Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 26 November 2023
The inimitable NY Times graphics department produced a useful and informative graphic about “the top 60 power-producing countries” (meaning electrical production) and what power source — renewable or fossil fuels (by type) — they have been using to make that electricity. The purpose of the graphic was apparently to show how well some countries are doing in ramping down fossil fuels and ramping up renewables.
[Note: If the page appears pay-walled, use your Private Browser function and should be able to see the story and graphics.]
The whole chart is shown natively using different scale for each country, as the authors wish to accentuate the trends.
Here is one example: (fair use…)
The UK is doing great, huh? Almost totally eliminated their local coal and ramped up renewables. Looking at the NY Times graphic with “See Trends” selected in the upper right corner, you can find lots of countries really on the bandwagon saving the Earth from fossil fuel pollution. Take a look at the chart online — can’t reproduce too much of their piece without running afoul of copyright, but this is an opinion piece and fair use allows some reasonable reproduction.
The point of this OpEd is to point out what happens to the graphic when one switches the view to : Compare Totals .
This next image is long and tall, intentionally small, and at this reduced size you will be only able to see the point I wish to make, scroll down through it:
In the Compare Totals view it is obvious that only five or six (maybe eight) of those Top 60 Countries actually matter as far as use of fossil fuels to produce electricity:
One might add a couple more of EU nations and maybe South Korea and Indonesia, France, Brazil, maybe Canada: those with more than a thin line at the bottom of their charts.
But as far as fossil fuel burning to produce electricity, ONLY those nations above really matter in the present. And, if one wants to be more precise, only China, the United States, and India matter.
All the hoopla about COP28, all the travel, the extravagance, the pontification, speeches, grandstanding, handshaking and general pretense that they are “doing something” will amount to nothing.
Nothing if those “those countries that matter” do not agree to make the huge, economy-crushing, socioeconomically-harmful, nation-destroying decisions that are being demanded of them by “The Climate Crazies” (remember the declaration of the “era of global boiling”).
I doubt that they will agree – these countries will do what they have been doing the last 25 years: making promises and keeping only those that are convenient and profitable.
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Author’s Comment:
“I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so.” (h/t Randy Newman)
I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
Thanks for reading.
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The COP process operates on the premise King Knut just did not give the tides sufficiently verbose orders.
Symbolically, they are happy to pass out guns and at the same time encourage suicide.
The entire enterprise is a propaganda excessive to encourage any nation foolish enough to commit economic and eventually, social suicide in exchange for more power and money in the hands of elites.
(Clutching my pearls) good god, sir, GUNS? How uncivilized!
They are however very actively passing out fentanyl tablets. Distributed by undocumented Democrats.
Behave yourself, Tom.
Knut did what he did to show his courtiers that he could not control the tide under any circumstance.
COP attendees think, or at least say that they think, that they can control the tide if they meet often enough.
There is nothing like an annual Hajj to assure one’s place in paradise.
good analogy- I like it! I’ll wait to see an image of it in AI
And since it’s so difficult, they intend to meet every year at the most exotic venues imaginable from now to eternity, world without end!
A major source of uncertainty in the long-range population projections is the difficulty of predicting the course of fertility in countries where the level of fertility is still high. Countries that still have high levels of fertility generally also have low levels of per capita income, high levels of absolute poverty and hunger, low levels of education (especially for girls), and high levels of unmet need for contraception. Most such countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, and many are in the group of 46 Least Developed Countries (LDC’s) as classified by the United Nations.
Despite decline in extreme poverty, broader measures show that Nearly Half the World Lives on Less than $5.50 a Day, as billions still struggle to meet basic needs.
but… but… I thought they’d all be getting good, high paying jobs, installing wind and solar energy! and saving the Earth too!
Ronald Stein ==> Burgeoning populations in Africa and other LDCs will only affect emissions if the rest of the world (ROW) allows them fossil fuels to make electricity and thus to raise their standard of living. Higher standards of living allow all the other benefits they now lack: more income-per-capita, more education for all, instruction and means of contraception, etc.
Instead of demanding LDCs try to get by on solar and wind, the ROW should be helping to built power plants running on whatever fuels are locally available and cheap — especially coal or oil. As well as building dams for hydro power and reservoirs for safe drinking water.
It would not be outrageous to think If the money spent on so called climate change were spent on education instead there would be a lot less poverty and no climate crisis. But of course its not about that.
There are only two reasons for any organism to exist on earth, reproduction and the consumption of food to enable that behavior. Everything else is a complication. If those two things aren’t done the organism becomes extinct. As Oswald Spengler pointed out, developed cultures eventually move away from reproduction and then disappear. There’s no virtue or practicality in lack of fertility.
China having a higher share of renewables each year, while also having a massive growth in overall electricity consumption.
What does this tell us about the type and amount of capacity they add each year?
One might also ask why is China the most polluted country and why does China contribute the most pollution globally?
The answer is because it’s a con.
That’s a better word than “hoax”.
Con implies the deliberate trickery to make a profit. Americans get used to deceit everywhere to the point where we think a confidence game is just a humorous variation. Oops! Robert Redford cavorting in The Sting. Then there are those online ratings that are paid for by free products. On some level AGW is like the emails I get assuring me that my membership for some thing has been renewed (but I can dispute it at…), or my payment of $495.50 has been received for some weird product or service. It’s a “mass delusion” con, hoping to initiate a growing snowball of fearful victims and self-righteous perpetrators. It’s a fake middle school science teacher’s near-religious conversion from “denier” to believer. (Stigmata optional) It’s a pyramid scheme which hooks investors who must then hook others to survive… Cons hurt people. They destroy businesses.
At about 2005, the NYT graph of America’s gigawatt hours shows our consumption levels off at around 4 MGH and has remained there with a small blip at the end. What should our consumption have looked like without the self-righteous liars and the fearful trying to throttle it?
To me a “hoax” implies something a whole lot more trivial, like, “Hey, did you know you can balance an egg on end during the equinoxes?” It implies something harmless.
If you examine the graph closely, you can see that coal is growing faster than renewables in actual electricity generated.
Of course, this means that the growth in renewables is failing to keep pace with the growth in electricity demand.
I’m not going to guess pixel ratios
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewables-nuclear-line?country=~CHN
The graph you have referenced merely looks at percentages of electricity generated, not the actual amount of electricity generated. Don’t you know the difference?
To be absolutely clear, coal can provide more than half of the growth of electricity demand and still have a falling percentage of total electricity demand.
I was wrong about that one.
You are wrong about the whole AGW ideology. !
You could prove you have a modicum of intelligence by stopping the silly comments in your failed efforts in support of the scam.
Until then, you are just another griff.
MyUsername ==> Refreshingly admitted — thank you. Comments here would be more enjoyable if more were willing to admit these kinds of minor errors.
MyUsername ==> China is engaged in an “more of everything” strategy — more coal, more oil, more solar, more wind, more nuclear. China will not be talked out of supplying 24/7 sufficient electrical power to all of its people and all of its industry.
And honestly, Kip, why should they be talked out of providing electricity to all? Here in the US, we regard access to electricity, heat and cooling as all but a human right, and provide public assistance to those who can’t afford to pay the bills. Of course our policies are making those bills go up dramatically, but that is a separate issue. But I don’t begrudge the Chinese, Indians, and all of Africa access to energy.
starzmom ==> “But I don’t begrudge the Chinese, Indians, and all of Africa access to energy.” Nor should you — you (we) should cheer on the LDC (least developed countries) and help them do whatever they can to provide dependable sufficient electricity to all of their people, clean drinking water (electricity pumps deep well water), education, hospitals, and family planning clinics (real planning, not killing just the unborn).
But, Kip, for decades Western governments, development agencies and financial institutions as well as Western environmental and other NGO’s have opposed virtually all large scale energy and resource development across the developing world because ‘we know what is good for you’. Were they wrong? 🙂
Kip, this is a good analysis and has some aspects of principle component analysis.
One might also consider that electricity generation is only about a quarter to a third of global primary energy consumption. In that respect, a focus on electricity generation at this time doesn’t move the emissions needle that much. It might make for good theatre, however.
Fossil fuels provide about 80-85% of primary energy. They also provide a significant amount of the materials that we use and a huge fraction of those needed for modern life.
COP doesn’t focus on matter (mass) to any significant extent, certainly not to address its production. COP is a big red herring argument akin to that of Just Stop Oil.
I would like to see these people use dugout canoes instead of polypropylene kayaks to block some port delivery of coal. Until then, they deserve only derision.
Some good points, Kip.
I would like to see graphic representation of the per capita use of the fuel source. No doubt folks in some countries use more energy per capita than others.
Gums wonders…
Qatar is the highest. UAE and Singapore are virtually tied for second as far as total energy consumption per capita is concerned.
Gums ==> Per capita charts wouldn’t help us much to understand who is burning more fossil fuels to make electricity. All that matters in this sector is the totals — we are not talking of consumption per person — which is used either as an excuse or a blame-tool.
Scissor ==> Solar, hydro, wind, nuclear only add to electrical generation — they are not sources of from Primary Power. Thus, can’t be compared to coal, oil, gas in that arena. None the less, IPPC-ists are pushing solar, wind, hydro and nuclear to replace fossil fuels i electrical production….
I* haven’t looked into it much, I’m just reporting on the NY Times charts created from https://ember-climate.org/ data. Ember is a anti-coal, clean energy advocacy group, so charts may be biased.
I don’t know why you continue to list hydro with solar and wind, here in BC 82% of our electrical supply comes from hydro, it is the primary electrical power source
Nansar07 ==> Hydro is listed as a “clean” or “renewable” source. Hydro is good. Hydro is semi-dispatchable. The idiots in the U.S. Northwest are tearing down hydro dams to “save the fish” or pacify the Native Americans.
British Columbia is blessed to have so much available hydro produced electricity, proofing it against the worst of the Climate Emergency demands.
All the clean sources are good too, if done right. Nothing intrinsically wrong with solar, or wind.
The major effort should be to add electrical production in a reasonable grid-friendly way, driven by market demand, not government fiat.
According to the IEA’s ‘Energy Technologies Perspectives 2023’ on a worldwide basis wind and solar are the source of 2% of primary energy as is hydro.
Somewhat ironic that COP28 is meeting in a country that has fully engaged with Nuclear Power:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates
“In April 2008, the UAE Government officially announced its interest in evaluating nuclear energy as an additional source to meet the country’s growing energy demands.
The Policy of the United Arab Emirates on the Evaluation and Potential Development of Peaceful Nuclear Energy, otherwise known as the Nuclear Policy concluded that nuclear power emerged as a proven, environmentally promising and commercially competitive energy source compared to other options.”
Dan Hughes ==> Nuclear is a totally viable option and should be being pushed by every government in the world.
For UAE building nuclear means they can supply their own electrical needs without burning a product they can sell to others.
The UK is doing great, huh?
Not really
As I looked down upon Bayswater Road from my hotel overlooking Hyde Park this past summer, I couldn’t help but feel some trepidation at the thousands of Islamic marchers taking over the road, most of them dressed in black and appearing not at all friendly.
strat ==> A little tongue in cheek their….they have shot themselves in the foot.
Strat, don’t be so pessimistic. Winter is coming and there’s a chance it might be a winter like the one’s we remember from our childhood plus the threat of power cuts has never been higher.
What’s not to like? 🙂
COP is the epitome of virtue signaling.
mleskovarsocalrrcom ==> Yes, and much worse.
China and India are building coal because they have it and can buy more from Australia and Indonesia. US is losing coal as old coal plants are retired and replaced by cheaper, more efficient CCGT—because we have a lot of fracked natgas and China and India don’t. Shows that grid economics matters while COP28 doesn’t.
“we have a lot of fracked natgas”
can’t be used in woke states or they don’t allow bringing in more- New England won’t allow any new pipes coming from NY
It is NY that will not allow any pipelines through their state, isn’t it?
Does not matter if New England wants natural gas when they must import Liquified gas by ship and are not allowed any more capacity by pipeline. The costs will rise accordingly.
Both- NY doesn’t want pipes going to New England and New England doesn’t want pipes coming in. Hence, no gas. No increase that is. Really dumb.
That’s right. 15 years ago we were told that natural gas was coming to our neighborhood in semi-rural northern Connecticut ’soon’. Those plans were delayed, then cancelled. No prospect of that changing any time soon.
Rud ==> Yes, quite right. And we ought to use our fracked natural gas to our best advantage — it is so much cleaner than coal also.
Anti-fracked gas is simply anti-development and anti-advancement.
Anti-human
More than 70,000 delegates are expected to attend COP28, including the member states (or Parties) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Business leaders, young people, climate scientists, Indigenous Peoples, journalists, and various other experts and stakeholders are also among the participants.
The green zone
THE GREEN ZONE
Beyond the official UN-organized part of the conference, COP 28 is also a platform to showcase solutions and pathways from the global community and civil society. The “green zone”, managed by COP28’s host country of UAE, is a space for youth representatives, artists, businesses, regional and local decision-makers and many other civil society actors to discuss, present and exchange ideas and solutions for a net-zero future in a more informal setting – for example in the form of presentations, podium discussions, poster sessions and exhibitions.
THE BLUE ZONE
All of the official sessions, meetings, side events and press conferences are taking place in the “blue zone”, the formal conference and negotiation space managed by UN Climate Change. Only Party delegations, Heads of State, admitted observers and the accredited press can enter the blue zone.
John Hultquist ==> Quite insane, isn’t it. What are they all going to be doing there, those extra 60,000 or so? Besides figuring out how to line their pockets with your money.
It’s said that 70,000 people will be attending COP28. Can that possibly be enough to avoid another abject failure?
Annual percentages don’t tell the whole story. In the UK on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday for 48 hours wind was generating 15GW and gas around 5GW. Since yesterday afternoon it’s been wind less than 3GW and gas from 10 to 20GW. The rest of western Europe seems to be suffering from the same issue and that’s not unusual, what is unusual is this drought is short (so far).
How easily or not does the grid manage these swings? Seems like a perpetual headache for grid engineers.
Ben_Vorlich ==> At least, so far this winter, they have had enough dispatchable to cover the shortfall from wind. The real trouble starts when that is no longer true.
I don’t know what you all are bitching about? I mean they have accomplished so much!
Maybe as the Sun warms the oceans they aren’t absorbing as much CO2.
I’ll agree that warm water absorbs and holds less CO2. But the primary cause of the warming water is debatable IMO.
scvblwxq ==> What exactly is causing the rising CO2 today (and since the end of the LIA) is controversial. Temperatures have been rising before CO2 rises in all contemporary records. So, yeah, when the planet generally warms,CO2 concentration in the atmosphere then rises.
They’re trashing my bucket list.
rah ==> So far, so good, huh?
Well, really their failure is even worse than that! I mean how much carbon are they pumping out for their transport? And all that hot air the orators are pumping into the atmosphere?
But as long as lil Greta remain mad at them I’ll be satisfied.
They have consistently and decisively made at least two agreements every time – where and when to hold next years festival!
China and India are making growth their first priority.
scvblwxq ==> I think in their minds is improving the general conditions for their people that they are putting first. Raising the standard of living, supply 24/7 electricity, clean water (which requires electricity), the opportunities for small business based on sufficient electrical power.
“There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Shoki ==> quoting Dylan?
Macbeth, on being told that Lady Macbeth has died.
Dylan wishes he could write like that.
Come on, folks….I was joking. I play and sing a whole raft of classic Dylan songs. Since he got the Noble Prize for Literature, I have taken to calling him, in my mind, “Shakespeare” — quirkily because Shakespeare didn’t get a Noble. (well, couldn’t have,could he now, unless he lived into our age).
So, if you think you have a weird uncle, pity my nephews.
Sorry Kip but I don’t rate Dylan, never have; I can’t believe he got a Nobel prize for literature, gawds sake! I mean, next they’ll be giving Liam Gallagher one.
Richard ==> I seemed to have missed Liam Gallagher altogether….
I have to say I thought Dylan’s prize in literature was outrageous — marvelously outrageous!
Did Michael Mann help them to produce those delibertely-misleading graphs?
mike ==> No, an outfit called EMBER…and, yes, may be biased.
The author presents an important point very cleverly. I love the graphs, especially the long and tall one.
gc ==> Well, thank you…me too, truth be told.
Where does the fossil fuel used by the COP shindigs rank over the couple of weeks.
Up there with many small countries, I’d guess.
bnice ==> Someone here always supplies that kind of data — how many tons of CO2 produced by all the travel, air conditioning, hotels, meals, shipping of promotional junk to the ends of the Earth, etc. Wait for it, it will show up eventually.
Small countries — the charts only has the TOP 60 — out of 195 — that’s a lot of countries that count even less than the 50 Do Not Matter Nations in the chart.
China, India and the Biden US all have net zero targets so that will not be an issue at COP 28. The issues are very specific.
For example: https://www.cfact.org/2023/10/31/will-china-pay-climate-change-loss-and-damage/
David ==> Targets are for shooting at — all those countries that matter are not even hitting the backdrop.
so — pretend targets — total pretense.
Article on COP28 from Newsweek:
Notice no mention of how to make “green energy” more effective and less expensive. And not mention of China or India except indirectly with the catch all of “developing nations”.
COP28: Five Things Scientists Want to See Happen (msn.com)
rah ==> Really? “Scientists are hopeful.” Utterly empty meaningless words.
The piece quotes four scientists at two universities in a country not on the “countries that matter list” : New Zealand. New Zealand is a big zero in this fight.
So,I guess “scientists are hopeful” – at least those four.
As I’ve said before, the COP conferences are on a long losing streak; i.e., 27 straight meetings and the global emissions keep on rising. Examination of the charts above provide the reasons why it’ll be 28 straight after this one.
Katz ==> Exactly — the countries that matter will mouth pretty words and then do what is most politically expedient for their current leaders.
NOT what is best for their country or its citizens, mind, just what is best for them personally.
Is Al Gore going? You know what would be hilarious would be record cold temperatures in the UAE caused by the Gore Effect.