Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In my previous post, The Myth Of Replacing Fossil Fuels, I looked at the new BP global use of fossil and non-fossil fuels. In this post, I’ll take a more detailed look at individual countries, and then return to world values. To start with, here’s what I learned along the way.
Figure 1. Population by Country
Given that, let me look at the energy usage by source of the most populous countries. You may recall from my previous post that in many analyses they use what are called “input-equivalent” values for non-fossil fuels. These are the true values multiplied by 2.5 or more. Why use those? I’ll repeat BP’s explanation.
While there are indeed uses for those artificially inflated energy values, what they don’t do is show us just how much energy is actually coming from each source. So let me go through the biggest countries, showing the true energy usage by source. We’ll start with China, although by the very latest figures, India is now the most populous country.
Figure 2 et sequelae. Energy usage by source, year, and country.
China has pledged that its CO2 emissions will peak by 2030 … not seeing it. An oddity is that the 2020 drop in energy usage seen in most countries is delayed in China until the most recent year.
China uses 8% non-fossil energy, most of which is hydroelectric. Solar/wind are 2.8% … not gonna overtake fossil fuels any time soon.
Note that Chinese usage of oil, gas, and coal are all increasing … next, here’s India.
Here, we see the same gas, oil, and coal situation we see in China—they’re all increasing. Note the drop from COVID in 2020. India uses about half the non-fossil and solar/wind energy that China uses.
Next, the US. It is quite different in some regards, and similar in others.
The total energy use in the US plateaued in about 2005. You’d think this would be good news in terms of CO2. But it’s not. It just reflects the fact that due to increasing energy prices in the US from our crazy war on fossil fuels, a lot of energy-intensive industry has moved overseas, mostly to Asia and Mexico.
Note also that we still only use 9% non-fossil energy, and the largest part of that is nuclear. Solar plus wind is a mere 2.4% … and we’ve spent something over a trillion dollars for that pathetic contribution.
Next in population, to my surprise, are Indonesia and Pakistan. Who knew? Here’s Indonesia.
You can see that like China and India, total fossil use is rising. The largest contribution to the rise is from coal. They have less than .1% wind or solar. Their major non-fossil fuel is palm oil, which is blended to make biodiesel.
Then we have Pakistan. Wind and solar are tiny, 0.6% The majority of their non-fossil fuel is hydro, plus a small amount of nuclear energy.
Next in population size is Brazil.
Brazil uses a lot of non-fossil fuel, 29%. But like the other countries, wind and solar is a trivial amount. Brazil does it with biofuel from its ample sugar cane fields, plus hydro. But even with all of that, it still is heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
BP doesn’t have any data for Nigeria, so let me finish off this run with the next most populous country, Bangladesh. It basically runs on fossil fuel.
With those countries as examples of our overwhelming dependence on fossil fuels, let’s take a look at the world.
Figure 3. As in individual country graphs above, but for the entire planet.
Like the largest countries, the world runs on fossil fuels. Non-fossil is only 8%, and globally, solar plus wind is only 2.1 percent.
Breaking this down a bit, here are the global individual usages of oil, gas, and coal.
Figure 4. Usage of energy from oil coal, and gas.
Despite rumors of its demise, coal use is still increasing, as is the use of oil and gas.
Now, when I point this out, people often say something like “But the usage of non-fossil fuels is increasing exponentially! Just wait a few years!”. But the growth hasn’t been truly exponential, it’s better described as quadratic. However, out to the year 2050 the differences are trivial, and the fit to quadratic in the period since 2000 is far better than the exponential fit.
So let’s pretend that the non-fossil use continues to increase at an essentially-exponential (quadratic) rate. It won’t, of course—in the real world such accelerating growth never lasts. But we can pretend, right?
So here’s what accelerating quadratic growth of non-fossil fuels at the current rate looks like.
Figure 5. Quadratic growth of non-fossil fuels, extended to 2050. An exponential best-fit growth ends up with the same value and is only slightly different along the way. However, exponential is a very poor fit for the 2000-2022 period, and as you can see, quadratic acceleration is a very good fit for that period.
Zowie! The non-fossil fuels are going through the roof, and if the growth continues, non-fossil use will have increased greatly by the year 2050. Heck, in that short time from now, it will more than double! What’s not to like?
Well … here’s the projected increasing non-fossil growth compared to projected possible linear growth in fossil fuel use.
Figure 6. As in Figure 5, but including a linear projection of fossil fuel use.
Once again, a sense of proportion greatly improves our understanding of the issues. Even with accelerated growth, either exponential or quadratic, non-fossil fuels are still a long, long way from overtaking fossil fuel use. Heck, that’s true even if fossil use were to go flat tomorrow.
As a result, people saying “Just End Oil” and people fighting against fossil use are hard up against the First Rule of Wingwalking. This rule states:
“Don’t let go of what you’ve got until you get hold of something better.”
And the truth is that right now, despite spending literally trillions of dollars on non-fossil energy, we’re still a long, long way from having something better than fossil fuels.
As a result, any actions we take to make fossil energy more expensive or more difficult to obtain are actively destructive, especially to the poor. The politicians, the alarmist climate scientists, and the pluted bloatocrats don’t care when gas prices go up. But you can bet that single moms working to feed their kids definitely care, and they are already cursing the “Just Stop Oil” folks and their allies just as I am.
With that as my main message, let’s look at a few other interesting countries. Norway and Iceland are often touted as pathfinders for renewable energy, so here are their graphs. First, Norway.
Norway gets almost half of its energy from non-fossil sources. How? Hydroelectric. It’s worth noting, however, that very little hydro has been added since 1990 or so, and the difference has been made up with gas …
And here’s Iceland.
Iceland, uniquely among countries, has lots of volcanoes with red-hot magma near the surface. This gives it a huge geothermal resource that is easy to access. And that, plus ample hydroelectric energy, means that they get two-thirds of their energy from non-fossil sources without any wind or solar.
The conclusion is simple. All we need to do is provide every country in the world with lots of mountains, plenty of rain, a bunch of volcanoes with shallow magma, and no “greens” blocking the construction of new dams, and we can all run on hydro and geothermal!
Actually, there’s another way to get a high percentage of non-fossil energy. Just make your energy so expensive that you give up on any energy-intensive industries or activities, and meanwhile, pay through the nose for expensive wind energy. Here’s the poster child for that approach.
Let me close with an oddity that shows the intimate connection between energy use and human well-being. You’ve likely watched over the last few years as the Venezuelan socialists destroyed the economy of their country. Here’s the record of Venezuelan energy use.
As I discussed in “The Unsocial Reality Of Socialism“, that pernicious economic lunacy destroys whatever it touches …
In closing, never forget—your life is not short, sickly, cold, and brutal for a simple reason.
Fossil fuels.
My very best regards to everyone,
w.
Yeah, I know, you’ve heard it before: When you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. I’m tired of people asking me to defend something I never said. Thanks.
Good stuff, Willis. The only reasonable alternative to fossil fuels is to nuc’em. I don’t mean build nuclear power plants, I mean drop thermo-nuclear devices on the CAGW Green Idiots/corruptocrats. Fixed it.
For a green dream, they’ll need another planet anyway.
One without oil, gas, coal and radioactive elements.
Or go with this approach.
Neither hydro nor geothermal are intermittent, and both provide grid inertia. Wind and solar are intermittent (requiring backup generation >75% of the time) and do not provide grid inertia. Grid Engineering case closed.
If you cannot get there from here, you won’t. Only the foolish would try.
And if India and China won’t play, even foolish trying doesn’t really matter.
It is a good thing that observational ECS is about 1.7C, and in the only CMIP6 model without a tropical troposphere hot spot (matching observation, Russian INM CM5) the model ECS is 1.8C, quite close to observational EBM results. This simply means that foolishly trying and failing doesn’t matter except to the Western economies like Germany, Denmark, and UK it damages.
What Rud said …
w.
At 1.7-1.8, ECS implies nothing but benefit from a slight warming.
In short, there is NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY!
“Neither hydro nor geothermal are intermittent, and both provide grid inertia.”
Same for woody biomass power plants. There is a fairly new 75 MW biomass plant in Berlin, New Hampshire: https://www.power-technology.com/marketdata/berlin-biomass-power-plant-us/
Basically, if the woody biomass is burned for steam powering a rotating turbine/generator, it is no different than any other conventional generation electrically. Just a different fuel.
Tl;dr – can you give us the Readers Digest/Twitter version – how clean and efficient is this really? What kind of biomass – garbage wood and other stuff that is just waste anyway, or something that has to be cultivated and harvested with diesel powered machinery?
I’m talking about waste wood from forestry work- which includes some of the slash left after removing the useful logs and trees removed in thinings which are trees that are of undesirable species or defective- in order to allow the better trees to grow faster. Nobody is planting forests in order to clearcut them for energy- not that I’m aware of. All forestry work requires diesel powered machinery.
How is wood different from oil?
How much oil is consumed to make useful wood?
The wood makes itself- but harvesting, processing, transporation, does use fuel. As to how much- I don’t know or care.
There is some intermittency when it comes to hydro, however you know weeks in advance when your dam is running low on water.
This happened in Tasmania a few years ago.
They had to import dirty brown-coal generated electricity from Victoria over Basslink.
Only trouble was, Basslink was mostly out of action.
So they shipped in a whole bank of diesel-powered generators.
Remember, Tasmania is actual a very tiny population base, less than 600 thousand people.
It is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things, as is South Australia.
Much hype is made of hydro exports from Tassie and the occasional wind export from SA, but compared to the demands of the main NEM grid of Vic, NSW and Qld, these transfers are basically nothing.
If the ECS were as high as you say, we would see large periodic changes in the energy imbalance as the 11 year solar cycle progresses. However, the EEI shows no periodic behavior, in spite of a variation in irradiance from the sun.
I don’t understand your comment. ECS is reached over hundreds of years. The 11 year solar cycle variation in irradiance is miniscule. The best EBM study, Lewis and Curry 2 (answering objections to Lewis and Curry 1) has a central estimate ~1.65, with a one sigma range (IIRC) ~1.55 to ~1.75. And the paper also shows the estimate and range is robust to varying the early and late decades selected for the EBM calculations.
I have read Judith’s latest book and am aware of the current estimates for climate sensitivity. I merely note that the energy imbalance is remarkably unaffected by changes in incoming radiation. A change in incoming power should result in a change in the EEI. If it doesn’t, that means the energy imbalance is being controlled in some other way. And THAT means no matter how much CO2 is released, it won’t change the energy imbalance. The solar cycle supplies a signal that is sufficiently large enough to see, but there is no influence on the EEI. An FFT on the CERES data for EEI shows no periodic behavior. And if incoming shortwave radiation can’t change the energy imbalance, why do we think longwave radiation will anything different?
Mmmm … not sure why you’re making the claim that “the energy imbalance is remarkably unaffected by changes in incoming radiation.”
EEI = solar – reflected solar – toa upwelling longwave.
Here are the anomalies in solar and EEI.
And here’s the same for just the Northern Hemisphere.
Not seeing it …
w.
Why would you quibble over 1.7 vs 0 when either way, THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY?
It’s like you don’t care about persuading the general public not to support societal suicide, you just want to be right.
If it is zero shouldn’t you be honest and say so? Or should you go along with a lie just to please folks?
There is no sensitivity to CO2.
Rud – I think there is a little way to go on feedbacks before you can say with any confidence that water vapour feedback is positive and/or cloud feedback is about zero.
There are two major components of water vapour feedback – its presence in the atmosphere and the hydrological cycle. The hydrological part appears to be quite strongly negative https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1212222 and may well be enough to wipe out most of the other part.
Cloud feedback appears to be significantly negative. See text and figures 2, 3, 4 in https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2022-0478.pdf
In the interest of being honest, we also can’t PROVE that the enhanced greenhouse effect is not being temporarily reduced by natural internal variability that is strongly negative.
I don’t think that’s likely but nobody can rule it out. What I think we can rule out is catastrophic impacts from ECS 3.0. An ECS of 3 is far above observations and as Rud pointed out, all models with ECS above 1.8 display mid-tropospheric hot spots that do not actually exist.
We are on very solid ground to argue that ECS is between 1 and 2. I suggest that our focus should be on debunking claims that 2 to 3 degrees of warming would be net detrimental. The alarmists’ very weak case rests on catastrophic impacts above 1.5 degrees rise.
Then bolster that argument with a solid analysis of how a bigger portion of the world could still flourish in conditions more like Miami than Minneapolis.
Keep the focus on NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY.
It isn’t zero (almost certainly) although it COULD be less than 1.1 with net negative feedbacks.
The earth gives every indication of being a very stable system. The lack of any periodicity in the EEI is an indication of that. Whatever is setting the desired energy imbalance is doing a very good job of it and the effects of CO2 seem to be completely nullified.
I realize this sounds daft; I’m just saying what I see in the data.
You mention water vapor not CO2.
If CO2 was sensitive to IR and caused warming the specific heat tables would require additional columns for air and CO2.
Nobody can prove why observationally it’s 1.7, but that is an empirical fact.
There is no requirement to “go along” to persuade others that there is NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY.
Just be honest and say that we don’t know if it’s 0 or it’s 2. Observations point to 1.7
The entire range from 0 to 2 and then some would be harmless and almost certainly net beneficial.
All squabbling between skeptics about where it falls within the harmless range is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE! That just muddies the waters and weakens our message.
I agree with the harmless part of your last statement, but thermodynamics shows that when CO2 or water vapor are added to other gases their specific heats times their masses causes cooling. Or said a different way it requires more energy to raise the temperature.
I read recently that geothermal in certain locations has to be carefully managed so as not to cool the rocks more quickly than heat can be replenished. Perhaps a UK problem
Rock has low thermal conductivity – that is why is so hot down there. ##
Iceland ‘works’ because it is so volcanically active = there is ‘convection’ of hot underground rock which displaces/replaces what you cool with your power station
## That is why climate science is such a mess, it endlessly confuses temperature with energy and also, temperature with power (energy flow).
Basically, climate science assumes everything has perfect conductivity.
In the radiation world, emissivity equates to conductivity but just like thermal conductivity where the actual value varies from substance to substance, so does emissivity vary.
Climate Science takes no account of that – assuming that *everything* has perfect (unity) emissivity.
The significant and very real fail is that the emissivity of of the Villain of the Peace (CO₂) is practically zero at the temps and pressures in the atmosphere.
It simply cannot do what it’s cracked up to do even if you’re happy with violating the 2nd Law and ignoring Entropy
also Carnot.
As Willis says about energy calculations:
“”While there are indeed uses for those artificially inflated energy values,
Yes there are indeed uses and they apply most significantly in how objects absorb radiant enery.
Carnot applies to the GHGE just as much as to power stations – they are actually the same things yet Carnot is completely ignored by climate science
“If you cannot get there from here, you won’t. Only the foolish would try.”
Unfortunately, we are ruled by a lot of very stupid people. For a long time, I thought poncy Prince Charles was the ultimate. Then along came Albo…
Rud,
wind and solar need 100% support from, in the U.K. at least, gas generation. It’s not just back up. Gas is the backbone of the U.K. grid and provides inertia, as you say, reactive power and short circuit current level support, being other engineering requirements which renewables do not have. An expensive and less efficient way to run a grid.
I keep trying to make the point that renewables are not an equivalent to conventional generators nor can they replace them, they are significantly inferior and expensive. I do think if more people were aware of that fact, and were not continually being told that we are transitioning away from fossil fuelled generation (impossible), then support for renewables from the general public would collapse.
Politicians who should be aware of these deficiencies must be advised by others who also do not seem to know this? (perhaps that’s being kind?)
Iain
Politicians in reality have another problem, and that is that it is impossible for any, or even worse all, to ever admit that they have made an error! As they have made many, many errors over centuaries, their credibility would instantly be zero, and we would be reduced to the current state of the UK everywhere. Politics can do nothing because they have wrecked the productive economy, in many ways but the worst being “net zero”. It is almost impossible to do any manufacturing now, as we have so many dictats on what cannot be done that engineering in particular is virtually impossible. Why are we buying infrastructure components, such as pylons for expanding our grid, from China? Simply because all our heavy industry no longer exists, from steel mills to fabrication. We import steel because we cannot run on highly expensive coal, although we have much in the ground but coal mining is not allowed! Therefore almost everything to be made cannot, because the supply chain is long and unreliable. Some of the politicians try to blame all this on Brexit, but the EU is just as bad, and in Germany worse. All because living is not Green enough for the politicians! They would be much better off dead pushing up nice Green grass, or daisys.
“China has pledged that its CO2 emissions will peak by 2030 …”
If only the Western world, especially American leaders, would get it through their thick heads that pledges from China are worthless. We keep getting suckered into foolishly believing promises of countries like China, North Korea or Iran.
They get what they want now, we get what they promise never.
You forgot Russia- until the last minute, it said it had no plans to invade Ukraine. Since then, it claims everything is going according to the plan!
Including Yevgeny Prigozhin going back to Russia from Belarus. I wonder which part of whose plan he’s following!
I suggest that Putin and Prigozhin have a duel. Swords or pistols? Both present themselves as ultra macho guys so they should be happy to resolve their differences this way. 🙂
Yes! On horseback, televised of course!
Yep, the Democrat congress promised Reagan that thy would secure the boarder if ha signed their new immigration increase act. Just like all communists, they never secured the boarder.
Communists tend to secure the borders very harshly. They don’t want anyone getting away.
Capitalists secure their borders to keep people from sneaking in.
Communists secure their borders to keep people from sneaking out.
Communists seal their borders to stop their people from seeing how good it is elsewhere.
Yuh, when Russians first saw American super markets after the fall of the CCCP Empire, they assumed they were fake.
Didn’t pay for his room and meals, so he got away?
Since Bidenomics I usually have to chain them down (my boarders) until they cough up the rent! There can be a fine line (or border) between property rights and slavery.
Note to sturmudgeon: not everyone is perfect like us, but I appreciate you going first.
Who is this “we” that keeps getting suckered? Most likely not the western politicians. One can pretty much count that their beliefs and intentions are, if not the opposite, at least markedly different than what they say.
Brilliant post!
It’s no secret that the increase in FF produced energy outpaces the increase in renewable energy produced. Without nuclear it will get worse before it gets better.
Very useful information, Willis. Thank you for your ongoing work to shine light on the green tyranny. I’m keeping your images on this post for future use in conversations with believers.
Meanwhile, a hint of sanity in my current home province. Story tip?
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-starts-pre-development-work-for-new-large-scale-nuclear-plant
Good news for Canada! Here’s the current situation.
Best to y’all in the frozen north,
w.
Where’s the global warming, eh? Still waiting for some climate change…
Last I heard, (other than a few former bosses) fossils are the remains of once living organisms. Therefore, so called fossil fuels are naturally formed from biological processes.
Weirdly, so-called bio fuels are artificially made using many industrial processes.
Your figure 6 (accidentally?) shows that one of the inputs of the industrial processes for the production of artificially produced “bio” fuels must be a greater calorie value of naturally produced fossil fuels, coincidentally also illustrating the “laws” of thermodynamics.
IMO, just like LCOE, the “green” value of biofuel is mostly marketing hype, and the road to net zero is powered by coal, petroleum, and the aptly named natural gas. Increased use of green electrical generation will require at least a twofold increase in fossil fuel consumption.
Good piece. Thanks Willis.
I doubt it. Coal is undoubtedly a fossil, but hydrocarbons are probably primordial, see methane seas on Titan.
No. There is a small amount of abiogenic methane formed under unusual geological circumstances on planet Earth, for example the clathrates at the bottom of the Framm Strait. No abiogenic crude oil has even been shown; the Russians got the geology of Ukraine wrong, and the trace in Sweden was shown to be just contaminated drill mud.
Both oil and natural gas are sourced from marine kerogen from photosynthetic algae and such, which accumulates on the seafloor under anoxic conditions Black Sea today) and is then ‘cooked’ into oil and gas.
There is a lovely proof in the ~50mya Green River kerogen (misnamed oil shale) formation. Was ‘never’ cooked. Full of marine fish fossils.
I’m fascinated by the abiogenic methane on Titan – how 2 planets in the same solar system can form the same substance by markedly different mechanisms. Makes you think that, once get out into the solar system, that there could be a wealth of resources available. Amazing stuff.
There are plenty of resources in the Solar System, it’s just a little problematic getting to them at the moment.
Those resources are waiting for when humans move away from the planet Earth to live permanently in space
The future could be very bright for humanity, but there are a lot of pitfalls along the way. Good leadership will solve these problems.
Thank you, Rud. I have not heard your explanation before, and have been saying “abiotic” (which may also be the wrong word) for some long time. Guess I will have to abandon that term.
Several problems with the belief that oil and gas are abiotic.
1) As soon as the sun started fusing hydrogen, the inner solar system became too hot for methane to exist. This was 10’s of millions of years before the earth and other inner planets had formed.
2) Even if there was any methane in the early solar system, the early earth was too hot for any of it to have survived.
3) Methane is light, rocks are heavy. Even if methane had managed to survive the trip down to the Earth’s surface, the early earth was completely molten, all the methane would have floated up to the surface, there would be none in the interior of the planet.
4) Oil and gas are found where the biotic theory predicts it to be, none has ever been found in a place other than those predicted by the biotic theory.
Truly exceptional article Willis. Thank you
Funny thing Willis, the graph for Denmark looks almost the same as for Venezuela, a 50% decrease from the top energy usage figure. It just took Denmark over 20 years to achieve what Maduro did in less than 10. I bet those Danish socialists are ashamed of themselves.
BUT, they can be proud that they are STILL under 50% and FALLING, where the slackers in Venezuela are now above 50% and climbing.
BTW, Venezuela has started to get outside help to increase their oil production, the only reason they have an increase in “energy” usage.
The Venezuela conventional crude is way past peak production nevermind that Maduro ‘wrecked’ the industry. Most of what Venezuela has left is viscous high sulfur Orinoco belt ‘tar sands’ which cost more to produce and are worth less. Probably not going very far very fast for some time.
Excellent post, Willis! You seem stuck on actual data. Nice.
Excellent perspective once more, Willis. I’ll put it on my facebook page to annoy the bas….s.
The numbers are hard to argue against and you have to wonder how long it is before people realise the futility and stupidity of the green dogma.
I think that the other report from your previous post shows WW fossil fuels at 82% and renewables not even managing to cover the upside 1.1% in energy demand.
As the graphs suggest – plan for net zero some time in 2150 or later!
Norway is an amusing example. They are the (greens’) shining example of EV adoption and green energy. It’s the most expensive country in the (already expensive) Nordic region and at least 20 % of it’s gdp is based on oil and gas.
If they fulfil the green dream then they’re going to have a big hole in their economy and it may be difficult to sustain the cost of energy and EVs.
It is also a country where the high EV adoption makes little sense given their winter climate. Cars need heat and batteries lose capacity in the cold months.
We were on a 3 week motorcycle vacation through Scandinavia and midafternoon on a gravel road mountain pass to Bergen in mid August we got caught in a significant snowstorm. Fortunately little snow accumulation on the gravel so we were able to push on to lower elevations where it was just very cold rain.
LiIon batteries need to be above freezing while charging.
It’s not just the cars that need heating, the batteries do as well.
Norway also subsidses the development of unreliables and EVs by using its sovereign wealth fund built up from sales of its huge North Sea oil deposits. It also recently began supplying some of its oil platforms with electricity from floating wind turbines. Without the oil none of this would have happened.
Some of the ferries in Norway are prohibiting EV’s on board.
Finally. They are dangerous.
A sign of the times.
This article which is excellent first made me think of The Little Match Girl by H.C. Andersen. But then I remembered that more people these days dies from heat, how dare you Bjørn Lomborg to prove that this isn´t a bad thing in a bigger perspective.
What I wrote above made me think of Sweden, where Greta Thunberg was detained/arrested a couple of weeks ago for disobedience for trying to stop Oil-Tankers from entering and exiting the port in Malmø. As she said in an Instagram at that time: ” We choose to not be bystanders, and instead physically stop the fossil fuel infrastructure. We are reclaiming the future.
Oh dear, oh dear, how dare they detaining Little Greta with the matches for that. Have the world gone mad, why can´t we just all understand The Greta Leap Forward.
That´s it, I am on my way to Køge Harbour to fight wind mill supplies for entering the habour on my faith walker Rosinante.
Let’s see what happens when this goes to court. In the US, criminal behavior for the correct causes are rarely punished.
I have the perfect defense, years of climate change have blinded me. According to Swedish law Greta could risk 6 months in prison … but I think the possibility that she just gets a fine is 99,9999999% – but I´m keeping my finger crossed for the 0,00000001%.
It could actually be a good article if she was imprisoned: “Why Fossil fuels are a gift and the green fight a utopia.
When she was arrested before, she was younger and the police were posing with her, this time she’s older and the police more serious. She may have misread the room.
If they are to judge her then it´s must be done on the basis of her statements that climate protection is not a crime and what she wrote as stated in my first post, ofc there is the part that she has been arrested before, but this was abroad, but perhaps they will make an exception in this case and not just fine her, pour encourager les autres, we can hope. Sorry Greta, you misread the room, reality calls.
Greta says “We are reclaiming the future.”
Sorry, mindless little muppet… but you are DESTROYING the future for your generation and the next.
Without the huge benefits of fossil fuels, your life would be dire and desperate.
You would have nothing, and be living in dung-built or cave-like squaller.
Everything your generation currently has, is BECAUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
And fools like you want to destroy it. !
I heard today that an international maritime agreement was launched which demands net zero shipping emissions by 2050
Green groups were unimpressed, it’s nowhere near bonkers enough for them
It seems the West is going back to the Cutty Sark
Meanwhile in India and China….
For speed you’d choose Thermopylae. She averaged averaged 69 days (starting from the Lizard) for her first 10 voyages to Melbourne. Also designed for China Tea trade so ideal for bringing electronics for the great and good.
Unfortunately used as a target by the Portuguese Navy
Speed isn’t on their agenda
How many EVs can you get on the Cutty Sark ? A modern container ship can carry up to 20,000 containers and car transporter ships thousands of EVs.
Great data Willis. Given your issues with Twitter, just wondering if you’ve considered Meta’s new Threads. Maybe sign up and post a few links to your essays and see how long it takes to get banned there too. I’m very disappointed in Musk’s not stopping unwarranted censorship on Twitter. I canceled my account way back when their bias was obvious. So far I see no reason to go back.
I doubt he’d last long on Meta, most of the people who work there are people who left Twitter because Musk wasn’t restrictive enough for them.
True, and the reason Twitter issued a cease and desist to Threads. Alleges stolen knowhow and IP, stolen code, and violation of employee exit agreements. Sounds like Musk has a good case even if California. There is recent CA case precedent with autonomous vehicle engineering.
When I have to assume what isn’t specific I don’t necessarily come to the same conclusions as the person I’m supposed to be communication with so just so I understand a few things:
(1) The top label on each graph states “No Traditional Biofuels”. Does that mean those are left off the graph or does it mean they don’t exist?
(2) If left off is that because your source doesn’t provide them, because they sum to less than 0.1% of total, because you consider them irrelevant for the discussion, or for some other reason?
(3) Let us use the “World Total” graph as example. It says Non-fossil – 8%, Wind/Solar 2.1%. Does that mean non-fossil that is not wind or solar is 8 – 2.1 = 5.9%?
Hey, Andy, good to see you.
(1) Traditional biofuels absolutely exist, but I know of no country-level data on them. There’s global data on them, which I included in my previous post.
(2) See (1)
(3) Yes, given rounding error. The “Non-Fossil” numbers are rounded to the nearest whole percent. For a more accurate number, add the hydro+nuclear+biofuels+other figures.
w.
If I harvest trees on my own property using a chainsaw and burn it in a wood stove with a catalytic converter – would that be “traditional” or “non-traditional”? Just remembered I got a small electric splitter last year.
Secondly, no one knows how much I cut and burn and, if fact, I don’t bother keeping track.
Denmark and Venezuela look surprisingly the same, just the drop off in Denmark has been going on longer and less steep.
Less energy= less prosperity
I wonder what the unemployment rate is in Denmark, how did they handle that many industry jobs leaving the country.
Denmark is mainly per definition a service-industry … the unemployment rate is 2.8% of the labour force.
2.8% of those actively looking for work?
Yes and a little “no” … the 2.8% is the percentage of the labour force that is unemployed but actively looking for work and are willing to work. Do all actively looking for work, well, my guess would be, that 0,1 up to 0,2% does not do what the unemployment legislation prescribes.
What’s the participation rate – the actual percentage of workers vs the total? Unemployment rates are a fiction, never including those who have given up looking for work or never bothered. How did they have such a large, quick drop in total energy use (50% in 25 years) without a corresponding drop in GDP? Did they all learn to code?
The Participation Rate is roughly 80,3% … around 3,1 million out of the population of roughly 6 millions are in the work force.
Ofc … the number 2.8% as I presented is just one of 4 methods to calculate the unemployment rate based on the total work force.
Even though Denmark is depentend on export, which are 70% of the GDP … Denmark is basically a serviceindustry with a high public sector more than a production industry. The Service industry. The prosperity is mainly created in the service sector which accounts for than three quaters of both employment and total annual value added in society. But ofc in the end it also helps that Denmark have a fairly strong social security net. However, this has deteriorated over the past few decades. But it was still a big part, that meant that Denmark got back on track after the financial crisis in 2008.
Based on the ratios The Danish Econmy is quite healthy. Even though this is the reality, The Government a couple of month ago decided to take away a holiday from us, starting by next year, I don´t think I have to say their calculations was misleading when it comes to how they presented the dynamic effects … worst of all is, that the Government are going beyond net-zero, they are talking about reaching net-zero in 2045, and reach a goal of negative emmissions, 110%, in 2050.
Something is rotten in the State of Denmark, as Shakespeare would have put it. Taking a holiday away, based on calculations with a baseline in 1980 and the idea to reach negative emmissions in 2050, hopefuly tells a lot.
Denmark has an old population with median age of 45. There has also been a high propensity for saving with net investment position 60% of GDP. The linked data is a bit dated but gives comparisons by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_position
Venezuela is a basket case.
The Star of the South wind farm touted for Victoria is being financed by a Danish retirement fund and an Australian retirement fund with the State government throwing in enough guaranteed consumer theft to make it financially viable. So the current and next generations of Australians will be supporting Danish retirees.
Very good presentation Willis.
Western countries are committing economic suicide with their headlong race to cut back on emissions to become “carbon neutral.
The world coal production has soared from a steady 4.7 billion tonnes in 2009 to exceeding 8 billion tonnes twice since then with more than the the entire increase being used in Asia.
I am a New Zelander and this cr@p about zero carbon is really starting to hurt our country.
A former prime Minister Helen Clarke attended the Kyoto Accord knowing that New Zealands emissions from fossil fuel were quite low because by far most of our electricity was generated by hydro and geothermal with back up with the Huntly coal and gas power station in a dry year.
She was blind sided when activists made the claim that enteric methane from farmed animals was heating the world .
No one stood up and told the truth then or since that methane is an irrelevant gas and that enteric methane is a closed cycle as not one additional Atom of carbon or Molecule containing carbon is added to the atmosphere because all fodder consumed has absorbed CO2 and the methane emitted breaks down in the upper atmosphere into CO2 and H2O.
Suddenly our countries so called emissions doubled because of our farmed live stock.
New Zealands agricultural emissions represent 48 % of our emissions but we feed 30 million people around the world with our food exports from a country of 5 million.
A few in our socialist green government are now realizing that every country has to earn overseas exchange to pay for imports.
But the majority of our government want to cripple our agriculture in a vain attempt to cut our agricultural emissions to look good in the eyes of the UN.
It makes no sense that some countries are trying to become carbon neutral ,crippling their economies when other countries are using far more fossil fuel than ever with the totat fossil fuel use increasing world wide.
No-one said it had to make sense. Ideologies are usually based firmly in emotion and often make no sense whatsoever.
Graham, it took a while to write the program. But now that the program is written it just takes me a few moments to make a new chart. I put the country ID number in and the graphic appears.
So … here you go. We are nothing if not a full-service website.
Regards,
w.
Thank you Willis .
Is geothermal part of the other at around 5.4% with a very small amount of solar?
Best ever graphics anywhere by anyone. Nice work Willis.
I note that the global FF energy linear growth trend is greater than the ruinables exponential trend (even the higher rate at its end). In other words, ruinables are falling further behind in meeting Mankind’s growing energy needs.
Love “ruinables”… thanks.
That is the inevitable result of making stuff to produce energy that requires more energy to make than it can ever hope to produce over its short life.
You do not have to be very clever to understand that if you require more energy to make something than it can produce over its operating life you are wasting energy.
The only way the west can achieve NetZero is for China to burn an increasing amount of fossil fuels.
Good numbers on energy sources Willis. But oil and gas are also raw materials for many products. Got any numbers on these non-energy uses to fill out the perspective.
This is not exactly what you ask for but is still interesting.
https://texoilcompany.dk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/petro-products.pdf
Many Thanks for this, Mr. E. If ANYONE who views those charts and your text still wants to exit F.F., there is no hope for them.
There is a fundamental constraint that invalidates these concurrent projections. You cannot have accelerating wind and solar without accelerating fossil fuel. All the wind and solar hardware that needs to be made in China requires China to burn more fossil fuels than what the wind and solar can save. If the wind and solar output increases exponentially, then China’s consumption of carbon based energy to support that growth has to be exponential. Something that is already apparent over the last two decades.
Willis,
Pretty please, can you slip in the graph for Australia, given that our little country of 26 million is a big contributor to WUWT and has an active energy sanity content? Ta Geoff S
Of course, my friend, we aims to please …
It’s gonna be a long wait for wind/solar to make a difference.
w.
Willis,
Very much appreciated, thankyou.
I admire the clarity of your presentations. They make their points well.
Geoff S
I’ve emailed the graph, with a short message regarding the futility of net-zero and the insanity of their green energy policies.
chris.bowen.mp@aph.gov.au
adam.bandt.MP@aph.gov.au
and Anthony Albanese via >> Contact Your PM | Prime Minister of Australia
Hey Willis, thought you’d get a rise out of this graphic visualizing the billions of cubic meters the top 3 fossil fuels consumed annually:
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/the-scale-of-fossil-fuel-production/
Thanks, interesting.
w.
Very nice, the alarmists have nothing, they can not support their claims, they can not replace fossil fuels all they have is lies, cheating and the press.
Willis, I’m not sure I understand how you are accounting for nuclear generation. My impression (I could be wrong) is that you are using the electrical output of the nuclear plants and not taking into account the thermal power of the reactors. Due to the relatively low steam temperatures from a water cooled reactor, the thermal efficiency will typically be about 33%, so the total energy produced from nuclear is about 3 times the electrical energy.
For non-thermal such as hydro, wind and PV solar, perhaps the most honest energy multiplier would be 1/0.6, i.e. the inverse of the efficiency of a combined cycle combustion turbine plant.
I think my brain is ossifying (even faster), I’m having very similar difficulties.
I’ll detail what I’m guessing Willis did here. If we’re lucky he’ll come back and “correct” both of us …
– – – – –
1) The cited source is the EI’s “Statistical Review of World Energy” spreadsheet, which has 83 sheets (/ tabs).
NB : The “Methodology” PDF file is available on the same webpage.
URL as a clickable link : https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/resources-and-data-downloads
– – – – –
2) The “methodology” only adds “fiddle factors” for :
I am assuming that for the “fossil fuels” of oil, gas and coal Willis is using the “XXX: Consumption – Exajoules (from 1965)” data directly (sheets 19, 36 and 46 respectively).
– – – – –
3) On sheet 81 are given various “conversion factors”.
This says “1 kWh = 3600 kJ” and “1 EJ ~= 278 TWh” (multiplication factor = 2500/9 ?).
– – – – –
4) So taking “nuclear” as an example, sheet 50 is “Nuclear Energy – Generation – TWh (from 1965)”.
Multiply those numbers, for your selected country, by 9/2500 and you get the “true energy usage by source” numbers in EJ used in the ATL article … I think !
NB : Comparing those calculations with those on sheet 51, “Nuclear Energy – Consumption – Exajoules (from 1965)”, in most cases I get the “x2.5” factor mentioned above.
– – – – –
5) For the other components on the graphs both above and below the line :
– Hydro (generation in TWh) is on sheet 52
– Solar is on sheet 58
– Wind is on sheet 61
– “Geothermal, Biomass and Other” is on sheet 64
Note that there is separate “Electricity generation from other – TWh (from 1985)” [ nineteen-eighty-five, not –sixty-five ! ] data on sheet 75, but I don’t know if that is used or not.
I think the “Biofuels” numbers used may be coming from one of the “Renewables – Biofuels consumption – Kboe/d (from 1990)” and “Renewables – Biofuels consumption – Petajoules (from 1990)” tabs (sheets 68 and 69), but I’m even less sure about this detail.
NB : On sheet 81 “1 barrel of oil equivalent (boe) = 6.119 million kJ”, which is roughly the ratio of (sheet 69 number) : (365 x sheet 68 number).
– – – – –
I repeat, if we’re lucky Willis will come back and “correct” both of us …
BP supplies 2 sets of figures for e.g nuclear—”Consumption” and “Generation”.
“Generation” is the real number. “Consumption” is the “input equivalent” number.
I’m using “Generation”, the real number, in all of my sources.
w.
Thanks for the clarification on nuclear as being generation. This does mean that the generation numbers need to multiplied by a factor of 3 to get the amount of thermal energy generated by the reactors.
NB : After 3 days this post is about to “drop off” the WUWT home page, and therefore effectively become “a dead comments section”.
One always lives in hope, however …
– – – – –
I idly thought I’d do a “quick idiot check” to see if I could reproduce your graphs … and hit a problem with the “Oil” numbers rather than “Nuclear et al” !
The “Oil consumption in EJ” numbers from sheet 19 seem to be around 10 EJ below your graphs for both China and the USA.
Using the “Oil: Total liquids consumption in thousands of barrels per day” from sheet 16 makes up some of the shortfall, but not all of it.
My graph for China is attached below.
Note that for 2022 the “cumulative stack” up to “Coal” touches the 100 EJ lie, and the “Gas wedge” looks about right.
The final “Oil” wedge, however, only gets the total to ~145 EJ instead of your ~152.
After getting distracted by this discrepancy for much longer than I planned for I’m now at the “If I had any hair left I’d be ripping it out in frustration” stage …
The equivalent graph for the US of A.
Note that the thin “rainbow” wedge at the bottom looks very similar to your graph, and that the “stack” for 2022 up to “Gas” also gets to your 50 EJ line, but once again “Oil” falls short …
– – – – –
Numbers from sheet 19, “Oil consumption in EJ” for 2022.
USA (cell BG7) : 36.15, instead of your 48.1 to 48.2 (???)
China (cell BG93) : 28.16, instead of your 37.9 to 38 (???)
– – – – –
NB : From sheet 81, “Conversion factors” :
Numbers from sheet 16, “Oil: Total liquids consumption in thousands of barrels per day” for 2022.
USA (cell BG7) : 20280
20280 x 365 x 6.119 / 1000000 ~= 45.294 EJ, still almost 3 EJ short …
China (cell BG93) : 14370
14370 x 365 x 6.119 / 1000000 ~= 32.094 EJ, still around 6 EJ short …
– – – – –
“So near, and yet so far”, as the old saying goes.
Like I said, not being able to see whatever “obvious” mistake I have made is “tear your (inexistent) hair out frustrating”.
I didn’t use the spreadsheet. I used the “Consolidated Dataset – Narrow format CSV / 10.3MB” from the data page listed in the graphs. It’s set up for computer use.
Within that, I used the category called “oilcons_ej” for oil consumption in exajoules.
My best to you both,
w.
My sincere apologies in advance, but I don’t think you did.
For the USA, spreadsheet sheet 19, “Oil consumption” for 2022 = 36.15 (EJ).
The relevant line from the “narrow format” file (the same number is in the “Panel format” file as well) :
Attached is a screenshot of a “zoomed in view” of your USA graph.
The horizontal “major axis” lines go from 40 to 100 EJ (in steps of 20 EJ).
The “stack” up to “Gas” (magenta) reaches ~50 EJ and the “Oil” slice takes the total in 2022 to ~98(.3 ?) EJ.
NB : Measured by zooming in even more and holding up a transparent ruler to my laptop screen : 20 EJ = 140 mm gives me a pretty fine resolution when measuring to the nearest mm …
98 – 50 = forty eight, not thirty six …
– – – – –
NB : Checking some minor disparities with the “Biofuels” number against the percentage numbers you gave leads me to believe that number has been “adjusted” (by a bug in your R code ???) as well.
Spreadsheet sheet 68, “Biofuels consumption” = 1561.9 (Peta-Joules !) for 2022.
CSV files (x2) “biofuels_cons_ej” = 1.56191620230675.
Your graph has the label “Biofuels – 2%” (to the nearest 0.1%, from the other country graphs).
98.3 x 1.95% ~= 1.917
98.3 x 2.05% ~= 2.015
How are you going from (roughly) 1.56 to 1.96 for “No Traditional (?) Biofuels” ?
– – – – –
I only started this out of curiosity, but not understanding exactly why this version of a “reproducibility crisis” exists is extremely frustrating !
Mark, I also included the data for “Other Oil Consumption” from the BP narrow format CSV file.
Same issue with biofuels. From my reading and investigation, their “biofuels” number does NOT include biodiesel, so I’ve added the two together.
Thanks for taking the time to check my numbers, much appreciated.
w.
Just to say I love this, and have sent the link to many others.
Muchas Gracias y
Un abrazo
Y a ti tambien, mi’jita …
w.
STORY TIP
Yes, it ain’t going to happen. But in trying to do it, the UK, US, Australia and NZ seem to be going full speed ahead to wreck their economies and produce social misery and deprivation.
Interesting piece by Matt Ridley in today’s Mail in the UK, about the effort to get to EV only sales by 2030 in the UK.
Probably possible to do it, in the sense of, legally enforce the ban. But completely impossible to run the present economy while doing it. Massive social and economic changes will result if its really carried out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12276725/Why-Ill-buying-brand-new-petrol-car-just-2030-ban-says-MATT-RIDLEY.html
Its refuel times, too. But the problem he will have is that in 2029 or 2030 it will probably be impossible to find a new ICE car – because regulatory quotas are limiting the number made each year. And given a 2030 ban on sales, manufacturers won’t still be delivering them in the later years. Also, even can you find one, its likely that regulation will make them too expensive to use, and with many uses banned.
There are almost 33m cars registered in the UK of which, according to the RAC, an estimated 712,000 were BEVs and 486,000 PHEVs on the road at the end of 2022. Given that Kia and other car makers have pointed to the fact that mass volume BEV production is unlikely because of viability problems there are going to be many, many millions of ice cars still around in 2030.
Any government that alienates that many people will not be around for long – 30m+ cars could easily equate to over 40m adults and children dependent on them.
I agree of course that its madness, social and economic madness both. But it seems like its going to happen – that is, the ban on sales of ICE cars and vans probably really is going to come into force from 2030. And the ban on sales of hybrids will take effect in 2035. Yes, there will still be used ICE cars. But any new car will be an EV from then on in.
Not to mention the ban on replacing or new installs of oil fired boilers, starting in 2025. That seems pretty certain too, and I have heard no dissent from any of the established political parties.
As for electoral consequences, well, Liberals, Conservatives, Labour, SNP, Greens and Plaid are all entirely behind these measures. So I am not sure whether there is anything to be done, it makes no difference who you vote for. The next government, in 18 months from now, will probably be Labour, and it will carry on exactly like this one. That will take us to about 2028, and it will then be too late to reverse course.
I suspect we will see bans on driving ICE cars in lots of locations, and increases in road tax and fuel duty.
We need someone or some group to do a careful study of what the consequences of the sales bans will be. Because I think their arrival is inevitable.
You seem to be on a roll recently – thank you for that! Your posts are always informative and this one is no exception.
How to change the minds of the idiot class duped by the Climate Catastrophe propaganda:
Create a reality show called “Naked and Afraid – How Just Stop Oil Fanatics fair when you take away all things made from oil”
So like the cartoon figure on the right above, they have no clothing, no tools and no metals, plastics or chemicals, or drugs etc, and throw them into the wild and see who survives. (no knives, no matches and no string too, and camera crews are forbidden to help in any way)
For what it’s worth, wind and solar growth growing quadratically is probably impossible because of transmission system constraints.
All of the easy transmission interconnections have been taken already. Trying to exponentially accelerate RE deployments into the hard part of transmission interconnections is just not going to happen.
Pro RE NRDC describes it well enough: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/dana-ammann/breaking-through-pjm-interconnection-queue-crisis
So, what happens in 100 or 150 years from now, when fossil fuel runs out? We don’t have an infinite supply of fossil fuels.
We go back to whale oil?
Good lady, if that’s your worry, you have none. As they used to say, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”.
Or as the joke goes where I live,
“What did they use for light in California before kerosene?”
“Electricity …”
w.
Would you please elaborate, from what I understand we have maybe 50 years of oil reserve left. Energy requirements can probably be met from other sources, but plastics based articles are going to be the problem unless we find some other new ways. That is what I was wondering.
Yes, known oil reserves are limited. Though ‘peak oil’ keeps getting forecast but also keeps failing to arrive. However, there are plenty of coal reserves to last a couple of hundred years. Humanity is not going to run out of fossil fuels.
The real problem is that humanity will need at some point a real alternative to them. But wind and solar are not it. They are not fit for purpose.
All they do is absorb the investment that could be being used for basic research into other energy sources. Well, they do one other thing, the attempt to convert everything to electricity while moving the grid to wind and solar will do a bit more than that, it will wreck the economies that try it and will produce social deprivation and poverty on a grand scale.
The solution to the problem of exhaustion of fossil fuels (distant though it is, its real) is to stop trying to make wind and solar work and instead invest in basic research into alternative energy technologies that will do the job.
I am really not worried about energy, I think it is likely solar or even fusion energy might come true in 50 or 70 years. I am more concerned about plastics (shown in the cartoon above) from cloths, to medical devices, composites in planes, boats, plastic wappers for electrical wiring, etc. If we don’t have oil, we will have a very limited supply of raw materials for that (mainly from plants, which are nearly not as diverse as from oil). Unfortunately, I have not seen anyone addressing that part, what the future generation could do. I wish someone would address that before it is too late.
What Jennifer said.
w.
Energy mix of France with the lowest carbon footprint per capita because of Nuclear electricity.
Good to hear from you as always, Hans. However, that’s not the “energy mix”. It’s just the electricity mix. Having said that, France does have lots of nuclear.
Best regards,
w.
Superb post Willis.
One question I have asked of the green persuasion is how they think they are going to mine and process all of the raw materials necessary to build windmills/solar panels etc but without using fossil fuel powered mining and processing equipment. Never had an answer of course.
I spent quite a bit of time in Venezuela from 1995 to 2003 and witnessed the start of the $0cialist descruction of the economy. It was a great place in the mid 90’s. It went downhill pretty quickly once Chavez got his corrupt hands on everything.