The world is currently filled with government-, corporate-, and billionaire-funded organizations advocating for a transformation of the energy system to “clean” and “abundant” renewables. In my post a week ago, I described the International Energy Agency — a consortium of governments (now 40+ of them, including all the major ones) originally formed in the 70s to combat the OPEC oil embargo of the time, but since transformed into a “a center of advocacy for elimination of fossil fuels from the world’s energy supply.” For today, here’s another one you may or may not have heard of — the Energy Institute. EI is a London-based advocacy organization set up under the UK charity laws. It appears to receive its funding largely from corporations and wealthy individuals. On its home page, it describes its mission as “creating a better energy future for our members and society by accelerating a just global energy transition to net zero.”
Let’s review the latest from these two groups.
In May 2023, the IEA issued a big Report (141 pages) with the title “World Energy Investment 2023.” They also put out a separate summary document called “Overview and Key Findings.” The main point of this Report is to document and celebrate the tremendous swing over the past decade in world energy investment, away fossil fuels and into “renewables,” particularly wind and solar. From the summary document:
The recovery from the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to the global energy crisis have provided a significant boost to clean energy investment. Comparing our estimates for 2023 with the data for 2021, annual clean energy investment has risen much faster than investment in fossil fuels over this period (24% vs 15%). . . . We estimate that around USD 2.8 trillion will be invested in energy in 2023. More than USD 1.7 trillion is going to clean energy, including renewable power, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emission fuels, efficiency improvements and end-use renewables and electrification. The remainder, slightly over USD 1 trillion, is going to unabated fossil fuel supply and power. . . .
IEA provides the following chart to illustrate how investment in fossil fuels and related infrastructure has shrunk from the majority of world energy investment in 2015, to a rapidly diminishing minority in 2023:
To be fair, not all of the $1.7 trillion of estimated 2023 investment in what they call “clean energy” is in wind turbines and solar panels. Other charts make clear that the $1.7 trillion figure includes other things like grids, storage, and even nuclear. How much 2023 investment is going into just the wind and solar facilities for the electric power sector? This chart would put that figure at close to $700 billion:
Meanwhile, much of the investment in what they call “grids,” and all of the investment in storage, is being made to to accommodate the addition of wind and solar generation to the electricity supply system. Add most of the nearly $400 billion investment in “grids and storage” to the nearly $700 billion in “renewables,” and you get something close to or even more than $1 trillion per year. This amount is close to, or even more than, the total amount from the previous chart of investment in fossil fuels in all sectors (not just electricity generation).
And the massive investment in renewables has been going on for a while. According to the first chart above, the amount of investment in “clean energy” first exceeded the investment in fossil fuels in 2016, and the gap has widened greatly in more recent years.
So clearly fossil fuels must be fading quickly from the world energy picture. True? You won’t find the answer in this IEA Report. Therefore we turn to EI’s Statistical Review of World Energy, just released on June 26. (It appears that this Statistical Review is the annual publication previously issued by the oil major BP; EI has now assumed responsibility for the publication.) This Statistical Review contains comprehensive final figures for world energy production and consumption in 2022.
Things start out looking rosy for wind and solar. From the “five key takeaways” at the beginning of the press release:
The strong pace of deployment of renewables in the power sector continued, driven by solar and wind. 2022 saw the largest ever increase in wind and solar new build capacity. Together they reached a record 12% share of power generation, with solar up 25% and wind up 13.5%.
So, then, fossil fuel generation must be down? Actually, no. Pay attention to the spin:
Global electricity generation increased by 2.3% in 2022. . . . Renewables (excluding hydro) met 84% of net electricity demand growth in 2022.
In other words, the massive investments in wind and solar additions for electricity generation were not even sufficient to keep up with demand growth, let alone displace even a bit of existing fossil fuel generation. Even in the electricity sector, fossil fuels continued to grow. And the electricity sector is only about a quarter of primary energy consumption.
Here’s the big picture:
- Primary energy demand . . . in 2022 increas[ed] 1.1%. . . .
- Global electricity generation increased by 2.3% in 2022 . . . .
- Fossil fuel consumption as a percentage of primary energy remained steady at 82%. . . .
- Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, industrial processes, flaring and methane (in carbon dioxide equivalent terms) continued to rise to a new high growing 0.8% in 2022 to 39.3 GtCO2e, with emissions from energy use rising 0.9% to 34.4 GtCO2. Bottom line: it’s now $1 trillion per year, plus or minus, invested in wind and solar “renewables” plus grid upgrades and energy storage needed to accommodate them. And for that vast sum of money, the percent of primary energy from fossil fuels does not budge by even a tenth of a percent. And, as world energy consumption increases, carbon emissions just continue to increase. The trillion is just completely wasted.
Alcoholics don’t admit they have a problem and seek help until they hit rock bottom.
The same is probably true for for the Climate Crusade. But there won’t be a support group that can repair the damage.
People like Attenborough and the royals will never hit rock bottom, they are financially insulated from every eventuality.
Not quite, HotScot – I read in the Daily Telegraph the other day that Charles has ordered that the thermostats in Buckingham Palace be turned down to 16C because the energy bills are getting too high. I wonder why that can be…
Not according to Rishi Sunak.
In his response to Lord (Zac) Goldsmith’s resignation letter, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed:
“We can be proud of the UK’s record as a world leader on net zero. We are going far beyond other countries and delivering tangible progress whilst bringing down energy bills.”
16C??? Why so cold? 61 Fahrenheit? We set our thermostat down to 62 F at night during the winter to save on heating the whole house, but its at 72 or 73 during the day. We set it to cool to 70 or so in summer. 16C is uncomfortably cold.
“The world is currently filled with government-, corporate-, and billionaire-funded organizations advocating for…”
De-growth. More making do with less.
Because that is exactly what it is. In a truly Orwellian twist, we in the developed world have seen our priorities changed [by the elites] from values prioritising human flourishing to values that regard the human as a plague on the Earth:
“David Attenborough says humans are a “plague” on the Earth and more needs to be done to stop the planet’s population rising.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/21140259
And our David has a lot of clout…
“In an interview with the prince [William] at the World Economic Forum, the naturalist warned: “We can wreck it with ease, we can wreck it without even noticing.” Sir David said people must care, respect and revere the natural world.
Heeding his words, the prince said: “Work to save the planet is probably going to largely happen on our watch”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46957085
Let us not forget William is the son of the [complete] Halfwit….
“The Duke of Cambridge revealed that he lies awake at night worrying that world leaders and politicians are failing to do enough to stop climate change.
He said: “I get outraged by the inaction. “That’s probably a bit of a cliché but that is what I get most troubled about.” Prince William acknowledged his “position of responsibility” as leading royal and future King.
The Duke said: “Especially as I’m in a position of responsibility if you like, or leadership I feel like I can do a lot more given that ability.” He added: “So, therefore, I don’t understand why those who have the levers, don’t.
“I think that’s what really upsets me and keeps me awake at night.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/william-cant-sleep-because-of-climate-change/
They’re all a sandwich short of the full picnic.
This period in mankind’s history will be reflected on by forthcoming generations with bemusement, as to how these people could be quite this stupid.
Funny things happening in France.
You won’t see that in Poland or Hungary
It’s easy to be pessimistic. France will be a majority Muslim country in what a generation? Will it become a shithole like Lebanon?
Poland and Hungary are avoiding immediate problems but they better work on their birth rates.
Other than developing your own nuclear weapons the next best way is to take over a country that already has them. Takes longer but just as effective. Then Israel can be done from two sides. Also France has nuclear subs so we have that to look forward to.
Taking the precautionary principle into account, we should just attack France now, right?
Why stop at France? Given that Putin is now portrayed as a 21st century Hitler, isn’t it about time that we invaded Russia?
And how long before the UN sends “peace-keeping forces” into countries with right-wing governments on the basis that they are a threat to peace, or climate change, or something.
A national organization which ice-picks condoms in the stores? Holes for birth? Mebbe we need a focus group here.
Gosh! Don’t these irresponsible rioters realise how much extra CO2 all their fires are creating?
If however, you understand that their real goal, as stated by the former head of the UNIPCC, is the destruction of capitalism, then their actions are completely rational – just as in the US it appears that our ruling class is so stupid, (immigration, transgender, economy, foreign policy, attacks on religion, 2A, etc.) but if their goal is the destruction of the US then everything they do makes sense
That’s assuming there’s people left to reflect…
In Ontario, the Liberal government that imposed large scale renewables on rural communities along the shores of our gorgeous Great Lakes, were decimated the polls….lost their party status.
The Conservatives haven’t continued to sign industrial scale wind contracts but they also haven’t figured out how to cancel contracts or protect residents whose homes are effected by trespassing audible noise, inaudible pulsations/infrasound, shadow flicker or piercing red flashing lights. These monuments to stupidity remain standing as reminders of the failure of both governments.
Allowing this incursion without cost/benefit analysis and proper health studies to ensure that siting turbines too close to homes would not cause harm will never be forgotten.
And about as useful as a chocolate fireguard
Matt Ridley wrote an article about 6 years ago demonstrating the futility of the world even attempting to address the 2% annual, global growth in energy demand over the coming years with renewables.
https://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
Somebody smarter than me (not difficult) might want to have a stab at the additional land area required to replace the remaining 80% of global energy needs Matt mentions in that paragraph.
Bearing in mind that being the largest country in the world, Russia is vast, roughly speaking, twice the size of mainland USA.
Africa. The green neo-colonialism might make sense then; depopulate the continent and use it as one enormous renewables park. Except that the more you fit together, the less efficient they become.
Renewables make no sense except as state capture corruption excuses
Back in 2021 the Ministry of Energy in Denmark came up with the “greatest” idea of them all, lets build some energy island, a “Crucial lighthouse project in the green transition. Not only for Denmark, but also for Europe and the rest of the world.”
A couple a days ago, they put the plans on hold, because, the project looks to be much more expensive than expected. Well Surprise – and a but, in light of the challenges with the economy, alternatives that can make the project profitable must be investigated.
Talk about from “hero” to zero. They just won´t stop. This is ofc just a “bump” in the road…(;)
The energy island in the North Sea is a very large investment, it would be the biggest investment in danish history and it must be invented from scratch. Because, no one has yet tried to build something like this.
There´s is also something rotten in the state of Denmark.
A comparsion must be made, it all starts with a “good” plan. Back in 2007 the danish government decided that 6 super hospitals should be build in Denmark. This is 14 years before the idea of the energy islands.
Ofc they choose to build all 6 at once. The result here in 2023 is that the super hospitals repeatedly exceed budgets and deadlines. An engineer would have said, build one, learn from the mistakes, build two, learn from the mistakes, finally build three.
The lesson of the story of the super hospitals tells all about political decisions, but what the “hell” come on lets build an energy island there is a big crises as you know and King Charles clock is counting down.
Oh dear – they’re only 38 years late to the party – and it’s right on their doorstep in the North Sea
see attached – ain’t that just soooo fantastic?
Ladies, gents, boys, girls, lurkers, lawyers and other trolls, I give you: The Outer Trial Bank= an effort to capture renewable energy in wake of Oil Crisis
If I followed the River Nene 10 or 11 miles downstream to its outfall into The Wash – there would be this thing. I am soooo gonna have to explore.
The aerial shots really show it off and ‘for scale’, the little circle in the centre is/was a pond of about 2½ acres
Read more here
btw: It was = Fail for energy harvesting
The wild birds love it tho.
Folks, we can complain here but only those who already know the full story are hearing our complaints. Here is a list of meetings you need to attend and make public input against the rush to “net-zero” if you wish to make a difference in this:
I often attend meetings where there are exactly two of us there to make public comments regarding the expense and inadvisability of these projects, while two or three dozen attendees make no comments and we have no idea of their allegiances, and a dozen or so are there to ask for a permit or certificate needed to push a project forward.
It’s also important to educate your family, kids and grandkids, friends etc on the whole net zero, CO2 and MM climate change debacle, don’t rely on the establishment to do it in a fair and unbiased way, the blob is keen to educate them according to the new green ideology, where the other side of the debate is frozen out
Titans of Nuclear, Interview with Ryan Pickering
In this interview, Pickering notes that environmental groups can mobilize hundreds of people on short notice to attend a public hearing.
For one example, very few pro-nuclear voices were heard at the hearings concerning the proposed shutdown of the two Indian Point nuclear reactors in New York state.
The great majority of the comments submitted verbally at the hearings, and in writing before and afterwatds, came from those who supported permanent shutdown of the two reactors.
I will note here that it is far from certain that Diablo Canyon can be kept open. The anti-nuclear NGO’s and the many opponents of nuclear power in California’s local governments have mounted a well-funded campaign to keep the facility on track towards closure in 2025.
Story Tip
BlackRock to fund grid scale super battery at Waratah NSW at cost of 500m Aus dollars.
Nick Toscano, Sydney Morning Herald, June 29th 2023
That will be about one million kWhr capacity. In the U.S. that would provide backup energy for about 40,000 homes for one day — or maybe 15,000 in a fully electric economy. Wait until the ratepayers are asked to pay for that!
There are no grid scale super batteries….
A “grid scale” super battery, would need to be the size of the grid itself..LOL!!
De-carbon the world lol!!…A joke, absolute ideology, informed by computer code, written by humans, attempting to measure the unmeasurable.
I know. I think they use the term ‘grid scale’ in a different way than we would understand it.
We can only hope the new Asia pact of China and its cohorts takes over the world and releases us from this western nut zero ideology
You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.
Jobs for wurkahs, profits for greedy green companies. all paid for out of other peoples pockets
The trillion was not wasted in the view of the people profiting from it, they can turn around and spend it on things that require FF to make.
Are we counting it all here though, here’s just 2 examples of where maybe not…
Both from the BBC yet, not really ‘strangely’, the BBC search option turns up neither of them. Plenty glowing testimonials and other lies/exaggerations but not these…
Headline (1):“Many people took out loans to pay for panels on the promise they would save thousands of pounds in electricity costs and make money generating power.
They say they have not had the expected savings, and the Financial Services Ombudsman has had 2,000 complaints.
Barclays Bank has put aside £38m to deal with potential claims.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49566130
Headline(2):“Aberdeen City Council pays £275,000 solar bill after panels switch-off
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-38065510
(Holy cow, what sort of chance have sunshine panels got away up there on Shetland? Maybe drunk at the time)
You know the drill….if a fraction of the money had been spent on Thorium Liquid Salts Cooled Reactors, we would have abundant cheap safe clean electric power. Spread the word.
Here in the US, the reason we didn’t build nuclear power from 1990 on forward was that competition from cheap and abundant gas-fired generation shut nuclear out as a baseload resource. Just as it shut coal out. The only reason the US is looking at new-build nuclear today is that the politicians have taken gas-fired generation off the table as an energy policy option.
“. . . we would have …” I’ll fix that for you.
We might have a working prototype testing the concept.
LWR already provide abundant cheap safe clean power. Also reliable.
The cheapest power comes from old nukes, followed be old coal plants and old gas plants. Nuke and FF plants last a long time which is why we do not have to build a lot.
Watched an coal train go past today. The really old coal plant was closed so coal is most likely will be burned in China.
When wind farms in the US makes electricity in the US, that is more ff we can sell to China.
A very useful statistic for each category of new-build power generation resource would be this:
Dollars USD Invested per Annual Megawatt-Hours Generated
Some bit of research would be needed to deliver this yearly statistic for each category of new-build generation.
In a study of this kind, should new-build energy storage facilities (batteries, energy storage hydro etc,) be its own separate sub-category equivalent to wind and solar as a ‘renewable energy’ resource?
Why or why not?
BB, I’d suggest the statistic has to be Dollars invested per MWhr delivered, and perhaps weighted by energy delivered during period demand. Energy is worth more being delivered when needed most. Storage might be tricky. The South Cabin Creek pumped-hydro facility in Colorado was originally built to augment during peak periods back in the day when St. Vrain was still operating as a nuclear plant. Now it’s used to balance wind. It may even have been used to balance coal at times. It is difficult to pin-point who uses how much of such a facility. Perhaps a bit easier with solar/batteries colocated.
However, the IRPs I read sell wind and solar now as “wind+storage” and “solar+batteries” — a bow to reality. Yet they never identify what storage balances wind. They don’t indicate how much MWhr of storage or batteries they intend to supply. They won’t even use needed units (MWhr rather than MW) to clarify matters. However, most storage/batteries going into the future are necessary exclusively because of wind and solar — they required it they own it.
PacifiCorp plans to purchase 600MW of wind near here on a build purchase agreement (BPA) with InvEnergy. The cost I estimate would have been $1,100-$1,500 per kW of nameplate but the IRA has complicated matters and the actual cost is proprietary information but I’d imagine toward the upper end of this range. So the cost will be maybe $800M+. But during the hearing for certificate of public convenience and necessity even PacifiCorp themselves said the real value of the plant for closing their capacity shortage is possibly only 10%-20% of nameplate, Idaho Power has stated wind without storage as being worth 10%, and in just looking at periods of peak demand I find it worth well less than 10%. It’s expensive.
For those who speak standard English, that word “investment” should be translated as waste.
If that trillion dollars per year were spent on education instead it would return double instead of zero. Climate alarm would disappear along with the energy crisis and we would have a better class of politicians and leaders.
the powers that be know this is a massive joke on the public while they steer billions into the pockets of their friends who then contribute to the pols “re-election funds” and somehow a lot of that winds up in their pockets.
CO2 is plant food and we are way behind historical levels of it (about 1200ppm).
My question is what would the energy outlook be if we took just 300 billion a year from renewables and storage and built nuclear with that money?
Speaking of greenie schemes to forestall climate change radical Leftist Alexander Cockburn in The Nation made the observation, “…vast sums of money will be uselessly spent on programs that won’t work against an enemy that doesn’t exist.”
He was prescient.