From the Robert Bryce Substack
These 9 charts from the Statistical Review Of World Energy expose the myth of the energy transition & show hydrocarbons are growing faster than alt-energy
During his 16-year career in the NBA, Rasheed Wallace was among basketball’s most intimidating power forwards. He was also among the most volatile. Wallace holds the single-season record for technical fouls (41) and ranks third all-time in total technicals with 317.
In addition to his disdain for referees, the 6’11” Wallace, gained fame for a particular catchphrase. If “Sheed” or one of his teammates was called for a foul that he thought was undeserved, and the opposing player missed the ensuing free throw, he would often holler, “Ball don’t lie,” to indicate that the basketball knew the referee had made a bad call.
The ball don’t lie. Neither do the numbers in the latest Statistical Review of World Energy.
Amid the ongoing blizzard of propaganda about the “energy transition” and the tired antics of the goobers from Just Stop Oil — a pair of whom vandalized Stonehenge with orange paint last Wednesday — the Statistical Review, published by the Energy Institute, KPMG, and Kearney, provides a much-needed reality check to the narrative being promoted by major media outlets, academics, and the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex.
The new Statistical Review, released last Thursday, shows, yet again, that despite the hype, subsidies, and mandates, wind and solar energy aren’t keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons. Global hydrocarbon use and CO2 emissions hit record highs in 2023, with hydrocarbon consumption up 1.5% to 504 exajoules (EJ). That increase was “driven by coal, up 1.6%, [and] oil up 2% to above 100 million barrels [per day] for the first time.” Global natural gas demand was flat, mainly due to stunning declines in Europe. Gas demand in the U.K. fell by 10%. It also fell by 11% in Spain, 10% in Italy, and 11% in France.
Soaring electricity demand was, yet again, the big story in 2023. Global power generation increased by 2.5% to 29,924 terawatt-hours. About 32% of that juice (9,456 TWh) was generated in China, where electricity production surged by nearly 7%. The U.S. came in a distant second in power generated, with 4,494 TWh. Domestic power production dropped by about 1% last year. Power generation in India also increased by about 7% last year to a record 1,958 TWh, 75% of which came from coal-fired power plants.
I look forward to the release of the Statistical Review every year because the data can be downloaded in Excel. That allows me and others to make meaningful comparisons beyond the spin. Numerical comparisons are essential ingredients in the debate over energy and climate policy. The best advice I ever got on presenting numbers came from author and statistician Edward Tufte. He said: whenever you give people a number, give them a familiar metric so they can make a comparison. That advice changed the course of my career. Here are nine charts from the Statistical Review.
Chart 1
I published this chart last month in “What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Energy Transition.” I’ve updated it with the latest figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Statistical Review.
Chart 2
Chart 3
Chart 4
This graphic uses the same numbers as the one in the previous slide but has higher resolution because the numbers can be compared more easily. It clearly shows that the reductions in emissions in the West are being swamped by the massive increases in China and India.
Chart 5
The U.S. again led the world in emissions reductions in 2023, but as shown in the previous two slides, those reductions are being swamped by the growth in India and China.
Chart 6
Climate activists can sling all the soup and paint they want, but oil remains the dominant form of energy consumed worldwide. Oil use increased slightly last year in the U.S., up about 0.5%. Meanwhile, consumption soared in China, up almost 11%. It was also up 5% in India and nearly 13% in Vietnam. The results: global demand jumped by about 2.3 million barrels per day, and oil use averaged over 100 million barrels per day for the first time in history.
Chart 7
As I noted last December in “Two Days After COP28, IEA Delivers More Coal Hard Reality,” the International Energy Agency has been predicting a decline in global coal demand for years. I explained that in 2015, the IEA claimed, ‘The golden age of coal in China seems to be over.” That year, the agency predicted global coal demand would fall to 5.5 billion tons by 2020. That didn’t happen. Instead of falling, coal demand keeps powering upward, with major increases in China and India. Other Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, are also burning more coal.
Chart 8
The Inflation Reduction Act provides tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for wind and solar in the U.S. However, as seen below, gas-fired generation is still growing faster than those two sources combined. Note that in 2023, wind generation fell despite the addition of 6 gigawatts of capacity. Why? The wind didn’t blow.
Chart 9
We are carpet bombed with claims that alt-energy — and solar in particular — is cheaper than other forms of electricity production. And yet, in China and India, coal-fired generation continues to grow faster than solar. Maybe they didn’t get the memo.
I will continue pulling numbers from the Statistical Review until June 2025, when the next edition is published. And I will repeat here a line I use in my speaking engagements: These aren’t my numbers. These are the numbers.
And the numbers don’t lie.
Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Podcast on Energy Poverty Is Out
On Friday, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship published the podcast I moderated last year in London with Magatte Wade, Chris Wright, and Scott Tinker. The caption for the conversation: “What is Energy Poverty Actually Like?” Magatte, Chris, and Scott all brought sharp perspectives to the table, and they all emphasized what should be obvious: the world’s poorest people need hydrocarbons, and lots of them, to climb out of poverty. You may watch it by clicking here.
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Numbers Don’t Lie.
As we all know, people do lie. Especially people with a cause and a mission to fulfil, no matter what
“”Experts say Starmer can honour pledge to move to net zero and cut bills””
Even households that can afford to turn the radiators on are feeling the pinch – The Guardian.
And yet only yesterday someone calling themselves MrGrimNasty was trying to tell me we’ve had a record warm spring. A Richard Green type epithet seems appropriate here. How can you not believe the observations? Even the media admitted it, but not MrGN!
So, how is the impossible – all green, all cheap energy – going to be made possible?
“”“Family financial security depends on energy security,” he told the launch of his GB Energy plan in May. “The pain and misery of the cost of living crisis was directly caused by the Tories’ failure to make Britain resilient, leaving us at the mercy of fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators like Putin. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
…
“By committing to ensure all our electricity is clean and produced at home, Labour is paving the way for cheaper bills, and the end of our exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices,” says Mike Childs, the head of policy at Friends of the Earth.
Never mind the North sea, never mind all that shale. it’s Putin, got it? It’s all his fault.
My question is how do they lie to themselves? They know it’s utterly bonkers, but then Dave down the road… with a beard…. he’s a woman, don’t you know. He said so.
And they’ll believe that.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/labour-uk-clean-energy-superpower-fuel-poverty
Apparently they prefer intermittent energy to volatile fossil fuel prices.
When push comes to reality, even the Olympic torch is sustained by fossil fuels (propane butane mix portable, natural gas when stationary). People just don’t like the invisible hydrogen torch.
And now its carbon budget will be shot as the “green” Olympic village will be overrun with teams bringing their own AC.
Starmer doesn’t understand anything about energy or electricity production. He relies on Miliband who also doesn’t understand anything about them
Well, it’s ‘the promised land’ idea, right? Experience pain now to get there later. Except that that pain is now being denied. Lower energy bills fr unreliables. Talking about a forced idea!
If there is no problem, they have no raison d’etre. See Stonewall.
Trump, Trump, Trump.
Russia, Russia, Russia.
China, China, China.
Farage, Farage, Farage.
But no:
Blair, Blair, Blair.
Biden, Biden, Biden.
Obama, Obama, Obama.
EU, EU, EU.
MSM, MSM, MSM.
Google, Google, Google.
to be seen anywhere.
I don’t often wish for things, it’s invariably a futile endeavour, but my little wish for the immediate future is for Nigel Farage and Reform UK to form the official opposition in the UK on the 4th July, US Independence day, and Trump to be re-elected on November 5th, the traditional UK anniversary of Guy Fawkes who attempted to blow up the British Parliament.
What a smack in the face for the far left establishment, all their nightmares coming at once on entirely appropriate dates; when the UK’s Independence from Europe might finally manifest itself and the blowing up of the US Deep State might finally begin.
I’m not suggesting that Donald (Fawkes) Trump or Nigel (Brexit) Farage are perfect. Far from it, they both have their blind and weak spots, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
Some dreams come true.
Fingers crossed.
They are promising to pave the way for lower bills sometime in the future, well beyond next winter.
When they are long gone or even dead more likely.
I don’t think truth matters much. If the required/desired end result is not forthcoming people bend the truth to fit the narrative. Often that means ‘we have to try harder’ and increase efforts to…That requires a fair amount of cognitive dissonance but that can be achieved by claiming virtue and ‘saving the planet’ is a pretty good sales pitch. The key is of course the impact of Co2 emissions. Even if looks uncertain people can/will chose lowering it substantially to either not make things worse or use a (flawed) form of a precautionary principle to justify forced implementation. Coupled w our original sin of ‘destroying the planet’ that’s still a powerful package.
There are still some low hanging fruit to pick like carbon tax on flights, cutting down on the use of plastic etc but what in the end shifts is short term economics. If people feel it impacting their lives too much they will resist. Like building huge windturbine sites or high power electricity lines close by.
Anyway, with a Labour government taking over in the UK we will see if they will be able to overcome people’s resistance by implementation by force/law. That’s a battleline to watch..
Just a two year lockdown is needed to flatten the CO2 curve.
Ad the rest…
Only a complete fool or a brain-washed numpty would want to flatten the CO2 curve.
Towards 700+ ppm !!
I think the lock down and HT proved that anthropogenic water vapor in the stratosphere is the driver behind global warming.
Oil, gas and coal remain the dominant forms of power generation at +80% globally especially in developing countries given license to do so by the Paris Agreement. However, the western democracies share of power consumption from fossil fuels is declining along with their political power base. It is evident the transition to ‘renewables’ is failing badly especially now that the public are aware of the rapidly increasing costs to implement UN inspired NZ policies by governments and to them personally as living expenses for goods and services. This is creating a poverty crisis amongst the less affluent in our systems, and they will not forgive activist administrations for these unnecessary imposts, supposedly to save the planet, but in reality to suit green climate ideology and nothing else.
People don’t vote to impoverish themselves and to degrow their economies and thus starve themselves of the wonders of modern technology for the sake of minutely limiting possible future warming by a fraction of a degree. They have simply been lied to by reactionary governments who don’t understand the science or the implications of radical energy change in our modern society.
Yet i am still quite baffled by a lot of people around me who accept the msm narrative and are ignorant about energy in general and who have become sceptical about sceptics just the way those seeds have been planted by the usual suspects. If people are unaware of their ignorance you will have a hard time pointing it out because it makes them uncomfortable. They often rather shut the door because they have been told behind it lie monsters. Willingly, mind you. We all saw what happened during Covid. They want to hold on to a perceived certainty and authority. Ironically exactly the opposite of the ‘rebel’ 60s generation attitude, anti-establishment. Now they ARE the establishment and we have to trust the institutions and The Science. That discrepancy is so bleeding obvious that, when confronted with it you can watch them trying to wiggle their way out of it. I mean, it’s odd to see so called progressives think regressive but that is what is happening..
Yet i am still quite baffled by a lot of people around me who accept the msm narrative and are ignorant about energy
Questions include where, and more importantly when, did they go to school? The latter will have a major, major impact lasting perhaps a lifetime.
I dont think so. I went to the exact same schools as my brothers. Quite liberal, progressive ones. The main drive was freedom and scepticism. As adults we read the same left leaning progressive newspapers and weeklys. Investigative journalism, questioning power/ money, looking at corruption in politics, institutions and finance. All that is now agenda and narrative driven, from education to journalism. The accelerator was Brexit and Trump. You can only be sceptical about certain topics. True journalism seems dead and can only be found online. At the moment. I perceive a shift and i hope it is not simply wishful thinking..
And like Patrick Moore, were part of the Greenpeace movement. Green in general was seen as an alternative and concerned about the environment. It has been corrupted to such an extend it is toxic.
You missed the when bit.
I went to the exact same schools as my brothers
I saw the rot setting in in the early 1990s when my children were at school.
That was the manifestation of the rot that had set in long before the 90’s.
It didn’t get better
In the US…
Yes, because the 1960s ‘rebel’ generation became the establishment. From pro- to regressive. Hence the changes in the education system from the 1990s on..
I graduated engineering school in 1970. Took my alma mater almost 4 decades to switch to The Narrative. But then, that assures that they receive lots of grant money.
Please remember that, with respect, they don’t give a sh*t about you. All they need to advance most of their agenda is 50% + 1, and they will force it through any way they can. You’re the one that got away.
I was at a pty last Saturday evening, seated next to a chap complaining about the heatwave (it was all of 84 F) and how it was a result of Climate Change and how the right wing was stopping meaningful mitigation of The Problem. I had to bite my tongue, because I know that the man is innumerate, and believes the LA Times.
Jim, you still have to confront these people without directly insulting them, so they don’t feel that they can gabble on about something they actually no nothing about, and that there is a real alternative to the climate nonsense they believe is affecting them. A few facts are usually enough to start them thinking about these issues more positively. Others are not for turning, but at least you have to try to educate them towards the right path. Us boomers thought we had some of the answers in the 70’s but our kids in the 90’s=20’s, appear to have lost the plot going their own progressive way-sad!
People who blame politics for the results of their lives like to listen to politicians who claim they are the only ones who can change the results of their lives.
It’s a false proposition on the face of it, always was and always will be.
It’s better to insult them for just being stupid and lazy and be done with it, as that’s all it is. A little questioning will reveal that they don’t drive a Tesla, haven’t installed a solar system on their house and still buy products made from fossil fuels.
When questioned why, they will always claim it costs too much to do otherwise. But of course, it only costs too much if you don’t have the money, which in the post WWII western world is a direct result of being stupid and lazy.
Not only suit green ideology, but swell green profits. It’s all about the Benjamins.
Far too many people never make it past the political lies so they are never going to be any help with real problems.
‘De-carbonize’ the world the elites say. Ideological elitist irrational lobotomized garbage.
‘De-carbonize’
Which more than includes the apex carbon based life form
“Our vision is of a future in which our population co-exists in harmony with nature and prospers on a healthy planet, to the benefit of all.”
https://populationmatters.org/
Sounds nice and fluffy, but PM patron David Attenborough has laid it out in slightly more stark terms. Forget all that Darwinist evolution stuff…
“Sir David Attenborough’s new doc: ‘Humans are intruders'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56752541
“David Attenborough Says Humans Are A ‘Plague On Earth’ Who Need To Stop Breeding”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/22/david-attenborough-radio-times-interview-population_n_2524315.html
“David Attenborough: The planet can’t cope with overpopulation”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/david-attenborough-warns-planet-cant-cope-with-overpopulation/
To quote Dr David Bellamy, “it’s a load of poppycock”.
David Attenborough is certainly a plague on humanity.
A deliberate LIAR and total scumbag.
If he doesn’t want to be part of the human race… no-one will miss him.
Harsh, but fair.
How the mighty have fallen from grace to banality
“Sir David Attenborough’s new doc: ‘Humans are intruders’”
says the person who won’t be intruding much longer.
“David Attenborough Says Humans Are A ‘Plague On Earth’ Who Need To Stop Breeding”
says the person who is past breeding and won’t be breathing much longer.
“David Attenborough: The planet can’t cope with overpopulation”
says the person who won’t be populating much longer (see Quote 1).
Yet our governments have swallowed it whole, and are regurgitating it unfortunately.
The irony is that China, see Charts 4, 5, and 7, where the biggest “carbon pollution” occurs, is making the most solar panels for sale to CAGW-themed fools. China even utilizes slave labor for constructing components of the solar panels. Never mind, dark money from China is flowing like beer at a frat party.
Define irony… ☝️
Hi David, here’s two definitions of “irony”: from Oxford Dictionary “…a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result”, and from Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals “Lying, Cheating, and Stealing to win an election is not actually Lying, Cheating, and Stealing.”
OK, I sort of interpreted the Saul Alinsky part, but it’s close.
“Irony : Sort of like iron”
I am Detritus (the Ankh-Morporkian troll, not an Internet one).
Or jewish..
A [modern] Conservative.
It’s like goldy or bronzy, except it’s made out of iron 🙂
Isn’t that when you make wrinkled clothes less wrinkled?
Slave labour, which populists define as using Muslim Uyghurs to work in conditions unacceptable to the west.
But here’s the problem, China, like Russia, the UK, and Europe have big problems with extreme Islamists, in fact Russia has engaged in many conflicts with Islamist extremists and Uyghur Islamists are considered terrorists in China, presumably for good reason.
We don’t hear any of this in the western media of course because, whilst European and UK establishments are terrified to criticise Islamists for fear of destroying their ‘inclusive’ policies, the Chinese and Russians seem to take a different approach.
It goes something like this, if you are convicted of a crime you go to jail and you work for your keep rather than having taxpayers punished financially to support you.
The far left theory over the last 50 or 60 years, in the UK at least, has been that convicts can be rehabilitated in prison and if treated like responsible adults they will emerge as responsible adults. It doesn’t work, yet we are still flogging that dead horses corpse.
I’ve long been of the opinion that people who are imprisoned should be offered the incentive of a reduced sentence in order to encourage them to engage in productive work, in order to at least pay for their incarceration.
That’s ongoing, just without the expectation to work.
Ideally, prison should be such a short, sharp, horrendous punishment no one will ever want to return.
Hard labour for 16 hours a day ought to make an 8 hour day for a fair wage back in the real world an attractive proposition, rather than risking return for another prison term for stealing or violence etc.
Short and brutal will free up prison spaces for anyone else dumb enough to think criminality is a good idea. It may even reduce prison places overall.
It’s the same with children, `spare the rod and spoil the child’ if you don’t give them proper structure as to how to behave, and tell them NO when they have acted badly, they will not learn the lessons about selfish behavior, cruelty and respect. If they get away with bad attitude, they will eventually take it out on society to our detriment.
Similarly with other cultures, we have to defend our societies ways and hard-earned historical lessons separating church and state when dealing with Muslims, we have elevated women to near equality in modern democracies, this is anathema to hard-line islamists, they still want a man’s right to dominate women- it’s pure medieval thinking!
This article shows, PV panels have 3 to 5 times as much CO2/kWh than claimed by IPCC, which ignores upstream CO2 in China
?format=2500w
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Solar Panels Are Much More Carbon-Intensive Than Experts are Willing to Admit
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/solar-panels-are-more-carbon-intensive-than-experts-admit
By C. P. Colum and Lea Booth in collaboration with The Blind Spot.
.
.
Transport trucks transfer raw coal in pits as deep as 200 meters at the East Junggar Basin on July 4, 2018 in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous of China. The East Junggar Basin as one of the largest coalfield in Xinjiang has predicted coal reserves of 390 billion tons. (Photo by Liu Xin/China News Service/Visual China Group via Getty Images)
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COMMENT ON ARTICLE
Why do authors get lost in the IPCC weed patch, such as with “how much CO2/kWh”, etc., when the IPCC and its trusted “consultants” are doing everything to obstruct analysts getting to the proper data to perform an exact analysis?
.
The CO2/kWh, etc., are side issues that distract from the MAIN issue, i.e., wind and solar cannot replace conventional generation at scale.
No life of any kind is POSSIBLE without sufficient CO2.
The present level of 416 ppm is grossly insufficient, as proven by plant growth in greenhouses
.
Any discussion regarding CO2/kWh of renewables is foolishly playing your hand against the IPCC “we own the science”rules, an absolute no-no tactic in bridge, and in other arguments
.
The much more important issue is the very high cost of wind and solar, c/kWh, on an A-to-Z basis, and lifetime basis, from mining materials, to operating, to hazardous landfill.
Each step has costs/kWh and CO2/kWh and Btu/kWh
.
Plus, there is the cost/kWh and CO2/kWh and Btu/kWh of expanding/reinforcing the distribution and high voltage grids to connect the distributed wind and solar systems
.
Plus, there is the cost/kWh and CO2/kWh and Btu/kWh of requiring a fleet of quick-reacting power plants, usually gas-fired, combined-cycle, gas-turbine power plants, CCGTs, to counteract the ups and downs of solar output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, especially:
.
1) During days with variable cloudiness
2) During days with solar panels covered with snow and ice
3) During days with foggy conditions
4) During the near-total absence of solar from late afternoon/early evening to mid-morning the next day.
5) During the peak demand hours of late afternoon/early evening, when wind and solar usually are minimal
6) During simultaneous wind/solar lulls, when the output of both is minimal for up to 5 to 7 days, sometimes followed by another multi-day wind/solar lull.
Without that fleet of counteracting power plants wind and solar could not even be fed into the grid
Ah, memories…those were the days.
Bottom line is that it takes more coal to make weather energy extractors than they can offset over their operating life.
The transition is indeed underway. It involves shift coal consumption to China so they can make all the goodies the were astern nations need to extract energy directly from wind and sunlight.
Off cours coal consumption is going up. It has to while ever developed notions install the useless monuments to insanity.
Story Tip.
The rot continues in the UK
Vauxhall owner threatens to close UK car factories | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
Read into it and we find they are pushing for more manufacturing and consumer subsidies for EV’s.
The rot will go on. There may be grow unemployment but emissions are down
Well, and please excuse me if you are sensitive to me mentioning this, the whole carbon dioxide emission danger is a downright lie with not one little speck of truth behind its political exposition.
The people who pronounced this scam to be real are all known liars, cheats, charlatans (from the UN down) and have no integrity at all. Just because there are far too many selfish human beings at this moment in time unwilling to lose whatever improvements they believe they have gained locally demonstrates just how deep this bribery and corruption goes.
There is a point when the truth will out and then we will see just what kind of real public spirited activists tend to do then they see a walkover opportunity As long as the numbers tell the truth and are widely quoted back at those who are telling the lies then it is only ever a matter of time.
As Einstein wrote: “Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
I see no mention of ‘tradtional biomass’ as the racist alarmists like to call the burning of dung and local habitat in order to live without hydrocarbons. Willis E posted here that it’s three times the global energy than all windmills and solar panels. Is this true?
Well, not if you read the Economist of June 22-28th. The Solar Age is upon us, they assert, all excited on how each year’s solar energy is a multiple of last year’s. “Solar cells will in all likelihood be the biggest source of electrical power on the planet by the mid 2030s“.
Not a word about the use and trends of fossil fuels and their growing use. Not a word about the difficulties of running a grid on pure solar. Their preaching must be seen to be believed. They’re convinced.
As a traditional lefty i bought the Economist from time to time because there were sensible and very well written articles in it even though i might often disagree w their view. It always seemed fiercely independent. It saddens me to see it drift to a more mainstream position. But then again, it shouldnt surprise me. Most proper investigative journals have seen the same progression (or should i say regression?)
Oh, a downvote. Id like to know why..
Solar panels have a limited and short lifespan. While the oldest fields have not reached their end of life yet, they are getting close. It won’t be too much longer until a substantial fraction of each year’s new solar installs will be required just to replace the panels being retired.
Same applies to wind turbines.
Mr Bryce, thank you for the numbers, plus the analysis.
“Numerical comparisons are essential ingredients in the debate over energy and climate policy.
” That is true for those of us who visit this site. This presentation is extremely valuable. However, it isn’t of value to the innumerate true believers.
Also, in all the mention of coal production, I don’t see a distinction between the production of thermal coal and metallurgical coal. Or all the numbers only for thermal coal?
What are the towers with the pinwheels on top made of?
Carbon steel?
Where does the carbon come from?
Nuclear fusion in the sun.
Oh, you mean macroscopic carbon, not elemental carbon.
So carbon pollution on Earth is the Sun’s fault?
Let’s cancel it!
The figures ARE lying. Or at least you need to know how to interpret them.
In this report and in the earlier reports commissioned by BP, all non fossil fuel generation of electricity has been divided by around 0.4 to give an input equivalent energy value. Thus energy values for hydro and nuclear have been exaggerated by around 2.5, since these forms of energy are used solely to generate electricity. Renewables used for electricity generation are also multiplied by the same. Note that renewables also cover fuel additives for cars etc, and that these uses are not multiplied by 2.5. It’s easy enough to crosscheck this from the electricity generation tables.
It has now been acknowledged that running a coal fired power station on wood chips (think Drax in the UK) is less efficient than it was when using coal. Thermal efficiency is now estimated at around 30 percent, down from 40 percent mark estimated in reports prior to 2022. Even if Drax produced exactly the same electricity as it did in 2021, the input equivalent energy would thus have increased by 27 percent!
Actual fossil fuel energy contribution is closer to 90 percent if real energy values rather than input equivalent values are used.
Figures like these are precisely the ones that the mainstream media are directed by left-leaning governments and environmental organization donors to downplay, suppress or ignore entirely because they poke not merely holes but entire craters in the argument that there’s a big demand for alternate energies on the parts of industries, transportation, agriculture, general power providers and consumers. Good work by WUWT to bring these figures to prominence because it’s a guarantee CNN, the CBC, the BBC, the ABC, the NY Times, Wash. Post, The Guardian, et al certainly won’t.
Just keeping a talley here let’s see. Cost of wind and solar power, which are only providing under 2% of power gen, has cost us 4.7 trillion dollars. What is the electricity cost from regular dispatchable generators for comparison. The calculation should amortize plant capex and opex for 40yrs (assumed life of fossil fuel and nuclear, and 20yrs for wind ) and include these along with fuel costs for total cost per MWhr of power. Include 1.5% decline in output a year for wind power and one decommissioning and replacement of wind and solar. This should tell us an apples and apples cost for out power from these sources
Very nice, CAGW is a lie.
Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians could understand data and graphs?
Charts 4 and 5 show that as long as China continues to increase its CO2 emissions their current rate, any efforts and reducing CO2 emissions in the USA or Europe are completely futile.
China has about four times the population of the USA. But if their emissions increased by 7.89 Gt/yr from 2000 to 2023, this is over 7 times the reduction in the USA, or their increase per capita is 1.75 times our decrease.
Human CO2 emissions for the entire world increased from 25.5 Gt/yr in 2000 to 37.2 Gt/yr in 2022, or an increase of 11.7 Gt/yr. This means that China alone is responsible for 67% of the increase in CO2 emissions of the entire world, even though it represents only 18% of the world’s population.
Any “Paris accord” or other international agreement that doesn’t impose emissions reduction on China isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Self-imposed limits on CO2 emissions in the USA and Europe also limit the possibility of economic development. In the economic competition with China, it would be akin to one European with a hand tied behind his back trying to fight four Chinese men. It’s easy to see who would win.