrase Samuel Clemens: “The reports of coal’s death are greatly exaggerated.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/22/the-answer-to-whats-actually-killing-coal-isnt-even-wrong/
“In the Energy Information Administration’s reference case, natural gas prices are forecast to rise to about $4.50/mcf by 2020 and climb above $5.00/mcf by 2030. ”
How much will the price of the sunshine rise?
It will always be orders of magnitude more expensive than coal, and far more environmentally destructive to make solar panels compared with mining coal.
To say nothing of the appalling environmental costs of wind turbines.
Fossil fuels are superior in every possible way, to include greening the Earth.
David, the decline in coal has been global, and specific for coal. US specific factors can’t explain it, and global economic factors can’t explain it. The explanation must be complex, but in my opinion among other factors it must involve a specific reduction in coal by part of the World due to energy transition concerns, plus a big reduction in coal use by China due to air quality concerns.
If coal is considered less desirable by most of the world it could lead to stagnation or decrease in coal production as it is substituted by other sources of energy.
Coal consumption in the Asia/Pacific region hit a record high in 2017…
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2018-coal.pdf
The Asia/Pacific region accounts for 75% of global demand.
and australia provides 33% of global exports of coal.
while, out of the other side of their mouths…
I am not disputing the data, David. Asia/Pacific is 75% of the demand, but China is 68% of Asia/Pacific (50% of the world), and due to China’s 4% decrease in the last 4 years, the entire region only increased by 1.2% in 4 years, being unable to compensate decreases elsewhere.
All of this about global coal consumption is fine. But here in the US the average age of coal fired stations continues to climb. As of August of 2017 the median age of all operating coal fired utility units was 52 years. The preponderance of generating capacity by US coal fired units came online between 1955 and 1984.
And the cororally to that, how many wind farms and solar installations will still be operating after 52 years?
…close to 0 large scale wind and solar in 20 years.
and a public crisis over who pays to remove them.
And where do the too expensive to recycle economically composite blades and housings get dumped? Africa? The masts are recyclable or even possibly reusable as are the actual mechanical portions of the transmission and generating components. But then you still have the deep steel reinforced concrete foundations which I suspect will be demolished to 3′ feet or so below grade and covered up.
Then there are the problems with toxicity of certain components of solar panels.
. . . and a public crisis over who pays” for the removal and clean-up of these blights will again be the order of the day. They will be left just like the chemical, lumber, mining industries left the majority of their superfund sites that have yet to be cleaned up and made safe. Best part of all this pristine environmental energy is that you can’t–won’t be able to–give away the land these bird blenders and bug fryers are sitting on.
And I have a sixty year old axe, I’ve only replaced the head three times and the shaft twice
Another characteristic of religious folly:
Tremendous obsession over some tenet of the faith that actually makes no difference whatsoever.
The “climate concerned” obsession on coal is a case in point.
The objective of the “climate concerned” has been to raise the fraction of renewables. That is what the Paris etc agreements were about. And that is succeeding very well, with continued exponential growth. I’m sure that many would prefer that coal went down relative to gas, say. But that is not the primary aim.
Wrong. The objective of the “climate concerned” is the transfer of wealth and power, from advanced, primarily Western and European countries to developing and poor nations. That is what the so-called “Paris Agreement” was all about, and that is why Trump’s refusal to participate in that chicanery has driven the Greenie goombahs and socialist sociopaths bonkers.
>That [raise the fraction of renewables] is what the Paris etc agreements were about.
The [Paris agreement][1] is not about increasing renewables specifically. It is about mitigating and adapting to climate change, in part by reducing GHGs, which is not at all the same as increasing renewables.
“Renewable” is mentioned twice on the Paris Agreement summary page. Once reporting on IPPC work and once in this paragraph:
> > Mitigation measures are translated in, for example, an increased use of renewable energy, the application of new technologies such as electric cars, or changes in practices or behaviours, such as driving less or changing one’s diet. Futher, they include expanding forests and other sinks to remove greater amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, or simply making improvements to a cookstove design.
[1] : http://bigpicture.unfccc.int/#content-the-paris-agreemen “Summary of the Paris Agreement”
Green Climate Fund, established by the Paris agreement has nothing to do with wind mills in the USA.
“GCF was established by 194 governments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions in DEVELOPING countries, and to help adapt vulnerable societies to the unavoidable impacts of climate change” [bold mine].
https://www.greenclimate.fund/home
Eventually government will run out of other people’s money, and the percentage of renewables will plummet as the subsidies end.
MarkW
As they are.
“to raise the fraction of renewables. That is what the Paris etc agreements were about.”
nope………
“(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”
“Raising the fraction of renewable sources without lowering the fraction of fossil fuels does absolutely nothing.”
The fractions have to add to 1.
It seems to me that skeptics are at least as obsessed about coal. I find it rather strange. Personally, I’m not against replacing some coal-fired plants with new coal-fired plants that are efficient and use the best technologies for emission minimization. It depends on the situation, what’s best for the community, and what they want. I subscribe to a “solar garden,” and if enough people have the opportunity to do that, the demand for new coal plants will decrease naturally. Utilities sometimes provide options for buying power from renewables. There is a market for it. Some people are ready to pay extra, making a financial sacrifice for the sake of slowing climate change. It’s handled differently elsewhere, I guess. I understand there have been subsidies, but that’s hardly unusual.
I think buying electricity from renewables is a gimmick. There is no way to separate out the electricity produced by renewables from that produced from coal, natural gas and nuclear.
Now if buying electricity from renewables was at a lower cost than not, then it would be worth doing whether it was a gimmick or not. 🙂
But I suspect one has to pay a premium for renewables, although I have no experience with it one way or the other.
“There is no way to separate out the electricity produced by renewables from that produced from coal, natural gas and nuclear.”
Meters. Or am I misunderstanding something?
Premiums: It depends on the deal made with the solar provider. My “downside” is that I had to sign a contract for the next 20 years, although I can get out of it if someone else is available to take over my share. They have to cover their investment. The benefit is that I know how much I will pay – the annual increase is 2.5%. This could end up being more than other fuels if their price goes down. Last month I had a credit from my regular electricity provider – evidently the solar garden produced more than the demand, and sold the extra to Xcel.
Hmmm…. the power station north of the state line had stacks that were visible for miles, emitting a lot of steam from coal power generation. It was built in the early 1980s. It was shuttered recently and has been replaced by a natural gas-fired power station, because natural gas is cheaper.
I don’t get any electricity from that company, but the local power station that does supply my little house with electricity has also switched to natural gas because it is cheaper. My electric bill has dropped by about $15/month since I got that notice, so there is something to be said for using a lower cost item to do the job.
The same company also has several nuclear reactors in the state, which supply power to many communities and homes in farmland. As long as the reactor plants are run properly, there should be no issues. It’s the disposal of exhausted fuel rods that is a real issue. The irrational fear of radioactive stuff was not helped at all by the 1997 Chernobyl meltdown or the quake-related damage to the Fukushima reactor.
Solar and wind energy may be fine for individual use, but on a large scale basis they do not seem to work at all. Period.
I would prefer the nuke solution myself, or (if they ever become available) the molten salt reactors, but when bad things happen they scare the uninformed and timid to pieces, and that is the real problem. The general public wants its electricity unimpaired. They just don’t want to know where it comes from or what the “bad stuff” about it may be, e.g., Chernobyl and that old chestnut, Three Mile Island.
One of the reasons they shut down coal fired units that still have a considerable service life is the source of coal. The stations require a good source of water and fuel. Many coal fired stations in states with coal mines were built close to the mines that supply the coal. But with new air quality regulations the plants near coal sources that produce high sulfur coal lost their cost effective coal supply and had to import low sulfur coal from sources further away. Stations that are not on or near navigable rivers have to have the coal brought in by train or in a few cases truck and are most effected by the transport costs of their coal fuel.
Some of the coal fired units using the old C&E Raymond coal mill exhausters and wet wall boilers have been converted to use NG.
(Chernobyl was in 1986)…
Chernobyl was a design that was rejected in the west because of it’s instability.
The Soviets also saved money by not building a containment dome, something mandatory in the west.
The Soviets also decided to run a test that pushed the reactor close to it’s unstable region. Unfortunately, during the test they got too close to the unstable region and the reactor ran away faster then they could shut it down.
Even with all that, only a few dozen died.
Sara
Nuclear has by far and away a better global (and local) safety record than any other energy production, direct or indirect.
And that includes Chernobyl, Three mile Island and Fukishima.
“The irrational fear of radioactive stuff was not helped at all by the 1997 Chernobyl meltdown or the quake-related damage to the Fukushima reactor.”
They made it seem not so irrational.
So the fact that cars sometimes crash means that an irrational fear of cars is not irrational?
It’s irrational to fear something that is safer than every other form of power. Pointing to an occasional accident doesn’t justify irrational fear.
As the Climate Campaign falters, then fails in the next few years, watch as the use of bamboozables declines.
Heh – I started reading this article on CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage), noticed it was written 2015 (https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sustainx-to-merge-with-general-compression-abandon-above-ground-caes-ambiti). Went through the companies listed and kept hitting closure/mergers/bankruptcy on all the follow thru links. Another fantastic idea, backed by green multi million mega bucks and designed by supposedly top flight engineers which went south, very quickly.
The one thing missing in the renewable’s share of future energy production is the relatively short lifespan of the wind turbines and solar panels. In 2040 a lot of the units installed in 2018 will be or are at the end of their life and will need replacing.
I’m guessing a lot of the wind turbines will just be scrapped in the lower latitudes. Solar hopefully will have advanced to where the panels are much more efficient than those we have currently. Also metal-air batteries or another technology will be developed to actually provide enough storage to allow consistent power to the grid although it will be hard to envision fossil fuels to be eliminated entirely.
Then we have nuclear where a lot can happen in 20 years given the chance. The projections are nice to look at but really won’t represent where we will be.
rbabcock
I’ll wager we won’t be too much further on than we are now in 20 years time, other than energy costs to consumers will be prohibitively high.
The green blob is far from dead, and their legacy will endure.
Resistance to progress will come from the left. Badly needed nuclear energy across the globe is resisted by these anti human Luddites. If we started planning nuclear power production today we would start building the facilities in 20 years time, at best.
It’s said that we learn from our mistakes. We recognised in centuries past that wind power was ineffective. We discovered fossil fuel which usurped it, then we moved onto the state of the art, nuclear energy.
Our green socialist colleagues somehow imagine that taking a step back in our energy development, is somehow a step forward.
Personally, I would far rather that the money spunked on an ancient, demonstrably inefficient source of energy, were spent on nuclear fusion. Even if it failed, we would still have fission, and far more advanced fission energy than we have judging by the money wasted on renewables.
However, I believe the current renewables madness will go the way of its ancestors and we will be forced to move on to more technically advanced means of energy production.
Humankind rarely responds to anything, more efficiently than when faced with a genuine crisis.
We’re not even close that that yet.
Worst comes to the worst, the world will build nuclear power stations, greens be damned. And greens will be damned because there will be no alternative.
Not if, but when.
Problem solved.
According to a July 1, 2017 New York Times article, there are 1,600 coal power plants either being built or planned to be built, in 62 countries. (Those 62 countries all signed the Paris accord, pretending to promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. )
The crusade has transferred power and wealth to its leaders, and emotional satisfaction to its followers, so in that way it has been a success.
The only thing the climate fraud gang has succeeded in accomplishing is too extract billions of dollars from the world economy filling the pockets of the climate change criminals. A lynch mob would be an appropriate way to deal with the evil buggers.
Ralph Knapp
“The only thing the climate fraud gang has succeeded in accomplishing is too extract billions of dollars from the world economy filling the pockets of the climate change criminals.”
That would be the Club of Rome members.
All of these graphic projections make assumptions regarding issues such as prices, regulations, subsidies, etc which can and do change. Last I heard we have enough clean coal right here in WY to serve the electrical needs of the US for a few hundred years at present useage levels. When some of the above mentioned factors change, and they will, coal will come back even more than it already has. Add to that, if we can get a port and get rid of some of the ridiculous regulaions on transporting coal, export will go up. Not to dis gas, as we have quite a bit of that too, but our coal is just buried treasure waiting to be rediscovered to the benefit of all.
I suggest that many more people visit the EIA website before saying things like “few hundred years.” Please take some time to get some facts about energy reserves of all sorts. And about assumptions on rate of use.
John….EIA says “Based on U.S. coal production in 2016 of about 0.73 billion short tons, the recoverable coal reserves would last about 348 years”
Problem is these projections are based upon the reserves they know of and opinions of where the potential for more exist. In 1965, in my Nuclear Engineering class the text claimed that we had to switch to Nuclear as there was only 100 years of Fossil fuel left on the earth. Seems like every few years there is another news headline describing how a coal, oil, NG, whatever, source was discovered X times larger than the largest working source or any previous finding. The Peak Fossil Meme is just like the Fusion Meme in that since the 60’s I have been told Fusion Power is going to be operational in 10 more years.
usurbrain
A genuine question.
Do you think fusion power would be any closer were the amount of money devoted to renewables be directed to fusion instead?
Coal, its whats for energy. Here in western PA coal mining companies are hiring every day. And gas pipeline contractors are replacing old, leaky gas lines at a rate comparable to the new lines they are installing, and both are competing for new hires. Wow, is there nothing DJT can’t make better?!?! 😉
I just finished a post on what garbage data and conclusion on which Climate Science is based. I’ll have to work this post into it somehow.
WUWT Readers may find the following article interesting.
The Winning Strategy to Defeating Climate Sophist Michael Mann
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/
CO2isLife,
In your essay you say, “3. The LWIR absorption of CO2 shows a logarithmic decay.” I’d suggest “3. The LWIR absorption of CO2 show a logarithmic diminishing effect.” That is, the supposed increase in temperature varies linearly with the logarithm of the CO2 concentration, leading to decreasing effectiveness with increasing CO2 concentration.
Calling this a failure means that you consider the purpose of eco politics to be a reduction in carbon emissions.
There is as little real evidence to support that thesis as there is to suppose that carbon emissions are actually harmful.
It means we’re winning.
It may not be their main goal(who knows what the greenie socialists really want?) but every greenie wishes that CO2 gets reduced and that coal dies a fiery death. Actually I shouldnt call them greenies cause they want to kill plants by reducing CO2.
Which sort of greenies? The numpty’s that actually believe all this, or the political and industrial cronies who see it merely as a route to power and profit?
Al Gore
Michael Mann
Dong energy
Elon Musk
I mean really do you think they actually believe this trash?
This is just the beginning of the Total Failure. Wait for the effects caused by the shifts to renewable to hit your pocket book. China is building more Coal Plants a year than we have shut down in the last ten years and they will continue this for another decade. Many states are pushing, aimlessly for “100% Renewable,” like Massachusetts, forcing Nuclear power plants to shut down which negates all reduction in CO2 levels from the shifts to Renewables. Worse they do not realize they are making things worse and continue their blind pursuit of a lost cause.
usurbrain
My home, Scotland, is on an insane, suicidal path to 100% renewables.
A few hundred years ago they were bailed out of national bankruptcy by England because of an equally risky mission to gamble on their future.
England extracted a disproportionate price for their intervention.
The same is about to happen again.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2017/jan/19/carbon-countdown-clock-how-much-of-the-worlds-carbon-budget-have-we-spent
I love watching this clock. The plants love it too. There are actually 4 clocks. The one on the right is pretty well bogus but the one on the left is great. The two % bars are bogus as well. The clock below them is the total emissions since you clicked on the page. Also there is a clock below that. It is the countdown clock to greenie disaster. Gotta love it . The greenies always make disaster predictions which actually turn out disastrous in that they are always so wrong. So this bottom clock gives us 18 years and ~200 days
until we exceed the IPCC 2C carbon budget. Love it Love spending the IPCC carbon budget. So with this new time limit it looks like the debate will go on another 18 years. Will the world come to an end after this 18 year time period. OOOOOOh I’m shaking in fear in my boots.:)
The 1st clock shows me that we are increasing CO2 emissions world wide which is what needs to keep happening .The reason that I got sick of watching the Bloomberg carbon clock was that it declines for a couple months because of photosynthesis and in the end it is the planet that decides how much CO2 remains in the air not us. The more accurate clock is this Guardian clock because it is the actual worldwide CO2 emissions (calculated of course from other sources). The dispute over global warming has to revolve around actual CO2 emissions. If the emissions keep going up no matter what the temperature does, then the greenies are a failure. So far except for the period 2014 to 2016 the CO2 emissions have gone up every year. China and India are leading the way on increasing world share of CO2 emissions. Love it. Keep emitting fellas.
What we need is a cuckoo clock. My guess is we are about two minutes to midnight, and complete catastrophic cuckoomageddon.
Cuckoomageddon starts on January 1, 2019 in Canada. See my post below about what Trudeau is going to do.
Isn’t it interesting that the alarmists always seem to come up with another doomsday time limit date that extends the debate another ~20 years or so that is just far enough in the future that by the time it happens we will all have forgotten the disaster prediction? Governor Jerry Brown of California said 2 months ago that 3 billion people would die from overheating but he didnt put a time limit on it. Where is Bill Nye when we need him? Damn.
Alan, I’ll see your time limit…and raise you a science limit
..every day their science changes
Alan Tomalty
What Governor Brown fails to mention is that people are dying in the developing world 120,000,000 (WHO*) by 2050, from inhaling fumes from burning wood to cook and heat with. That’s 32 years away.
Seven people per minute, most of them children.
I wonder how Governor Brown would feel were we to pile up the bodies of the children in his grand garden at that rate.
*World Health Organisation.
A more comprehensive measure is Global Primary Energy – not just Electrical Power Generation.
Fossil fuels still provide 85% of Global Primary Energy, whereas Hydro is 7% and Nuclear has dropped to 4%. This “Conventional Power Generation“ totals 96%, and Renewables have increased to 4%.
Despite tens of trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies, Renewables still provide only 4% of global primary energy, and CO2 emissions have INCREASED in the countries that have introduced the most Renewables. This is because Renewables are not green and do not produce much useful (dispatchable) energy. Renewables are too intermittent and require almost 100% spinning reserve (backup) of Conventional Power Generation to fill-in when the wind does not blow or the Sun does not shine.
This “4% Renewables” would drop to near-zero if our idiot politicians did not force renewables into the grid ahead of useful, dispatchable power – this is another huge hidden subsidy for Renewables. Grid-connected wind and solar power are harmful, because they drive up energy costs AND also seriously destabilize the grid. South Australia has experienced two long outages caused by wind power.
In Alberta, our imbecilic politicians are phasing out our coal plants, and replacing them with natural gas-fired units. While gas-fired power plants are much better than wind power, our energy prices are going to increase sharply and become more volatile in the future, because gas prices are at historic lows and will almost certainly increase.
The NDP’s argument against Alberta coal is “air pollution” – but ALL our coal-fired plants have pollutions controls and all air pollutants from all these coal plants equal ~1/1000 of the air pollution we experience each year from forest fires. All we have to do is prevent ONE forest fire, and we can keep our coal plants and keep our electrical power costs very low.
The NDP also believe that CO2, essential for all plant and crop growth, is a pollutant. It is not, and it is not causing dangerous global warming. That falsehood is popular among the uneducated and green extremists. The only measurable impact of increased atmospheric CO2 is significantly increased plant and crop yields.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1710798208997734&set=pcb.1710800675664154&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1710798512331037&set=pcb.1710800675664154&type=3&theater
January 1, 2019 PM Trudeau will force through a carbon tax on all of Canada. Read below
Standards, subsidies and taxes. The bane of the free market. Standards should only be used to prevent injuries or bad health effects. Subsidies should only be used to prop up a company that produces a domestic product that is key to national security. Taxes should only be used as a government income source. Too often however the government uses standards to interfere in the life of all its citizens. At the same time governments subsidize almost everything. Taxes are collected for all sorts of reasons. Ex: liquor and tobacco taxes, estate or inheritance taxes, gift taxes, company asset taxes, and carbon taxes.
It is this last one that irks me the most. Carbon taxes are ridiculous. One of 3 things can happen. 1) The company can refuse to pay them and move out of the country or threaten to move out before they are enacted. In this case everybody loses. 2) The company can pay them and then raise their prices so that with business as usual no emission reduction of CO2 occurs. In this case only the company loses if it also exports its product. The consumers don’t lose because the carbon taxes are supposed to be given back to the public at large. However the general price level of all carbon related goods goes up so that inflation goes up. However since no decrease in CO2 emissions occurs, there was no reason to have the tax in the 1st place. 3) The company can change its source of fuel to a lower carbon entity at a higher cost and pass on its necessary price increase to its customers. The customers have no choice because all the competitors have to do the same thing. In that case there is a reduction in CO2 emissions but since the atmosphere needs more CO2 NOT less, everybody loses.
It is this third scenario that factors into my main point. Even if you believe in AGW(human caused global warming/climate change) , here are the stark facts of trying to do anything about it. PM Trudeau in Canada plans on introducing a tax on the emission of CO2 and all greenhouse gases except water vapour, starting January 1, 2019.
Canada puts out 1.5 % of world total of CO2 and has not had any increases for 11 years.. China puts out 31% of the world total and increased their output 4.1% in 2017 and is on track for an equal 4% increase after the 1st quarter of 2018.
In 1991 Norway was the 1st country along with Sweden to introduce a carbon tax, and they have found that their tax was responsible for reducing their increases of emissions by only 2.32% compared to a 0 rate on carbon. However Norway’s CO2 emissions still went up. To top it all off Norway found that the carbon taxes reduced their GDP by 0.06%.
In the Norwegian scheme there were so many exemptions that the effective coverage of the carbon taxes was only 64% of industrial production. The Norwegian price for carbon is around $25 Can per ton. Trudeau has promised to introduce Canada’s carbon tax at $10 per ton in 2019 and increase it $10 per ton every year until $50 per ton by the end of 2023. However the differing prices between Norway and Canada will not have any significant effect on the results because there is very little opportunity for any company in Canada in at least 7 of the provinces, to switch to a non CO2 producing fuel because those 7(except Manitoba,B.C. and Quebec) do not have significant hydro power; so the companies will simply pay the tax to stay in business. Theoretically this should not amount to any significant reduction in CO2 because Canada is different from Norway in a fundamental way. In Norway any firm has access to hydro elecricity.
However we will take Trudeau’s word for it and assume that all 75% of planned reduction of Canada’s contribution to the 2030 targets will be met. Ireland achieved a decrease in emissions after 4 straight years of increased emissions despite a carbon tax. British Columbia despite having a carbon tax since 2008 has not achieved any decrease in CO2 emissions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that that the average climate computer model forecasts an increase in temperature of 3C by the end of the century (82 years from now) if the world doesn’t reduce its carbon footprint. The said reduction of temperature goal is 1.5 C by end of century in order to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C.
Canada has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions per Paris agreement by 2030 of 33%. 33% of 1.5 % = 0.5% of world total
In the 1st phase of reductions which will culminate by 2023, if all 75% of the planned CO2 emissions are met ; this will reduce our greenhouse gas footprint by 75% of 33% = 24.75% with the other 25% of 33% = 8.25% being part of a revised carbon pricing scheme between 2023 and 2030.
75% = 0.75 and 0.5% = .005
So you have 0.75 * .005 = 0.00375 Don’t forget that carbon trading and a carbon price dont actually guarantee that any reductions will ever occur.
But if the promised reductions do occur then you multiply by goal of 1.5C so that you have 0.00375 * 1.5 = 0.005625 C
That is a reduction of a little over 5 thousandths of a degree C at the end of the next 82 years. Whether Canada will do any better is a function of how many exemptions and what discount carbon tax %’s are actually determined for each specific industry. Even so since this is the 1st phase only, Canada’s goal in this phase is to cut 75% of a third of its emissions which = 24% . There is a big difference between Norway’s result of 2.32 % reduction and Canada’s goal of 24%. However Canada’s emissions have been flat since 2007.
Since China’s increase last year as per the above is .3 * .041 = 0.0123 or 1.23% of world total
Canada’s reduction will be .75 * .005 = 0.00375
That means China’s increase for 1 year is 0.0123/ 0.00375 = 3.28 times the amount of Canada’s reduction for each year if the emissions go lower in Canada to the same degree as the increased price effect after 5 years. Dont forget that Canada’s reduction is only at a maximum effect by 2022 because of the increasing price of $10 per ton per year. In the 1st year 2019 or any other year, the reduction could be the whole amount or any amount depending on how many firms simply pay the tax vs the number that switch to a non carbon or lower carbon fuel source. China has refused to decrease its output and only promised to try to limit their increases by 2030. China is not a developing country because it has 45% of the world’s skyscrapers.
What will all of this cost Canada?
Price of carbon by 2022 will be $50 per ton by 2022 and at 700 million tons = 35 billion $ Can. However since the carbon tax will start in 2019 at $10 per ton, the yearly taxes will be assuming no exemptions 2019= 700 m * $10 = $7 billion 2020= 700m * $20 = $14 billion 2021 = 700m * $30 = $21 billion 2022= 700m * $40 = $28 billion 2023 = 700m * $50 = $35 billion So total cost over 5 year period is $112 billion and assuming no other increases the yearly rate will remain at $35 billion per year indefinitely. Of course all this assumes that 100% of the emmissions will be covered. If as in Norway, only about 2/3 of industry is covered by the the new tax, then take 1/3 off of these figures which will then be a total of $74 billion over the next 5 years instead of the $112 billion that I stated above. However if Trudeau does exempt 1/3 of the emmissions either because the companies are individually not emitting much or they are key industries; that will reduce the actual temperature reduction to 0.00375 C
So we are going to have to either tax $74 billion or have the companies spend more to switch to a lower carbon fuel, to save 3 thousandths of 1 degree C. The stupid part is that the higher the actual tax collected the more carbon dioxide emmissions occur and the less the temperature gets reduced. So in the end , part of industry will pay the tax and the rest will switch to a lower carbon source. Either way it raises inflation on all carbon source industries which then insidiously seeps into the country.
This will still leave Canada short 66 million tons of its Paris commitment to cut by 2030 and Trudeau has said that Canada will meet its commitment by 2030.
What will this cost each household in Canada?
Minimum of $1100 Can and maximum of $2500 Can depending on whether they live in a hydro province or not. Also most provinces have promised to rebate all the money back to consumers. Well what is wrong if we get all our money back anyway, you ask? Well, 5 things are wrong. 1) You have created a federal carbon tax bureaucracy which will never go away. 2) the carbon part of the economy will have been price inflated, thus inflating the whole economy 3) you have given free money to those people that were not using carbon based sources of energy because when you give the money back you have to give it to everybody. 4) extra costs for each company affected in accounting for the taxes or in switching to a new fuel. 5) If the company is an exporter the export price will either have to be raised or a new government subsidy created to cover the company’s extra export price. The other huge consideration is that since the global warming/climate change subject is a big hoax anyway, the whole exercise will have been a worse than useless activity.
THIS IS ABSOLUTE MADNESS.
My bet is your heir to the Castro kegacy is out of power before January 2019.
Allan,
In your opinion, how much further forward do you believe we would be in the pursuit of nuclear fusion had the money devoted to renewables been spent on it instead?
HotScot asked:
“how much further forward do you believe we would be in the pursuit of nuclear fusion had the money devoted to renewables been spent on it instead?”
Not my areas of expertise, my friend, but tens of trillions of dollars have been squandered on worse-than-useless “green energy” schemes over the past few decades.
Let’s guess at >20 trillion dollars and >20 years wasted on green nonsense – probably enough money and time to have built a pilot-scale or a small-commercial-scale thorium reactor and have a decade of operating experience, which (with success) would provide enough data for scale-up to full-scale operating thorium reactors. Just my guess, in answer to your very good question.
My relevant experience is that I used to oversee (for the owners) the one of the largest non-government R&D organizations in Canada. We looked at very-large-scale processes and took some of them from bench-scale to pilot-scale to full commercial operation – it takes money AND time.
Others who have actual R&D experience with nukes are welcome to provide a better answer.
Allan
My guess from this is, we could already have thorium reactors already up and running in a number of designs had renewables money been spent on it instead. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx
Then there’s Lockheed Martin https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html
And I know fusion has been 20 years away for generations, but we have never had the access to the technology and communications we have today.
I wish people would quit using stacked graphs. The visual system is very good at edges and spacial frequencies. It’s pretty terrible trying to spot differences in angles between lines, especially when they don’t have a common point. It makes for a very ungrapic “graph”.
It’s also not clear what the units are for the three colors, or are they the actual units for all three fuels? with oil the lowest, nat gas in the middle and coal growing from parity to nearly double each of the others.
philo
Graphs, charts and tables should be banned altogether!
The less informed of us don’t get them.
That’s why sceptical scientists are struggling in the debate over the climate.
The alarmists use sound bites, we use graphs.
Which do we imagine the public respond to?
Which part of this graph is difficult to understand?
David
With the greatest of respect, you are mathematically and scientifically literate. I’m anything but.
Your graph is as clear as mud unless one understands the implications behind it, it’s a pretty picture, which is why these type of things tend to get distorted by out of context presentations in the MSM.
Now, I do get the implications because I have been haunting the corridors of WUWT for a few years and benefited from the articles, discussions and debates and my consequent low level education in the subject. Low level only because much of the the science is beyond me. In other words I don’t have the education to even ask the right questions.
Scientists form a small percentage of the population, even of western countries. I guess, more than 80% of us are stumbling through life (someone on here responded to this with the figure 99% or so) with little more than a secondary education. Graphs and tables are the stuff of schoolroom nightmares, delivered by stuffy old men in suits, to a class obsessed with birds, booze and cars……well, at least in my day.
My point is that whilst WUWT is a scientific blog, and I entirely respect that, the majority on here are educated and arguing amongst themselves, the educated minority of society. They are preaching to the converted or, to the occasional alarmist who is never going to have his/her mind changed. Nor are we sceptics, by them.
The well educated have but one vote in democratic societies, just like uneducated laymen like me. Therefore, speaking the language of science misses the vast majority of voters who will sway the debate.
I refer you to the recent, beautifully written letter to the Geological Society; almost conversational, simple and logical. It focuses on a handful of memorable issues anyone can understand, and not a graph or table in sight. It’s the type of thing many of us 80% would read and actually make us think, especially the interested fence sitters.
Perhaps there is a non scientific, well presented, well populated blog out there that addresses the need for simple, clear public communication. I haven’t’ found it though. Bearing in mind, journalists are invariably out their depth and alarmists have successfully engaged them by crafting memorable messages and sound bites.
“The Antarctic is melting!”…..well of course it effing is, on the Eastern side, it’s an ice cube in a warm sea with 90 volcano’s under it! But do we hear “The Antarctic is growing!”…….on the Western side of course, other than in a recent paper that will be buried under all the negative hype because it’s retained by the scientific community and not functionally interpreted as a press release for consumption by the journalists, for the public.
Ken Hapalla’s excellent regular roundup is written fairly clearly for people but, naturally links to list’s of scientific papers, Judith Curry is the same, as is the GWPF.
Eighty per cent of the democratic world is crying out to be convinced AGW is a scam, but they don’t do science. Everyone in the world is, however, a political expert, by the nature of the beast, no qualifications are required to become POTUS or PM.
That’s precisely why the alarmists have been successful. They have captured the imagination of the 80%+ with PR interpretations of science, which rarely reflects the true science, nor even the parts they are based on. I read the alarmist’s clarion, the Guardian, with it’s latest scare story, toddle along to WUWT and find out that even the author of the paper it’s based on doesn’t support what they are saying.
Try the ‘Guardians Comment is Free’ section (CIF) if you haven’t already. Seek out RockyRex, a former schoolteacher, evidently a moderator, and revered sage, who regurgitates the nonsense spouted by alarmist’s. I would love to see him take you on! My account was eventually deleted as I was beginning to challenge him with the knowledge I gained on here.
How can this, from Tyndall himself possibly be distorted to present CO2 as a global evil!?:
“He [Tyndall] concluded that water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature. Absorption by the other gases is not negligible but relatively small. Prior to Tyndall it was widely surmised that the Earth’s atmosphere has a Greenhouse Effect, but he was the first to prove it. The proof was that water vapour strongly absorbed infrared radiation………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall
(I don’t like using Wikipedia normally, but this is a direct link from the Royal Societies web page on Tyndall. http://www.rigb.org/our-history/iconic-objects/iconic-objects-list/tyndall-radiant-heat)
By the age old MSM trick of cherry picking and exaggerating, that’s how. With barely a graph in sight, unless it’s also cherry picked, out of context, and misrepresented, but that’s journalism for you.
There’s nothing to this the sceptical community can’t do.
David
“By the age old MSM trick of cherry picking and exaggerating, that’s how. With barely a graph in sight, unless it’s also cherry picked, out of context, and misrepresented, but that’s journalism for you.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/18/is-climate-change-killing-the-baobabs-nope/
I rest my case M’lud.
I wish there was some other term than lefties to describe the political tendencies of the liberal. I am left handed and have to keep reminding my self that you are not talking about me.
My own personal thoughts on energy production is that we really need to build more nuclear fission plants. I also would like to see the use of Thorium based fission with a “tabletop” fusion generator based on the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor design that would provide fast neutron bombardment that is easily controlled by adjusting a voltage.
Our current Uranium/Plutonium breeder reactor designs were meant to provide usable material for constructing nuclear weapons and were not really focused on electricity production. I expect the Japanese and Chinese to outpace the USA in this area. The Japanese due to their ability to refine and perfect quicker than the USA and the Chinese due to their use of existing coal to fuel their economy and provide the means for them to devote research and refinement towards nuclear fission development.
I wonder how much Thorium gets thrown into discard piles after the coal is mined in the USA?
Unless we start limiting energy users or degrade our lifestyles solar and wind will be insignificant in the mix of sources until there’s a quantum leap in technology. People may be gullible but they’re not altruistic when it comes to their well being.
“people may be gullible, but they are not altruistic” +10
Great line. May I borrow it?
Coal usage increasing worldwide has the CAGW priests desperately searching for a way to ‘hide the incline’!
The “War on Coal” was really a “War on the World”.
Some nations gave lip service to it, some did more than just lip service. (Didn’t go well for some areas that actually tried to go that route.)
“Go Green/Sustainable/Wind/Solar” because it feels good. You’ve got a problem.
Go Coal/Natural Gas/Nuclear/Hydro etc… might not “feel” as good but, at least, when you flip the switch the lights will come on.
So are the figures power generated or power exported? Would be interesting to see the parasitic load for each type of generation. How much coal would be burnt in providing spinning reserve for wind farms?
Dont ask. The two studies I have seen were for CCGT (combined cycle gas) and Oil shale/coal backup.
IN te case of CCGT the results were that half the CO2 gains of wind power were lost in increased ramping of the CCGT plants.
In the case of coal and oil shale, the reduced efficiencies of the thermal; plant led to a projection that CO2 would INCREASE if large scale wind were to be deployed.
The conclusion that [intermittent] renewable energy leads to reduced carbon emissions is simply an unproven assertion, and may actually be refutable.
Wind or solar + hydro probably works. Wind or solar + gas is marginal. Wind or solar + coal (Germany) is probably more CO2 intensive. Wind or solar + nuclear is a total waste of time and money. If you have got the nukes why on earth have intermittent renewables as well….
The continued, or expanded, use of coal for electricity generation is not something to celebrate — other than in the childish “any insult to my enemies is a good thing”.
Most of the world’s coal plants are dirty, pollutant spewing behemoths which in a perfect world would be shut down for that reason alone.
Coal can be used as a fuel for electric generation responsibly with new technologies, and one hopes that all new plants planned and coming online to utilize this resource will be “clean coal” power plants.
In a perfect world, we would have transitioned to near 100% to clean nuclear by now, except for the irrational fears of the anti-nuclear movement (rightly anti-nuclear weapons — childishly anti-nuclear power).
Paying <$0.12/kWh and not fearing routine brownouts is always something to celebrate. Regarding nuclear, "if wishes were horses, we'd all get ponies for Christmas." I'm with you on nukes; unfortunately too many people have an irrational fear of radiation.
” irrational fears “..
.
3/12/2011-3/15/2011 at Fukishima Japan:
..
…
Exactly: Irrational fears of radiation.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx
Death toll from massive earthquake & tsunami: ~19,000
Death toll from evacuation of Fukushima area: >1,000
Death toll from Fukushima nuclear incident: Zero-point-zero
Cases of radiation sickness from Fukushima nuclear incident: Zero-point-zero
The place is hot. How much $$$ has been spent on the cleanup, and how much more will have to be spent to clean up the RADIATION ?
…
Must be “irrational” spending so much $$$ .
Penalty declined…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/10/after-five-years-what-is-the-cost-of-fukushima/#743fa1ba22ed
Cost of Fukushima cleanup: $15 billion
Cost of evacuation due to irrational fear of radiation: $60 billion
Total costs due to earthquake and tsunami: $250 billion
So, you are telling me that $15 billion must be due to the “irrational” fear of radiation. Since the fear is “irrational” why clean the mess up at all? Just let it sit there because there is nothing to fear from it.
….
No goal post move there Middleton, just pointing out to you that spending $15 Billion is not “irrational.”
The $60 billion for the unneccesary evacuation is due to the irrational fear of radiation.
The $200 billion spent to replace the output of the nuclear reactors with coal & natural gas is due to the irrational fear of radiation.
The $15 billion to clean up the nuclear incident is due to one of the most powerful earthquakes and tsunamis in recorded history.
So what? How much has been spent on various super fund sites?
ROTFLMFAO@ Middleton. Talk about “moving the goal posts.” Please stop talking about $60 Billion, and concentrate on the $15 Billion they are spending to clean up the RADIATION
…
Now, if a coal burning plant explodes, it doesn’t cost $15 Billion to clean up the mess. Is the higher price tag for Fukishima due to the “irrational” fear of radiation?
The tsunami wrecked the nuclear power plant. The backup power sources were flooded. This caused the meltdown.
The $15 billion in direct cleanup costs were 100% due to the tsunami.
The $60 billion in unneccesary evacuation costs were 100% due to the irrational fear of radiation.
The $200 billion in costs to replace the output of the Fukushima reactors was due to a combination of the tsunami and and irrational fear of radiation.
None of the costs were inherent in the nature of nuclear power.
All of the deaths were due to the tsunami and the unneccesary evacuation.
None of the deaths were due to the inherent nature of nuclear power.
I would try to use smaller words, but it would be pointless.
Boy oh boy Middleton, you just don’t get it do you?
..
1) The cause (tsunami) is irrelevant. (is “irrelevant” too big a word for you?)
..
2) The $60 Billion and the $200 Billion are also irrelevant. Please concentrate only on the $15 Billion.
…
3) The $15 Billion is due to the inherent nature of nuclear power as cleaning up an exploded coal plant is much less.
…
Since you are convinced that the fear of radiation is “irrational” you could make a boatload of $$$ if you were to go to Fukishima and operate a pay loader to scoop up the remnants of the core.
Now you are lying about what I posted. I never posted that $15 billion or any of the costs were irrelevant. Or, is English not your primary language?
The tsunami did the damage. The cost to fix everything was only incurred because of the tsunami. None of these costs would have been incurred without the tsunami.
The unneccesary evacuation, cost 4 times as much of the direct costs of the Fukushima cleanup and 1,000 lives… This was ENTIRELY due to the irrational fear of radiation.
English is my primary language, and you confused.
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1) THE TSUNAMI IS THE CAUSE.
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2) THE CAUSE is IRRELEVANT
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still with me?
…
3) Cleaning up an exploded coal plant does not cost $15 billion .
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4) The $15 billion price tag is DUE TO THE RADIATION. Which is not irrational.
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BONUS POINTS: The “cause” was poor plant design, the engineers that put the backup generators where the were installed is the root cause.
Pierette – what is your point? You seem to be tilting at windmills. David is making sense, and you seem to be trying to “Fukushima-up” the conversation with your false expressions of outrage.
However, I do (generally) agree with you on this point:
“BONUS POINTS: The “cause” was poor plant design, the engineers that put the backup generators where they were installed is the root cause.”
(But I thought it was the emergency cooling water systems.)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/26/claim-new-chinese-nuclear-plants-are-unsafe/#comment-1946251 (old wattsup server url)
Fearless Fukushiming Leader: We’ll put the emergency cooling water systems down near the beach – what could go wrong?
Newby on Team: What about tsunami’s?
Fearless Leader: Screw it! It’s time for lunch. Are you a team player or not?
Team: Hai ! ( OK! )
….
Later…
Team: Oh Fukushima!
If I recall, an American engineering company pulled out because Tokyo Electric refused to fix the seawall, bringing it up to the height needed to defend against known tsunami risks, as well as moving the backup generators out if tsunami risk.
The cause was the tsunami. The generators were located high enough off the ground to handle the largest tsunami that was expected. The sea walls were built high enough to handle the largest tsunami that was expected. To the extent these were failures, they were civil engineering and geotechnical failures to account for geophysical hazards.
Nuclear power plants are expensive to build and cleanups are expensive after extremely rare nuclear incidents. That’s the trade off for cheap, reliable, clean electricity. The only logical argument against nuclear power are the up front costs, which are very high.
Even nuclear waste disposal would be relatively trivial, if not for the irrational fear of radiation
If the earthquake had happened a month or two later, there would have been no accident because Fukushima was an old design that was already scheduled to be shut down.
If every nuclear plant in the world ended this way, your constant whines about cost would make sense. However when you average the clean up costs across industries, including the clean up costs in regard to mining and drilling, the costs are much more comparable.
Since nothing bad happened, why the irrational fear CPP
Coal has been clean since the 1970’s.
“Our 2004 study showed that power plant impacts exceeded 24,000 deaths a year, but by 2010 that had been reduced to roughly 13,000 deaths due to the impact that state and federal actions were beginning to have.”
http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/
The money squandered on “climate change” could have been used to develop much cleaner coal plants.
And actually help people and the environment.
And African coal plant designs are actually among the cleanest in the world, btw.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/clean-coal-is-the-way-to-power-africa-and-south-african-academics-know-how/
This is partly explained by productivity. Coal mining has some of the highest productivity rates of any sector of the economy. That might be news to a lot of casual observers and policy manipulator types.
Even higher productivity than oil & gas…
Wind and solar are the producivity equivalent of hiring 10,000 people to sweep snow off the streets rather than investing in 1 snow-plow.
What is non-fossil fuel? cow dung and wood? I am surprised with the number of coal fired plants China has built that there hasn’t been an increase in coal consumption. I continue to find it ironic that the AGW crowd spend more time screaming about USA policy relative to AGW and what fuels we use than they do China, India and Africa all of which are moving rapidly to coal fired plants, mostly built by the Chinese.
my coal shares, are 32% up in a year, across a range of companies
Would you be surprised to find out Soros’ coal investments are up more?
The graph (and data) clearly show that the decline in US electrical generation from coal has been offset by the increase in electrical generation from coal worldwide. The market for coal is growing – we need a new coal export depot on the west coast but politics stand in the way.
When I went to the coal industry night school in 1963 &1964 to study for my City & Guilds in “Solid Fuel: Production, Distribution & Utilisation (a qualification no longer taught), I learned that even with a thermal efficiency of < 8% for a steam locomotive, it was cheaper haul coal 100 miles & burn it in a local power station near the point of use than generate electricity near the coal mine & distribute electricity 100 miles over the National Grid (as was) with the attendant transmission losses.
This inconvenient information was ignored as the UK went nuclear powered & located the new generating plant on the coasts. However, the lecturer really caught my attention when he held up a piece of coal & explained that 1lb of coal when burned in the firebox of a goods steam locomotive, could generate sufficient steam to haul 100 tons 1 mile. In those days of unfitted freights, an 0-6-0 goods locomotive weighing 80 tons would chunter along at an average 25 mph with 500 tons on the drawbar.
OTOH, the East Coast mainline express train of 450 tons gross, hauled by A4 Pacifics, would run at speeds of over 90mph between London & Edinburgh (392 miles) in 6.5 hours & use about 8 tons of coal (17920 lbs). That’s just about 46 lbs per mile or 1lb of coal per 100 ton/miles… Oh for a return to high speed steam?
Here is another look at World Fossil Fuel Consumption as reported by BP statistics since 1965. The comparison with GMT suggests poor correlation between WFFC and temperatures.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2018/06/18/2018-update-fossil-fuels-≠-global-warming/
The climate crusade is and always has been a deceitful tactic of redistributing the wealth of industrialized nations to “developing” nations. The climate crusade was built on false UN “scientific” facts echoed by the leftist globalist lemmings seeking to establish a New World Order of planetary governance – ruled through the corrupt UN – for our own good of course. The climate crusade is fraudulent political science NOT honest natural science.
But, … but, doesn’t Liam Denning at https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-14/china-india-coal-use-alternatives-are-rising say that „ … while that is true at the headline level, there were clear signs of a shift occurring at the margin when you looked at growth in different types of power generation rather than just absolute totals.
That becomes even clearer when you back out the big two growth markets: China and India.“
„China and India account for about 60 percent of the growth in electricity generation over that period. Take them out of the equation, and the picture for the rest of the world shifts in important ways“
Anthony: When I searched via the Category drop down list for “coal,” this thread did not appear. It should.