From World Economic Forum
Some countries have been more effective than others in their green energy policies.
06 Feb 2019 Ben Assirati Formative Content
The Earth is edging ever closer to a point of no return, with a joint statement issued during the COP24 climate conference calling for “decisive action” on climate change within the next two years.
Most nations have taken on the challenge to switch from a reliance on fossil fuels to a sustainable energy system – some faster than others.
A recent Carbon Brief report written by E4tech and Imperial College London and published by Drax has ranked 25 major world economies on their efforts (or lack thereof) in the transition to clean energy.
Green and clean
Clean electricity underpins almost all efforts to shift towards a decarbonized future. In 2017, the global average carbon intensity of electricity was 450 gCO2/kWh. Of the 16 major countries below that average, the United Kingdom showed the fastest transition to decarbonization.
Despite consuming the most electricity per year, China and the United States (6,500 TWh and 4,250 TWh respectively) also reduced their carbon intensities in 2017. Indeed, if they could both match the reductions made by the UK, global emissions would fall by 9%.
Renewable ambitions are limited in part to the generating and storage capacities of each country. In the last decade, an extra 1,125 GW of capacity has been installed worldwide. Germany leads the way, having installed almost 1 kW of renewable capacity per person in the given time period, and ranking 1st and 3rd for solar and wind capacity per person respectively. And Germany’s push towards renewables is part of a wider trend within Europe, with eight of the top 10 countries coming from the region – only Canada (5th) and Australia (10th) are from outside the region.
Saying goodbye to coal
Renewable energy is not a new concept. But during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of renewables like wind and water fell by the wayside because they were less efficient than coal and later oil in a world focused on progress.
Since then coal has remained the most polluting fuel for generating electricity. And in order to achieve a future in which we limit global warming to less than 2°C we’ll need to abandon it as an energy source.
Have you read?
- Ten charts show how the world is progressing on clean energy
- India is now a world leader in renewable energy. Here’s how
- Germany has unveiled the world’s first hydrogen-powered train
In terms of which countries get the lowest percentage of their electricity from coal, Europe leads the way once again, boasting six of the top 10 nations.
Norway sits in first place with 0%. At the other end of the spectrum, three of the six countries at the bottom of the list are from Asia (Indonesia, China and India), although South Africa, which uses coal for almost 90% of its electricity, is placed last among the 25 nations assessed by the report.
When it comes to the transition from coal-based electricity production in the last decade, the pattern follows a similar trend to the change in carbon content; the UK and Denmark are ahead of the field. But the USA and China are making progress – both are in the top five, with 18% and 14% decreases respectively.
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Please, stop pushing your vaporware solutions to a non-problem. You have crossed into “tedious poster” territory.
Such a study is unfair to France and Sweden which built out their nuclear power generation fleet several decades ago.
“The Earth is edging ever closer to a point of no return”
When you start off with a zinger like that, there’s really no point in reading further, unless you like bad fiction.
Yeah, I thought we hit the tipping point in 1997.
And 2002.
And 3 and 4 and 5 . . . .
Well, here’s the deal. 1997 was an interim ‘tipping point’, followed by its recurrence several times since and going forward, so they don’t threaten to become bothersome tripping points instead as the dates arrive. Similarly I’m sure you can see, when the temperatures don’t really soar as predicted, the goal posts can also be sequentially re-sited down the road a piece; and at the same time the absent crisis levels of ‘global warming’ are conveniently replaced by a more vaguely accountable ‘climate change’ designation which likewise shifts any troubling assessment down the road.
Now if that’s not too clever by half, they call ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’ what is now and then generating electricity while beneath a superficial glance it took oodles of fossil fuels and internal combustion vehicles to mine/smelt/emplace (often remotely)/wire up to the users/maintain/and replace at their useful life end. But I suppose wooden electric cars, trains, and planes will soon be pretty much fossil fuel free, much like my sailboat once I replace its fiberglass hull with wood, its dacron sails with canvas, and its dock lines and running rigging with sisal, cotton, and flax cordage.
Also I couldn’t help notice that DRAX (which burns wood for sourcing steam energy for its electric generation) left out the whole wood/coal fired steam driven era of the early industrial revolution, their ready amnesia for English native sons Thomas Newcomen and James Watt I suppose leaves them feeling like innovators now.
1997 was a tipping point for tipping points.
Prior to 1997, tipping points were few and far between.
After 1997 there are tipping points as far as the eye can see, and more being created all the time.
The idiots do not include the energy cost to build their scams and the reduction in electrical grid efficiency which is around 10% to handle on/off/on/off wind and sun gathering. If they did there would be almost no real reduction in CO2 emissions.
Wind farms require new power lines and new power switching equipment all of which must be sized for maximum output even though average output is less than 20%.
The on/off/on operation forced Germany to stop using combined cycle gas plants that are 20% more efficient to single pass natural gas plants as they use the waste heat from the first pass turbines to produce steam.
The problem is combined cycle natural gas plants require 10 hours to start and hence must be left on,.
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/04/germanys-energiewende-leading-to-suicide-by-cannibalism-huge-oversupply-risks-destabilization/#sthash.8tE9YRDj.PSllYaQF.dpbs
Most of the significant reductions in CO2 emissions worldwide have come from the economic displacement of coal by natural gas for electricity generation. vThe impact of solar and wind has not been significant.
Renewables? They can’t even, over their lifetimes, harvest enough energy to create replacements, much less provide a substantial excess for society in general.
Re the UK, its only 4 days to go, then they will soon find that Green things are just too expensive for their new way of life.
I can see a replay of the TV series “The Guardians” where the Police and military combined to run the country.
MJE VK5ELL
It’s wonderful that so many of the global community are voluntarily sacrificing their economic growth prospects for the good of the man-and-woman-and-LGBTQIA-kind, pity it doesn’t seem to be having any effect on the atmospheric CO2 concentration trend:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/plot/esrl-co2/from:2000/trend
I would think that what Europe does is largely irrelevant and will continue to export energy-intensive industries to developing nations who will choose the cheapest, however much ear ache they get from enviro brigaders.
Thus the nations of China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, etc will gladly take more European industry while their economies also grow organically and while they become more assertive. They don’t intend to do anything very much to eliminate coal use, so the global warmers are going to have to carry on dreaming about the death of coal.
If the UN or anyone else thinks these nations will be strong-armed into taking serious CO2-abatement measures then they are overestimating their own skills which are no match for the power of corruption. The UN doesn’t want to even try fixing corruption, for very obvious reasons. Articles like this one from the World Economic Forum[*] banging the green drum probably makes someone feel good but is essentially just whistling in the wind as far as eliminating coal is concerned. The less trumpeted achievements will be continuation of subsidy for wind and solar by governments as nuclear sits waiting in the wings.
On top of all that, the nation called Concrete probably won’t be going away anytime soon either.
[*The World Economic Forum claims to be “independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests”, but finding an organization that hasn’t been chugging the global warming kool-aid is as rare as…. a very rare thing. They all seem to be predicated on
a) deciding that they know best how to fix the world
b) deciding how to coerce the world to swallow their unpleasant fix.
Real fixes are pleasant, entered into voluntarily, willingly]
In the Netherlands the switch is from gas to electricy supposedly powered by “green” energy sources, so they tell us. That means, no more practical gas stoves. The change will be mandatory and the costs, along with food and everything else, will go up and up. Three hundred and thirty thousand indigenous Dutch have already emigrated. Meanwhile, idiots go around in electric cars which overall cause a greater carbon footprint. And the 5G and 6G smart prison is on its way.
The headline is wrong. It should read:
“These countries have been conned into doubling their electric rates.”
It’s all going to be all right. The Synod of the Church of England is disinvesting in fossil fuels in order to fight the electrification of the poor of the world. I wonder what Jesus would say?
Charles, you forgot the SARC tag.
“during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of renewables like wind and water fell by the wayside”
Apparently they have never heard of hydropower, which was very much part of the Industrial Revolution in those countries lucky enough to have suitable rivers.
Well the first mistake is saying that it’s green and clean.
That’s far from the truth as it’s an environmental disaster in the waiting.
SOLAR PANNEL WASTE 300 TIMES MORE TOXIC THAN NUCLEAR WASTE!!!
Solar and wind power are the key elements of ‘renewable power’ but both are fraught with economic and environmental problems that are seldom discussed, especially by the technocrats who are pushing them.
Solar panels contain toxic metals like lead, which can damage the nervous system, as well as chromium and cadmium, known carcinogens. All three are known to leach out of existing e-waste dumps into drinking water supplies. Which is 300 TIMES MORE TOXIC then nuclear waste.
I wonder how many of you know the down side.
http://principia-scientific.org/old-solar-panels-causing-an-environmental-crisis-in-china/
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/06/29/solar-energy-produces-300-times-toxic-waste-nuclear-power/
Dubbed as a clean source of energy, new research findings show that home and property owners producing “clean, CO2-neutral” solar electricity with solar modules may in fact soon find themselves sitting on a pile of hazardous waste once the module lifetime expires.
In many countries, it is illegal to simply discard hazardous materials into the household garbage, and so many solar energy module operators may find themselves eventually paying high fees for hazardous waste disposal when it comes time to discard the modules at the end of their lifetimes. Meanwhile in third world countries the hazardous modules will likely end up being discarded onto the landscape.
“Serious environmental consequences”
According to the online Welt here, a new study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Economics dubbed: “Release of Hazardous Material from Photovoltaic Modules,” found “serious environmental consequences” from solar modules. Formerly it was claimed that solar modules posed no real danger to the environment.
Today that appears to have been wishful thinking.
Toxic components get washed out by rain
Welt reports that researchers in Stuttgart checked if toxic substances could be transported from the modules to the environment by water. Welt writes:
Contrary to earlier assumptions, the result shows that hazardous material such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium from broken pieces of solar modules could be completely washed out by rain water of a period of several months.”
The latest findings are another major blow to an industry that has been reeling from high costs, inefficiency, cheap imports and declining overall popularity. Now the industry is turning out to be a real polluter.
Welt writes that it will be necessary to recycle 100% of all modules but that it will be impossible to ensure that no modules wind up in regular household refuse.
Poor countries victims again
Though 100% recycling may be almost achievable in rich, industrial countries, Welt cites the experts who say there is the high likelihood the modules simply will end up littering the landscape in poor countries. Poor countries, often located in sunny equatorial regions, face the potential of being blanketed by vast swaths of hazardous material.
11,000 tons of lead, 800 tons of cadmium
The researchers say that currently there are about 3700 square kilometers of solar modules installed globally and estimate that as of 2016 the modules contained 11,000 tons of lead and 800 tons of cadmium, reports Welt, citing the study.
Welt adds that the EU banned the use of toxic heavy metals and solder by the electrical industry, but the solar industry was exempted on the behest of the solar lobby. The solar industry needs to be included in the ban as well, the experts say. so that the global spread of heavy toxic metals can be curbed.
Then we have windturbine waste to deal with????
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article176294243/Studie-Umweltrisiken-durch-Schadstoffe-in-Solarmodulen.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=L2_gP71P4C4
South Africa reduces it’s emissions by planned black-outs, often of three slots of two and a half hours each. This gas an extra benefit of driving many smaller firms out of business – a textbook example of positive feedback resulting in the collapse of the electricity producer in the shorter term and a merger with Venezuela in the longer term.
For PR reasons, a black-out is referred to as “load shedding”.
https://twitter.com/zapiro/status/1108819999496564736
From what I have read, a significant fraction of the “decarbonization” occurring in the EU is due to so much manufacturing being relocated to second world countries.
In other words, the CO2 is still being produced, it’s just produced somewhere else. (along with the jobs that go with it)
Does the name ‘Wile E. Coyote’ mean anything to these people?
Germany has unveiled the world’s first hydrogen-powered train
In terms of which countries get the lowest percentage of their electricity from coal, Europe leads the way once again, boasting six of the top 10 nations.
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Meanwhile, in the real world:
https://www.google.com/search?q=germany+railway+delays+railway+outages&oq=germany+railway+delays+railway+outages&aqs=chrome.
Germany has unveiled the world’s first hydrogen-powered train –
germany wanted to go public with its “eco-friendly” railroad and has therefore laid off a lot of staff.
Lenghthmen; gangers; patrolmen are missing.
As a result, the “environmentally friendly” German railway becomes the target of terrorist attacks.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=CEObXPz7I4f76QS5p55Y&q=germany+railway+destination+terrorist+attacks&oq=germany+railway+destination+terrorist+attacks&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
A sycophantic doyen of the UN and quintessential exponent of virtue signalling, New Zealand generates some 60% of its electricity from hydro, essentially all domestic consumption. Since 2006 the consumer price index advises that a basket of groceries costs 35% more. The cost of electricity has doubled.
The hydro scheme and dams were built by the government with tax payer money.
How long will unthinking people continue to allow themselves to be stolen out of house and home?
The know and understand the Green Death. They never knew or understood the Black Death.
The result will nevertheless be the same,
only if allowed.