Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Short post. A graph that some people will prefer you ignore.
That’s it. That’s the whole post.
Rock on!
w.
My Usual Request: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.
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So the Green New Deal, Net Zero, and the Energiewende were counterproductive?
No, they all produced huge profits for the connected cronies of the politicians.
AND the politicians
Yep, mediocre salaries but decent expense accounts, and then the fringe benefits as in 10% for the big guy, leading the world by example.
and retirement plans that are better than many in the private sector earn while still working.
for only serving 4 years
And governments poised to make huge tax revenue on carbon taxes that can be directed to any feel good projects they like…except enough people are against being taxed for the weather that politicians worry about the return of the guillotine.
And luxury vacations to attend conferences.
Trillions spent so far, presumably doing the easy stuff first.
How much have we changed the climate after all that ‘investment’?
I would say that since humans (via CO2) didn’t change the climate (warm up the world) before all of that “investment,” future trillions won’t change the climate either.
Lucky us, those nitwits, charlatans and incompetents had a plan to make us all colder.
And poorer.
It’s gotten slightly better- at least here in Wokeachusetts- longer growing season, milder winters- haven’t seen any hurricanes or tornadoes or floods. The summers are slightly warmer but I like that- it must be my Italian genes.
Sounds truly terrifying!
Don’t know about climate, however the environment in the areas where wind and solar are being built, is certainly being degraded.
A 20 acre forest next to my ‘hood in north central Wokeachusetts was destroyed to build a solar “farm”. Right next to a river and some vernal pools- which was illegal. Then the firm that did it produced a weighty report that said it wouldn’t hurt our property values!
According to Mauna Loa CO2 observatory, all efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2 have failed completely for over 40 years.
That said, I’ve just replaced my gas oven ignitor for the 5th time at $27 a pop. Ignitors were required to eliminate gas pilot lights to “Save the Earth”, because it was wasteful and added CO2 to the atmosphere 24/7. I do it myself because the service man charges $250.
Of course, all the ignitors are made in China so they don’t last that long.
When the igniter went on our stove I started using BBQ lighter, you can buy lots of those for $27.
Same here, works like a charm!
I have been known to use a match to ignite the stove, gotten at no extra cost at a local watering hole.
Oven ignitors are different than burner ignitors. You can replace them too, or use your method. All they do is create a spark when the burner is turned on.
Oven ignitors are resistance devices that change with heat. They glow when you turn the oven on. That tells the oven gas valve that the ignitor is hot and ready to ignite the gas so the valve can open.
What’s the “carbon footprint ” of a Chinese ignitor?
Pretty sure they all get shipped here courtesy of bunker oil powered container ships.
What’s a carbon footprint.
The discoloration on the rug made by a coal miner.
Any other definitions?
Net zero
Can you tell us, Willis, what was supplying the remaining 20% before 1970?
Likely Nuclear and Hydro…things then not considered renewable
Also later on (closer to 2000) coal was gradually being phased out of the FF figure (in some countries) though being built in hard and fast in China and India
Almost certainly hydro, nuclear, and biomass such as wood and crop waste and dung.
Mixed bag of nuclear, hydro, a bit of geothermal, and the largest contribution—traditional biomass used for heating and cooking all over the world.
w.
Thanks, Willis – I didn’t know what was included in the figures. I suppose, then, that burning cow-pats are in there somewhere (under biomass?)…
Nuclear was just getting started before 1970. The attached plot shows the energy source balance, Then, Three Mile Island killed nuclear as FEAR overcame common sense. That is changing now as fission is making a comeback, hopefully. The morons who believe biomass can support civilization need to look at this graph.
The sharp jump in hydro followed by a leveling off suggests the good sites are all used up.
Best sites were used but lots of good sites were not developed because of environmental constraints. I know two large projects on different continents that were both cancelled due to environmental lobby after lots of money had been spent by the developers.
And California actually removed dams.
There are plenty of non-powered dams that could be converted to power dams. Still, plenty of issues there, like adding transmission and extra regulations that are applied to power dams and not to flood control ones.
My folks heated with coal until 1950. Then switched to gas. {western PA}
Me, now {central Washington State}: Listed as an all-electric house (w/ heat-pump) but mostly heat with wood.
Here in New England- most people will only burn hardwood. But you probably mostly burn softwood? How do you avoid creosote in your chimney? How often do you need to clean the chimney or flue?
The first year I got creosote on the flue spark arrester — stainless steel hardware cloth with 1/2 inch grid. After significant education, I have learned to keep that scraped and maintain a hot fire. With warmer nights I will stop because the house gets too warm. I do remove ash frequently — wood is a mix of poplar, pine, and lesser amounts of a wide variety. I do miss the eastern hardwood forests.
Clarion, PA {home then) calls itself the Automn Leaf Capital of the World. The Cap and screen require cleaning. The Flue isn’t a problem, I think because it is double walled and relatively short.
We (in the UK) had a single open fire in the living room burning coal and coke into the 70s.
The planet should thank me 😉
Fact is energy is additive, not subtractive; it’s always more, more more
It would be interesting to overlay that with population data.
Just an eyeball assessment, but it seems like now has 4x the population as the 1960s and 4x the energy consumption.
You ask me, the graph needs a green line representing renewables meteoric rise from non existent to merely dismal
By chance I just added a comment under your “Rain in Spain” post a few 10s of minutes ago.
Any feedback there would be appreciated.
Maybe just have a look at my comments here
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2025/02/02/what-drives-el-ninos/
As this was a “Reply” to my specific post rather than an “unattached” top-level one I assumed it was not a “Click here to discover …” scam / spam / increase clicks hook.
Turned out I was wrong (wasn’t the first time, even after being “burned” yet again it won’t be the last).
Normally I neither upvote nor downvote (click on the “+” or “-” icons respectively), but for you I have just made an exception (for the first time in 3 or 4, possibly 5, years).
.
My “Rain in Spain” comment mainly concerned how to get the ECMWF’s CDS website to produce a single netCDF file of data instead of the ZIP file of 543 “.nc” files it insists on generating for the “dataset = satellite-precipitation” parameter.
While Willis was unable to provide a workaround, which probably doesn’t exist, he did at least take the time to respond to the questions I actually asked (on the 1° resolution of his graphs as well as the CDS access option)
In contrast, when I took the time to “have a look” at the contents of your link it turned out that your comments, and the article itself, did not address how to get the CDS website to generate one netCDF file instead of 543 … at all.
.
I will have to add “Henry Pool” to my internal list of “click-seeking time-wasters”.
“Live and learn”, as the saying goes.
Henry has always been fishing for clicks to his site.
Already answered. We’re a full-service website.
w.
I fought the Law and the Law Won
Bing Videos
Wow! Get those outfits!
Willis, come on now, this is part of the post too, so are the words following. Come on!
Wonderful stuff Willis.
President Trump and JD, need to invite the leaders of the “Global Warming” cult into the White House and have a discussion similar to the one that they had with that Ukrainian dip stick leader.
Time for these people to be exposed in front of the public, that they have zero evidence of CO2 warming, and that they are completely corrupt, and only paid actors like the Ukrainian dip stick.
Have a fabulous day.
‘Renewables complete failure…Carbon won.’
Of course.
According to Statista, the capacity factor of grid scale US solar for the past decade is 16-17% (mostly in ‘ideal’ semiarid SW). Obviously worse in Europe.
According to NREL, the capacity factor of US onshore wind for the past decade is 30-31%. It is only 26% in the U.K.
So between about 70-80% of the time (more in Europe), the grid must resort to fossil fueled backup.
If you cannot get there from here, you won’t no matter how hard you try.
Greens can ignore reality, but not the consequences of ignoring reality.
Think of all of the wasted effort and political energy. All of the COPs, people flying all over the world so they can sit in front of Power Point slides with furrowed brows, acting like they’re trying to save the world while dining on lobster. All they had to do was support fission and natural gas. Think of how much lower your power bills would be right now. And the temperature and CO² level would be exactly the same…
To Willis.
So, Net … Zero
That for NG, Every thinking person loves it!
And there goes Hydrogen. The BP HyGreenTeeside H2 facility officially canceled after the license application expired. UK should have fracked for NG when they had a chance.
https://www.h2-view.com/story/bp-cancels-hygreen-teesside-hydrogen-project-amid-green-energy-scale-back-reports/2122545.article/
Related: https://www.h2-view.com/story/95-nikola-trucks-recalled-due-to-safety-issue-with-hydrogen-tank/2122329.article/
They shot the coal
But they did not shoot the fossil fuels.
Yet.
Once this anti-CO2 nonsense is dumped in the circular file where it belongs…
… coal could easily make a resurgence.
Cheap and reliable, and with modern technology…
… and way more environmentally friendly than wind or solar..
I see what you did there…..
There’s traditional biomass. Lovely leftist words. Actually dung and local forests. Produces THREE TIMES the global energy of all the windmills and panels in the world
Yeah, so renewables didn’t work out for the last half a century, but you just wait and see what happens with them over this next half a century, now that we know a month in advance exactly where and when the wind blows, and when and where the sun will be shining full tilt.
Ya just gotta have FAITH, Willis 🙂
Even if we had such a weather crystal ball, how would that help renewables? You going to rip up a turbine and move it to where the wind is going to blow harder next month? Knowing when the backup gas generators are going to be needed in advance might make them a bit more efficient in getting them up to speed but one still has to pay to use and maintain them to make up for the lack of sense in renewables.
Separate comment. Based on the WE chart, it is a GOOD thing the climate alarm is a false alarm. Cause if it wasn’t, we might be in big trouble. False alarm=
The funny part is, if the climate predictions were right – the core prediction of a 3-5 degree C rise by 2100 that is, then it would actually be a good thing! The earth like 8000BC when the Sahara was a forest and great plain.
Great graph. As someone once said, one picture is worth a thousand words.
Thanks, Ed. I try to make my graphs miniature works of art, and to deliver the message with a punch.
w.
Life is good!
Great graph! Make environmentalist heads explode – tell them the climate movement of the the 2000’s led to a big JUMP in coal use!
Good one Willis.
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman.
Earth’s natural flora and fauna are carbon based.
We are certainly fortunate that fossil fuel production has been able to increase in line with demand increases thus far.
According to the IEA’s ‘World Energy Outlook 2024’ (Oct. 2024) the share of fossil fuels in energy production fell gradually from 82% in 2013 to 80% in 2023.
But over the same period demand had increased 15% so the amount of fossil fuels used had also grown.
CO2 re-fertilization of our biosphere must be maintained indefinitely, as generations of calcium-carbonate-building sea creatures continually suck the carbon out and layer it into ever-thickening limestone on the ocean floors. Thus we really do need to slow down fossil fuel burning by powering our electrical grids with nuclear electric generation.
Using fossil fuels mainly for our cars and trucks would probably be a good amount to keep pumping into the atmosphere. We can lower that further in the future by switching some vehicles to electric, but please not until the toxic fire-hazard problem is solved.
The chart is all that’s needed to explain why businesses, industries, and consumers, among others, have little or no patience with most renewable energy advocates. Except on a relatively small scale, it still can’t come close to replacing fossil fuels in terms of costs and reliability, and the only ones that argue otherwise are those that have been lining up at the subsidy trough for years and are afraid the free lunches are about to be terminated.
Oh, my white brothers!
Used to reply to the crook Dale Vance (UK renewable company owner & receiver of millions of £subsidies that’s our money) in one of his X posts.