Twelve thousand years of human history show that more energy leads to more people. There is also positive feedback, where more people means more energy too. Growth rates rose faster and earlier in England and Wales than Sweden (see Fig 3), where coal use became dominant about a hundred years later.
Given a constant resource supply to a population, the per capita availability of resources declines as the population grows. As resources become scarce, individuals consume less, driving down birth rates and/or raising death rates.
Although many resources may influence birth and death rates (e.g., water), energy is a uniquely universal currency because all forms of work require energy expenditure. This applies to the metabolic rates of individuals in wild populations [18] as well as to the industrial energy use of modern human populations, as energy is used to harvest food, deliver water, and provide health care [19–22].
Fig 1. Relationship between energy use (W) and population size for the world, the United States, Sweden, and England and Wales through time. The relationships are highly variable, but overall, the slopes are greater than one (that is, the exponent in the power-law function relating energy use to population size overall), indicating support for a positive feedback between population size and energy use. Lines with slopes of one (ε = 1) are shown as reference. The black lines show overall fits and gray shaded regions show 95% confidence intervals on the regression lines. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130547.g002
As well as energy helping to increase population, there are feedbacks the other way as well. More people leads to more energy being available for us — possibly thanks to efficiencies of scale, specialization, and technological advances. Total population of England and Wales in 1760 was 7 million. Assuming that the bell-curve IQ distribution hasn’t changed (and perhaps it has thanks to nutrition and education, or maybe subtle environmental effects and smaller families) there will be ten times as many people in the smartest of smart cohort today as there were then (for whatever that is worth). Success feeds on success.
Interestingly, the history of global human population growth has included periods characterized by all three growth regimes (density-dependent, exponential, and super-exponential; Fig 1 [25]). For example, super-exponential occurred around the mid-1900s, exponential growth occurred from ~4000 to ~1000 BC, and sub-linear growth has been occurring ~1980 through today (Fig 1, inset). It is well known that throughout this time, global energy use increased with the size of the human population [26], yet it is unclear what the level of energy yield (ε) has been and whether it has varied in time or space. That is, it is only known that ε > 0 on average, but not which of the three regimes have been characteristic at which periods or how the value of ε varies through time. Nonetheless, there is growing support for the idea that the exponential and super-exponential growth seen historically for industrial human populations was enabled by positive feedbacks from population size to carrying capacity [5, 16,27–29]. This feedback could happen in several ways. First, harnessing novel energy sources may free societies from “photosynthetic” energy constraints, as seen in England in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution [30]. Second, information and transportation networks may improve the efficiency of extraction, processing, storage, and transportation of energy [28,31–34]. And finally, an increasing diversity of economic roles could enhance the ability of the population to extract and use resources [35].
Humans hit “super exponential” growth with the industrial revolution. This was when the positive feedback kicked in. Though population growth has slowed since 1963.
Fig 2. The inset shows a period of sub-exponential growth in recent history. Data from [25].doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130547.g001
The industrial revolution spread through England and Wales from about 1760, and population growth rates shot up.
We used long-term data on total energy use and population size for Sweden (from 1800 to 2000 [43]) and England and Wales (from 1560 to 2000 [44]). We paired long-term data on energy use in the United States [45,46] with population size data from the US Census Bureau [47–49].
The “scaling parameter” on the graph seems to also be called the “scaling exponent” in the text (helpful if they’d used the same phrase).
Generally, the relationship between energy use and population size can be written as a power law: Etot = e0Nε, where Etot is the total energy used by the population, e0 is a scaling constant, N is population size, and ε is a scaling exponent [18,23,24].
Fig 3. The scaling parameter for ε has been highly variable through time. Each panel shows the running mean of ε (slope of the regression of logE on logN, see methods) with a 19-year window smoothed over 20 years. The light brown bar shows the confidence range of mean slope over the entire time period. A. For the world, ε showed a pronounced shift from a little over 2 to 1 from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, with the beginning of this decline coinciding with the peak world population growth rate in 1963 [9]. B. For England and Wales, ε was highly variable, plummeting during the Little Ice Age and during World War I and the Oil Crises of the 1970s. C. Sweden showed an increase in ε after the Industrial Revolution but also showed a decline in ε during both world wars. D. The United States showed a steadily increasing e until about the 1960s when it showed a severe drop coinciding with the Oil Crises of the 1970s. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130547.g003
The pre-Industrial Revolution energy yields were approximately linear for England and Wales but were sublinear for Sweden. This difference suggests a qualitatively different population dynamic in the two countries before the Industrial Revolution began. One possible explanation for the difference is in the speed at which the Industrial Revolution began in the two countries. Although there is debate, the consensus view is that the time at which the Industrial Revolution took hold in England was around 1760–1780, and this is based on particularly visible signs of economic growth, like increases in foreign trade, and less so on the development of extractive technologies that reduced the Malthusian constraints of labor and land [52–54]. Indeed, coal did not become a major part of the energy use in Sweden until the end of the 19th Century, with firewood and human muscle carrying most of the energy burden until post-1900 [43]. This delayed shift to fossil fuel reliance may underlie the later increase in exponent for Sweden as compared to England. Likewise, the technologies that made industrial economies possible were developed gradually in England, which could have kept the value of ε closer to 1 for some time before the Industrial Revolution really began to have a dramatic impact on economic productivity
This graph is about volatility of the “scaling parameter”.
The paper suggests that the oil crisis of the 1970s had an effect on population growth, but they don’t mention the word “contraceptive”.
Fig 4. Variation in the scaling parameter e increased as major socio-political events approached and during the Little Ice Age for England and Wales. The world data set is not long enough to include in this analysis. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130547.g004
..
REFERENCES
DeLong and Burger (2015) The Scaling of Energy Use with Population Size, PLOS One, [PDF]
I doubt even the most ardent Green would argue that cheap energy facilitates prosperity; however, the most ardent Greens are against prosperity, because that moves us further and further away from the cave.
On another note, I just loved this headline in tody’s Age, ‘Incredible’ heat dome in Middle East lifts ‘feels-like’ temperatures to 74 degrees: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/incredible-heat-dome-in-middle-east-lifts-feelslike-temperatures-to-74-degrees-20150802-gipzo3.html.
Today, in the Middle East it ‘felt’ like 74C, and in the Antarctic it ‘felt’ like -67C. That means humans are living and surviving in temperature differentials of 141C. What’s the problem?
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‘Feels like’. The highest possible standard of evidence. To the average reader of The Age.
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Turtle, good point. As we move from hard science and facts to social science, political correctness, and socialism, facts and reason are replaced by emotion.
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I think Sceptics have a serious job to do – namely constantly speaking the plain truth.
I have already been called “stupid” by leftists directly for supplying the incovenient truth ( arf arf ) about their own delusion…and as I said to them, I know i’m on the money when they come out swinging, throwing around names and no proper science and dimwitted comments like “you need to get a clue” or similar, and so I politely respond with facts, Jo’s reference to the 57%/43% survey and lots of common sense….
So far…silence is all response I get.
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‘feels-like’ temperatures to 74 degrees:
That sounds like a typical climate scientist giving an ‘accurate’ temperature measurement.
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Actually, there are well-established charts for wind chill and heat index values. “Felt like” refers to the effect humans feel from wind and humidity, not the mood of the person reporting the temperature. Where I live, heat index looks good because it’s dry but wind chill looks bad because of wind in the winter. It could be argued that we were much happier before all this wind chill and heat index came into play and I would agree with that. Arizona was selling a t-shirt with a cactus, a steer skull, a snake and the words “But it’s a dry heat”. Let’s face it—over 100F (37.7C) or below zero F (-17.7C) it’s just HOT or COLD.
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There are several ways of calculating wind chill and it only applies below 10°C (50°F) and for wind speeds above 4.8 kph (3.0 mph). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_chill
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_temperature
00
I wrote “charts” for a reason.
Yes, it only applies to below 50F (some charts don’t go that high—my weather station switches to dew point at 40F) and for wind speeds above 4.8 kph. That is the range where it can be felt. Heat index applies to high temperatures and relative humidity. The charts I’ve seen start at 80 degrees F.
There is, of course, some subjective characteristics in this but it is an attempt to quantify perceived temperature. It seems a bit more accurate than the current crop of meterologists and media personnel calling everything “extreme heat” or some other really scientific term.
10
How hot was it,damn hot, I saw little guys, their orange robes burst into flames.
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Ivan. The “feel-like” temperature of 74 degrees applies only after performing all “temperature adjustments” necessary to make the case that CAGW is the “way of things.”
11
Not t highjack, but people might be interested in teh Gapminder tool. It plots UN data over time for such things as life expectancy, energy use, GDPPC etc on log and line=ar scales and allows you to track changes over time. For example GDP per capita versus CO2 emissions per capita. Having said that … a lot of relationships look good on a log-log scale.
Also, remember correlation does not prove causation – William Briggs has a good article on this.
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I meant to add – the relationship between population growth and energy consumption is decoupling – fertility rates are dropping rapidly in all countries despite increasing energy usage. There are several good Hans Rosling videos (at Gapminder) on the population growth and fertility issues.
00
Just want to say that Sweden don’t use coal for power. Electricity is generated from hydro, nuclear and bio. The only fossil fuel in use is for transport, and chemical. In the summertime about one third of the electricity produced is exported. Still we have a wind power expansion frenzie by the greens in the hope of saving the world… Meanwhile the Swedish state owned Vattenfall with the politicians invisible hand is trying to conquer the rest of Europe with german coal fired plants. It’s exactly the situation you would expect when you let politicians with little knowledge of anything take lead.
00
Bemused
Similar but measured
A while back I was trading temperatures with KOO (resident of far north Manitoba).
We were level pegging at 49 degrees except his was minus and mine was plus. But then he had wind chill and I didn’t
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Super exponential growth, is this a hockey stick I see before me?
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Yep. In quality of life too as well as in quality of life for more.
30
Large scale coal mining in Britain apparently began at the end of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), around 1200 AD. Throughout the previous 200 years the populations of Europe had increased markedly, but in the cool centuries which followed it was a completely different story.
Populations around the world declined or stagnated until the Industrial Revolution, which brought back the boom times. Coal is king.
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Coal wasn’t known as black diamond for nothing…
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The only place where they are not constructing new coal fired power plants is in the already Developed World.
If you want real electrical power on the scale required, then the only real answer is coal fired power.
People assume that coal fired power is ancient technology. Just as with other forms of technology, they don’t stop advancing just because there is an assumption we have enough technology from the 70’s and 80’s.
Coal fired power has moved on ….. to even bigger and better technology.
The ONLY coal fired plants closing are those which have reached their life expectancy of 50 years plus, and most of them well beyond their life expectancy. Small plants in the range of 5 to 20MW are no longer needed, and they are what are closing down. They have served their time, and now with single units connected to the grid of 600 to 800MW on an extended grid, then these small local plants are not needed, any more.
Now, with single units of 1000 to 1200MW, and units soon in the size up to 1800MW, and burning less coal per MWH delivered, and emitting less CO2, and able to supply at 24/7/365, renewable power flavours of the Month wind and solar just pale into insignificance.
Africa must be absolutely ropeable that they are being forced into wind and solar. There’s no wonder they are eyeing China, who is only all too willing to help.
India has also told the scaremongers to go and jump, and they are powering ahead with new coal fired plants too.
When word gets out how wind and solar are indeed as hopeless as they are, then coal fired power will come back into its own.
Coal has a very long life ahead of it. It’s proven technology to provide power on the scale which is required to actually run a modern World, something it HAS actually proved capable of.
Tony.
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Tony
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/03/obama-may-finally-succeed/
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Read somewhere that we in Vic have about 500 years supply of lovely “pollutin” brown coal at our current usage rate. Wonder how much longer we could make that coal last if more efficient coal plants were installed?
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That Gippsland coal belt also heads out to sea,plus you have the various black and brown coal deposits of the Bass Coast and Korumburra regions.
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There was a recent report (sorry, I have no link to it) which said that the Indian Govt had put up a regulation to the windmill suppliers that they could build wind “farms” only if they gave an hour-by-hour guarantee of predicted supply (ie. an actual Gwh number). If the supply fluctuated from this outside a very tight tolerance, monetary fines would ensue
1) I hope that report is true
2) If it is, have any wind farmers fronted up and how did they go ?
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I also read that story.
And it is not just India
Greenpeace is not exactly welcome in India (smart people.)
Government refuses entry of Greenpeace activist into India
Centre acts tough against Greenpeace India, freezes its 7 bank accounts, bars foreign funding
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BTW Judith Curry has a consulting business doing wind forecasting.
Judith says in Uncertainty gets a seat at the “big table:” Part IV
STATEMENT TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Judith is a very able politician.
And just in case you wonder about Judith’s company CLIMATE FORECAST APPLICATIONS NETWORK, LLC
Judith’s co-founder, Peter Webster is where things get rather interesting.
Webster is a member of Aspen Global Change Institute “The Aspen Global Change Institute is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit dedicated to furthering the scientific understanding of Earth systems and global environmental change…”
WHAT WE DO
And guess who is on the staff of Climate Communication?
Peter Gleick
Katharine Hayhoe
Michael Mann
Jeff Masters
Michael Oppenheimer
Naomi Oreskes
Jonathan Overpeck
Benjamin Santer
Kevin Trenbreth
Don Wuebbles
To name just a few.
>>>>>>>>>>>
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Should Judith Curry’s statement read- ” The need for climate researchers to engage with social scientists and social engineers has never been more important”, especially with regard to remuneration from government quangos.
41
For a number of decades, the Chinese and Indian government have done terrible things to their own populations on account of the fantasies of influential westerners. Inhuman population control is at the top (forced sterilizations, for example).
These governments have finally learned their lesson and won’t go along any more. This, of course, is not only great news for Chinese and Indian people but for humanity as a whole.
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It seems that we in Australia have just about the highest cost of domestic electricity in the world. Denmark and Germany have higher unit prices but ours are considerably lower than those in the UK. USA and France for example. See attached graph from WUWT.
I suspect that among the reasons for this are some of the following;
State governments using bulk power charges to provide a cash cow for consolidated revenue.
Hiding the cost of the transmission lines necessary to connect windfarms to the grid within the unit costs for power rather than requiring the windfarm operators to pay for the extra transmission lines ( which are required only by the windfarms themselves
High costs due to the proliferation of companies which exist only to bill the final customer.
Whatever the reasons, the situation is an absolute disgrace considering that Australia possesses some of the best quality and easiest to mine coal in the world. We ought to be enjoying unit prices at about the same level as the US, rather than more than double.
40
considerably higher !
10
Africa will never develop without coal power and as you say the West will not allow them to have it. The Chinese will give it to them in exchange for the massive amounts of resources they are already removing and the massive amounts of land they are already taking over in Africa.
Lack of cheap electricity is the technical reason why Africa hasn’t developed.
For many other political and cultural reasons I think there is little hope of Africa developing by themselves. China will continue to colonise Africa and develop it for them – for the price of resources and land.
20
Alpha Natural Resources coal mining company just filed for bankruptcy. They have 8000 employees but Obama could care less about those people. It won’t affect the unemployment while he’s still in office, so why care? Coal may continue, but it will mined in places that have no regualtions, thousands killed in mining accidents (the Chinese were amazed less than a dozen people died in mining in the US. Their numbers are much higher.), dirty processing facilities, etc. This whole thing reminds me of a SciFi story where the people live behind a fence and have a beautiful, natural environment while all the goods and services come from people outside in a filthy environment. No one inside cares, even though it’s their relatives outside dying. After all, it’s okay for others to die as long as you don’t. Environmentalism is a truly cruel business now.
10
Explains the Left trying to dumb down the smart cohort by keeping it an elite club of BS artists. Another way to smoother progress and population growth.
Where’s my hover board.
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In a post I did a few years back, I quoted economic historian Gregory Clark:
Then I pointed out, …
Different people have come up with different reasons, but certainly the use of coal was a large part of the equation. I think that a certain amount of freedom was also part of the equation just as I wrote in that post. Give us energy and the freedom to trade with each other to our mutual advantage and progress will be the outcome. Governmental interventions always retard the progress as we saw in the old USSR.
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Adjacent coal and iron ore deposits with ample water and sufficient numbers of people, all close by – that’s ‘why’. The ‘then’… As I heard at school, it had to happen at some time.
30
Well, not in Aus at any useful scale. If you are referring to steel-making (as I think you are), upscale Aus coking coal deposits are about 3000km from upscale iron ore deposits
But it’s a warm-enough fantasy, I suppose
30
The adjacent was in the UK. It is a small set of islands after all.
In the USA we used water ways to make coal and iron and copper and tin and… ‘adjacent’ even if we had to dig canals. I lived near one of the canals and used the horse/mule towpaths to go riding.
50
Mark,
I think that the real accelerator was leisure time and enough calories to sustain deep thinking.
What Coal energy did was substitute for human energy freeing up people from a life that was ‘nasty, brutal and short.’ This freeing up also meant more people weren’t ground down with mind numbing back braking hand labor.
As I mention in another post you only have X number of true inventors per thousand. If they do not get born, die in infancy or spend all their time trying to feed themselves you do not get inventions. Only when there is enough surplus food do you have inventors able to invent. As more surplus is generated, more inventions happen.
In the USA in 1790 ~ 90% were farmers. By 1850, it was down to 64 % and by 1950 12% That leaves a lot of people free to invent.
30
Probably a reason for why it was Northern Europe. Plenty of time to think things over in the winter. Some communities sort of hibernated. Pretty much slept for a few months.
20
Don’t overlook the effect of the bubonic plagues which swept through Europe in the 13/14 Centuries. A drastic decrease in population meant that more efficient methods of production had to be found for for civilisations to survive. The social and philosophical revolution known as the Age of Enlightenment was also a factor in that men’s minds were freed to explore and discover the World about us.
00
One of the many myths that abound is that when societies become wealthy, women automatically slow the birth rate because of education and availability of birth control. Rubbish. The reason that the birth rate slows or even reverses as people get better off is for two main reasons – Firstly people no longer need their children to continue the family work, to support them as they age and ultimately look after them in their last years. Secondly, people and in particular women, start to choose a career and money over a stream of babies. There’s more to do than have another (albeit much loved and cute) mouth to feed.
So while coal use leads to more people it ultimately pegs population too. It’s more humane and much more effective than China’s enforced one child policy. The concept would make an anti capitalist’s head explode.
170
Yep many developing people need the extra children to offset the higher mortality rate due to not having the quality of life that a reliable energy supply gives, it’s a basic human survival instinct that served our ancestors well.
50
You missed the economics and you are missing Womens lib.
There are over 150 million kids classified as ‘child labor,’ that is doing labor detrimental to their health. 1 in 4 kids in sub-sahara Africa are so classified by UNICEF.
Because first world countries have strong child labor laws, children can not work and earn money for the family coffers. Heck even the teens who can work, want you to buy them a car so they can work at Micky -Ds or they borrow yours and the insurance sky-rockets. So in the USA the average cost of raising a child hits $245,000 – Aug. 18, 2014.
In contrast in third world countries children are seen as cheap labor whether on the family farm where they start work at age three or four (my ex drove a tractor at age five) or as actual wage earners.
This does not include the outright sale of children (slavery is still very much alive and well.)
In first world children are viewed as a drain on the pocketbook. Even if Mom continues to work you have to pay child care (No extended family to watch the kids as in 3rd word countries) This economic reality is the major reason for the reduction in the number of kids.
40
The one child policy in China will be scrapped this year, with two children (replacement value) back in vogue.
The Chinese authorities realised continuing on the way things are would deprive the factories of fodder within a generation and they would need to import workers.
So this experiment in population control comes to a tidy end.
40
The major problem is Chinese culture. A man takes care of his parents. A woman takes care of her husband’s parents. Therefore no one in their right mind wanted to have their one child be a girl. And to make matters worse is good old women’s lib. Chinese men will not marry a woman they see as superior. This means sucessful woman are ‘shengnu’ – directly translated as ‘leftover women’ – [it] was coined to refer to professional women who have not married by their late 20s.
40
In time these shengnu might travel abroad to find a mate, but the frustrated young men stuck at home could become a problem for the state.
20
This is the central argument made by pro-fossil fuels campaigner Alex Epstein. His approach to fighting AGW insanity is not to argue about the science, but to argue a ‘Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’. It’s a hard argument for the warmists to win. Firstly, they can’t run off to lefty ‘I’m morally superior for caring about climate change’ emotional arguments. Secondly, they are forced to admit their dependence on fossil fuels. Thirdly, the average warmist on the street has no idea how dependent every aspect of their life is on fossil fuels, and how little they can cope without them.
When lefties are presented with a moral argument about the world’s poor, they are easily caught off guard.
One of Epstein’s best arguments is this:
How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking? 47? You’d be dead in the days before we used fossil fuels. Aren’t fossil fuels great?
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Thank god for fossil fuels because otherwise we would become fossil specimens of Homo Sapiens later than sooner, assuming of course we don’t get cremated. Think twice about getting cremated – at least as a fossil in a graveyard we are still one of planet Earth’s trillions of fossils – there for an eternity unless some local council decides to get rid of their cemetery because of urban infill. Greenies don’t like urban infill so maybe they will fight for the preservation of us human fossils in future centuries.
81
Is this another way of pointing out that increased energy use correlates with having a longer life expectancy?
60
3 Aug: SMH: Peter Hannam: Sydney weather: Coldest spell in 26 years and more chilly mornings ahead
Sydney notched its longest cold spell in 26 years and NSW had its frostiest July since 1997 after a series of strong cold fronts dragged unusually cool air over south-eastern Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The city’s run of 11 consecutive nights with temperatures dipping below 8 degrees was Sydney’s longest such run since 1989, the bureau said in its monthly report. For both mean and minimum temperatures, it was also the coolest July for the city since 2002…
For NSW overall, the most significant snow event since at least October 2012 – which occurred in mid-July – helped lower mean temperatures to 0.2 degrees below average for the month – enough to make it the state’s coolest July in 18 years…
***Nationally, warmer-than-average temperatures across most of Western Australia and Queensland more than compensated for the cold over the south-east…
***While the globe has posted its hottest ever June and January-June periods on record, Australia’s start to 2015 has been less exceptional…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/sydney-weather-coldest-spell-in-26-years-and-more-chilly-mornings-ahead-20150803-giqaui.html
my part of SE Qld hasn’t been too warm!
no doubt it’s the hottest year ever though:
PICS: 3 Aug: ABC: Tasmanian snow: Rescue effort underway to reach couple trapped in snowy central Tasmania; more snowfalls expected
A Tasmanian rescue helicopter has abandoned plans to winch out a couple trapped with their car in Mount Field national park after heavy snowfall in the state.
The couple were stranded in the snow on Lake Dobson Road on Sunday night and remain trapped.
A helicopter crew landed nearby late this afternoon and walked to the couple, but were unable to winch them out due to deteriorating weather…
The rescue helicopter crew also discovered another car stuck in snow, but said the occupants were well-prepared and were happy to stay…
Snow reached sea level for the first time since 2005, with Hobart’s beaches and central business district receiving a dusting.
Launceston in the state’s north saw snow despite its clear and sunny forecast, as did Burnie in the north west.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Tristan Oakley said the state’s west, where snow had also reached sea level, “could be quite bad for most of the day, into the evening”.
Snowfalls in Hobart are rare — the last time the CBD experienced a “dump of snow” was on July 25, 1986 when the Tasman Bridge was closed…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-03/snow-across-tasmania-forces-many-key-road-closures/6666838
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I remember snow down to sea level on the NW coast in the early 1950’s (Snowmen lasted about 2-3 days), again in the mid 70’s as well as 1986 and now 2015. I think the point is there hasn’t been much snow in the higher suburbs, such as Ferntree, for decades but in days past it was common to be snowbound for up to a week.
40
The increase in world temperatures exist pretty much in the minds of a bunch of hacks calling themselves scientists at the U.S. NASA and NOAA agencies. They are simply adjusting monthly surface temperatures (documented fact) to get that supposed result, which is, in fact, a fantasy. Adjustments seem to be getting worse as the December climate meeting approaches. Satellite data, the most accurate, does not show the earth warming.
110
Therein lies the rub, Ms Nova; the “environmentalists” find the thought of humans (excepting themselves and their own little coterie) to be abhorrent on the face of the Earth, and should be reduced substantially, if not wholly eradicated.
110
Puts the kybosh on a large component of Agenda21 doesn’t it?, detonation of watermelons in 3-2-1.. 🙂
60
Today, Obama is expected to unveil a series of proposals which are supposedly going “to save the planet” by providing an example to the rest of the world’s nations. Cheap and reliable coal fired power stations will be forced to close, while encouragement will be given for expensive, unreliable and intermittent ‘renewable energy’. The cost of doing this and the economic impact have been totally underestimated.
A harsh critic might call this ‘legacy addiction’ and as these proposals make no sense whatsoever, without a massive move to nuclear energy, then this essentially illegal move can only be described as a presidential ego trip.
It is difficult to understand why our so called political elite are so hell bent on maintaining energy poverty in the Third World, unless they are actively seeking to promote mass migration.
220
Obama and the like are operating on a faulty set of premises, many of which are 50 years old, and were never more than theories to begin with. For example, one of the primary under pinning of this premise set is Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb book that has been proved wrong about just about everything.
A basic wrong premise being that the planet could not support population growth.
And what role has the natural increase of co2 in the atmosphere played in this?
90
To save the planet, we would need to silence Obama and environmentalists and then use actual science and some common sense in the future.
(As far as I can tell, politicians despise humanity, care nothing about future generations and the general population is very close to the same attitude. Since few people believe in an afterlife and people today live in the moment, why worry about what happens? Your kid will have a rougher life, possibly a shorter one, but it really does not matter. Dead early, dead late, it’s all the same. Nothing matters except the moment.)
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Just slightly off topic, today is Obama’s birthday. HIs OFA group says he loves to hear from people on his birthday. You get the idea….
10
Sorry, Sheri, the US Secret Service doesn’t like it when people tell Obama what they really think of him and express their real wishes about his probable life expectancy.
00
Just send over a bunch of professional girls and they won’t bother to track the expressor down. Or sign it “Illegal Alien” and you’re free and clear. He’ll think you’re joshing him.
10
Noble cause corruption, or actually just plain old vanity
It’s the scariest of all motives, in my view
120
The Chicago Carbon Exchange, now defunct,(ccx) used to say on it’s web site that Obama and Gore were both founding members.
50
Jim Carey: I just bought a Tesla.
Jerry Seinfield: I love burning stuff!
Jim Carey: We love breathing what your burning, baby!
. . .
> I’m with Jerry.
via Comedians in cars getting coffee.
30
But not according to:
Muhammad Yunus – who states:
He wants to build a new civilisation?
I don’t want to be part of it!
Muhammad is a Nobel Peace Prize winning economist and banker!
But when it comes down to it – they are just cheats and typical of the Green Zoo
He owes $1.5 million in unpaid taxes & more
Why is it the GREENS, UN & CAGW crew attract such people like this?
150
Dave, good point. I always find it humorous that those that hate “carbon” (they mean CO2), demand organic food, clothing, etc. They want carbon based food and clothing but not carbon based energy.
The mind of the leftists will remain unfathomable to the rational mind until there is a scientific surge in hard science and understanding the mind and its workings. I think nothing but further evil can come from the social science investigations in this important area of research.
60
“Why is it the GREENS, UN & CAGW crew attract such people like this?”
………..
Sociopaths do not care how many they trample on the way to the top. Unfortunately that means we are governed by the nasty, and sneakiest of scum.
The older I get the lower my opinion of politicians and most other ‘leaders’ the nice guy finishes last is very very true especially in politics.
30
I did a heck of a lot of googling over the last couple of hours to find the graph I have linked to below.
I used a similar energy consumption relationship to HDI graph back when the Weatherzone forum still allowed debate on the climate.
There are other similar graphs on a number of sites but almost invariably they do not identify the countries on the graph.
As the commenters can’t post any pictorials here on Jo’s site perhaps I could ask if Jo would incorporate this very illuminating graph on the relationship between electricity consumption per person and the UN’s Human Development Index of nations around the world in her headline post.
It is an excellent illustration of the very close link between energy consumption and the various factors that go to make up the HDI.
For an outline of the factors that go to make up the UN’s Human Development Index this link to Table 1: Human Development Index and its components
Perhaps we Australians can be a bit chuffed that despite all our supposed wailing and lamenting in the media of how bad we are as a nation, others have placed Australia in the second highest position globally just behind Norway in the UN’s 2013 Human Development Index.
There is actually a plethora of articles on the net linking energy consumption and standards of living or the HDI together but most of those articles follow a table or statistical format which takes time to digest and get a grip on.
_____________________________
Another interesting read is “1. ENERGY AND HUMAN WELL-BEING “
Table II gives an idea of chronological advances in power output available to men since 3000 BC.
[quoted ]
Table II Chronological advances in power output
Primer mover ——————-Date———- Output in horsepower (HP)
Man pushing a lever——————3000 BC ——————-0.05
Ox pulling a load ———————3000 BC——————– 0.5
Water turbine ————————–1000 BC——————– 0.4
Vertical waterwheel ——————-350 BC ———————3
Turret windmill ————————1600 AD ——————–14
Savery’s steam pump ————–1697 AD ———————1
Newcommen’s steam engine —-1712 AD ——————-5.5
Watt’s steam engine (land) ——1800 AD ——————-40
Steam engine (marine)———- -1837 AD ——————–750
Steam engine (marine) ————1843 AD ——————–1,500
Water turbine ————————–1854 AD—————— –800
Steam engine (marine)————-1900 AD—————— —8,000
Steam engine (land)——————1900 AD ——————-12,000
Steam turbine ————————–1906 AD——————- 17,500
Steam turbine———————— –1921 AD——————- 40,000
Steam turbine ————————–1943 AD ——————-288,0001,
Coal-fired steam power plant—–1973 AD ——————–1,465,000
Nuclear power plant——————-1974 AD ——————-1,520,000
Source: Cook, E, Man, Energy, Society, WH Freeman and Co, San Francisco, US (1976).
The greatest advance was the steam engine developed by Watt, which opened the way for an extraordinary increase in the efficiency of the energy contained in coal (or other fuels) to mechanical power through a steam engine cycle.
____________________
The above table on the advancement of energy generation technologies really lays out the reasons why we enjoy the Living standards in the western developed world that we do.
Which then raises the question, much argued, often quite ferociously in some circles but without any definite conclusions, as to why it was that the western and primarily the english speaking world was the source of the quite sudden onset of the Great Industrial Revolution, a revolution that is still not reached its end and one which is now improving the lives and successfully feeding and clothing the nearly 7.3 billions of humans on this planet.
The list of power sources and their outputs above doesn’t provide any data so as to give an index of the reliability and continuous sustainability of the power generation from each of those sources, a factor that is just as important for the industrial revolution’s technological advances as the actual output of the power source.
In fact the French decided to beat the British at their own game so to get the technology they bought an entire cotton or woollen mill from the English including hiring the English engineers to build it and run it.
The whole project was bankrupt within about 18 months.
And the reason; For some reason the French company decided that they didn’t need the Steam engine to run the mill that the British engineers used.
So they used the good old water wheel instead of the steam engine, much cheaper of course like all Renewable Energy as the water was running down the river and just had be diverted down a channel to the very large wheel so you never needed to buy vast quantities of very expensive coal from the english coal mines.
Well like all renewable energy power sources it worked sometimes and at different outputs and speeds depending on the river flow, the rainfall upstream and etc and etc .
Those rapidly advancing in technology English spinning jennys and looms required a very steady, fully controllable power source with a relatively constant power output or the flexibility to run at a reduced or increased load and still maintain the same revolutions per minute so as to ensure the spinning jenny’s and looms ran at their optimum speeds.
In short a good coal fired steam engine with a good governor to maintain the right speed and power availability.
Water wheels just didn’t cut it for any of those requirements and so the whole project went bust.
Sadly it all sounds so damn familiar even after some 250 years have passed by.
And also seems that the greens and the global warming shrink heads haven’t learnt anything much at all about the so called renewable energies from history or in fact, learn’t much of anything over the last 250 years of rapid technological advance beginning with the British Industrial Revolution.
180
Given a 1600 windmill produced 18 H.P., the modern equivalent of 2.5 MW is 3,300 H.P., perhaps that’s progress, but still there is the problem when the wind doesn’t blow.
40
From a 1600 AD wind mill producing 14 HP to the modern equivalent wind turbine producing 3,300 HP [ sometimes and occasionally ! ] there had a to be one hell of a lot of coal burned to produce the very steady reliable power needed for steel making and for the production of the glass and carbon fibres and the resins formulations for the FRP constructed blades of the turbine.
And thats only one peice of a complex turbine make up with the all the other infrastructure such as roads and cranes and power lines and transformers and collectors and etc that go to make up a wind turbine establishment that will produce power at around a maximum on shore turbine generating capacity factor of 28% maximum of its plated output
[ Germany’s huge fleet of turbines operate at an overall capacity factor of just 18%.]
In fact without taking the energy requirements for the construction of all the infrastructure needed to build a turbine, infrastructure such as mines and ships and vast steel manufacturing complexes and immense tonnages of cement making facilities and transport equipment and the copper and aluminum for the grid connections and transformers and their manufacturing facilities, without including any of that infrastructure without which the current wind turbines could not be built or constructed at all, it takes around 150 tonnes of coal to build an on shore turbine and about 250 tonnes of coal to build an offshore turbine.
There is roughly a 150 tonnes of concrete in each turbines foundation.
quoted; Coal and Cement
Over 3.3 billion tonnes of cement were consumed globally in 2010. China’s cement consumption alone reached over 1.8 billion tonnes.
&
What is Cement?
Cement is made from a mixture of calcium carbonate (generally in the form of limestone), silica, iron oxide and alumina.
A high-temperature kiln, often fuelled by coal, heats the raw materials to a partial melt at 1450°C, transforming them chemically and physically into a substance known as clinker.
This grey pebble-like material is comprised of special compounds that give cement its binding properties.
Clinker is mixed with gypsum and ground to a fine powder to make cement.
Coal is used as an energy source in cement production.
Large amounts of energy are required to produce cement.
It takes about 200 kg of coal to produce one tonne of cement and about 300-400 kg of cement is needed to produce one cubic meter of concrete.
—————
Further reading
Lessons from Germany’s Wind Power Disaster
&
Der Spiegel; Gone With the Wind: Weak Returns Cripple German Renewables
40
A friend likes to say it was James Watt who freed the slaves and he is correct. (Didn’t go over well with his history teacher)
30
ROM,
You have an alternative post there!
Your graph here:
https://firstgreenconsulting.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/human-developement.jpg
1: It shows a very close relationship between the per capita energy consumption and the Human Development Index (HDI).
2: The relationship shows massive gains in the HDI with small increments in energy per person initially, then flattens off. Once a community reaches 5500Kwh/person/year the HDI has reached it s maximum. Japanese use 6000kWh/person/year and have the same HDI as Australian’s at 12,00kWh/year.
3. Norway apparently has a massive consumption of 26,000kWh/person per year for no benefit. What do they do with all that energy?
4. South Africa, Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia all fall well below the curve. Their citizens should enjoy a much better HDI that they actually do! Could that be political issue?
Incidentally I have visited Japan fairly recently for the first time. The have a high standard of living, but nothing like the individual freedom we enjoy here in Australia, from what I observed.
10
Peter C @ # 17.3
Norway’s very high power “consumption” as figured in that graph could possibly or a maybe” likely” to be due to the production and export of a large part of Norway’s very considerable electrical power output from its hydro plants.
99% of all power production in Norway comes from hydropower.
Norway exports a lot of hydro generated power to Denmark when the wind stops blowing and to north Germany for the same reasons through the European wide high voltage interlinks as well as into Sweden and Finland which is building one of the flawed French Areva pressurised water nuclear reactors which is way over costs and time and which has been found to have major flaws in the metal quality of the pressure vessel cap.
From Norway’s “Statkraft”
[ quoted]
99% of all power production in Norway comes from hydropower. On a global basis 1/6 of the power produced comes from hydropower.
&
Statkraft has more than a 100 years experience with hydropower, and is the largest producer of electricity from hydro power in Europe. The majority of the Statkraft Group’s energy production is generated through hydropower.
Production takes place in 378 hydropower plants – 273 in Norway, 55 in Sweden, 10 in Germany, three in the United Kingdom, and 32 outside Europea. Statkraft is involved in other hydropower projects in the Nordic region and Southeast Europe. We are developing new production capacity in selected countries in South America and Asia.
[/]
Norway with its 5.2 million population ranks as 8th in the world in electricity exports
10
The warmists want total control,
Of resources, especially coal,
Which they claim does great harm,
Being more false alarm,
To advance their political goal.
220
Been re-reading ‘Gaia’ by James Lovelock. A quote from page 88; “Diatoms, which assimilate silica and flourish in the sea but obviously not in the salt saturated lakes, spend their brief lives in surface waters. When they die, they sink to the ocean floor and their opaline skeletons pile up as sediment, adding about 300 million tons of silica to the sedimentary rocks each year.”
This made me think about people. Current population 7.3 billion, assume average life span of 80 years and average weight of 80 kilos this means we produce 7.3 million tons of dead bodies every which are mostly water.
We have indeed a very small footprint on this world compared to diatoms.
110
O/T, but:
diatom detritus, or diatomaceous earth in deposit, is much used as an industrial filter due to the assemblage of inert siliceous exoskeletons with very fine and consistent holes in it (the holes are the desired filter mechanism)
Amongst many others, Coca Cola uses diatomaceous filters for its’ crude liquor filtering process. Interestingly, the major producer of industrial grade diatoms is in California, although Aus (eg) has a number of large deposits in basement (Silurian/Devonian) metasediments
Thar’s filters in them thar hills 🙂
70
It’s also used as a “natural” pesticide, completely non toxic and inert; slow acting on insects with no effect of mammals, reptiles, or avian life.
10
Apologies for sounding pedantic (but it’s important to be correct): watts are not a measure of energy (fig. 1).
Watts. – power
Watt-hours. – Energy
80
But with smart meters, it is not Watt-hours, it is which-hours.
50
And her I thought it was which days. (Sunday only when the factories sucking all the energy produced are closed…)
20
In the North of England, quite a few years ago, now, they tried the concept of rolling blackouts, to save power. This consisted of shutting down selected substation areas for an hour or two, during the night.
Economic activity went through the floor, because the majority of people have an electric alarm clock, and nobody thinks to replace the standby batteries, so people just slept in, until hunger finally forced them out of bed.
I now wonder what secondary effects it might also have had, on population growth in the affected areas.
70
They say hunger sharpens the brain and blackouts are known to cause baby booms.
20
Blast! That should be 7.3 million tons of dead bodies every year.
30
As in bodies of water?
30
Visualizing the History of Improving Health around the World
http://ourworldindata.org/VisualHistoryOf/Health.html#/life-expectancy-England-until-1800
30
> The world is getting better all the time, in 11 maps and charts
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/13/8908397/11-charts-best-time-in-history
> United Nations Links Affordable Energy to Quality of Life
https://www.advancedenergyforlife.com/article/energy-access-key-better-life
~ ~ ~
Electricity should cost more in peak periods, Australian Federal Government white paper says
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/electricity-should-cost-more-in-peak-periods-white-paper-says/6378368
. . .
Why would any government deliberately want to diminish the quality of life of it’s citizens?
60
“Why would any government deliberately want to diminish the quality of life of it’s citizens?”
Because they are run by Malthusians who hate people?
50
Here is a report from a few years ago that explains another way to shear the Sheeple.
Smart Meters, an attractive opportunity for Investors This theoretically allows residential electricity to be turned off so the system can be balanced as wind and solar power surges and declines.
50
gai,
I have tried many time to get people to see this future that is likely to come.
There are documents online that say similar for the UK suppliers, Australia, New Zealand, EU directives, Canada, the US states, and most other western industrialized countries. But getting people to understand how these changes will dramatically change their lives for the worst I can not get them to understand. These additional costs will be so suppliers can restrict their freedom of use!
Essentially electricity is going from consumer demand system to a supplier allocated system.
From the supplier having to maintain supply to satisfied consumer demand, to system where the consumers are to be restricted to what the supplier will supply (probably by government decree in some cases).
All this change-over will cost a fortune and will not improve reliability — internet controlled generators anyone? Now factor in the additional expense of so-called renewables and the cost go over the top.
Can consumers anywhere really pay such huge bills?
From ‘stopthesethings happening’ blogsite —
[thanks to tallbloke talkshop site for the links]
90
Thank you for that
Most people do not grasp the point – that their residential equipment can be individually shut off remotely without warning when someone (at about 6 degrees of separation) decides they have consumed enough for the time
60
Tom, Ian
This is something I have been trying to get through to people for several years. Normally the information rolls off the table and onto the floor and is ignored or is stomped on. Most people in Western countries just can not imagine that their governments would be this malicious and blank the disagreeable information out of their minds.
Very very discouraging.
40
“Wind turbines: worse than we thought ”
“The reason for this is that the rate of improvement in load factor is no greater than would be expected from the fact that the turbines are newer. So you can draw one of two conclusions:
◾load factors have not been enhanced by technological improvements
◾the rate of performance decline is greater than Mackay had thought.
Either way, wind turbines look just a bit more like a dead end than they did yesterday.”
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/8/3/wind-turbines-worse-than-we-thought.html
50
A few interesting facts about the electric in the USA. (I am in the Duke Energy sector that got mandatory replacement of meters with ‘Smart Meters’ I was lied to even when I shoved Duke Energy quotes at the Propagandists.)
1. Duke Energy supplies most of the electricity along the USA east cost where most of the coal plants are being shut down.
2. “Duke Energy, an investor-owned utility, is one of the largest electric power companies in the United States. “ This means profits head straight to the pockets of the investors.
So far so good. Then the digging gets interesting.
3. Duke Energy extended a $10 million loan to Obama’s re-election convention committee.
That loan paid back handsomely.
Duke Energy Receives $22 Million Federal Grant for Wind Power Storage
Duke Energy intends to match a $22 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.
” Duke Energy Corp. has received a stimulus award of $200 million for “smart-grid” improvements in Ohio and Indiana. It’s part of a package of $3.4 billion in stimulus allocations announced Tuesday by the Obama administration.
Duke was among 100 entities to receive Smart Grid Investment Grants…”
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act),
“the U.S. Department of Energy and the electricity industry have jointly invested over $7.9 billion in cost- shared Smart Grid Investment Grant projects to modernize the electric grid, strengthen cybersecurity, improve interoperability, and collect an unprecedented level of data on smart grid and customer operations. “
Under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) program, six utilities evaluated operations and customer charging behaviors for in-home and public electric vehicle charging stations: [What an utter waste of money]
Burbank Water and Power (BWP)
Duke Energy (Duke)
Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL)
Madison Gas and Electric (MGE)
Progress Energy (now part of Duke Energy as a result of a merger in 2012)
Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)
Duke Energy, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, provides electric service to 7.2 million electric customers……
And yes I am correct that “time-based rates programs, including time-of-use, critical peak pricing, and peak-time rebate programs.“ will eventually be implemented to shape consumer behavior.
Integrated Smart Grid Provides Wide Range of Benefits in Ohio and the Carolinas
60
(Other comment on Duke Energy in moderation)
And just to underline WHY Duke Energy (major supplyer in the USA) need this made in Hades ‘Smart Grid’
GREENVILLE NC — Duke asks customers to reduce energy use
Please note that Duke just blew up the Cape Fear Coal plant and their submission to build an additional nuclear unit was stalled so they gave up.
Now Duke Energy is spreading its propaganda to our class rooms:
Energy Revolution: Our Energy Efficiency in Schools Program Educating our youth about energy conservation
40
Howere the very worst part about Duke Energy is the President and CEO, JAMES E. ROGERS, is a [self-snip] WARMIST!!!!
http://www.duke-energy.com/sustainability/sar07-08/letter-from-the-chairman.asp
http://www.duke-energy.com/investors/publications/annual/ar-2007/letter/chairmans-letter.html
40
Contrast and compare how Enron treated its CA electricty customers before its fall. Basically they manipulated the supply side, causing blackouts, then effectively held the customers to ransom to pay (expensively) for improvements to the system.
Today the POTUS push for renewables + required ‘smart’ meters to *try* and stabalize demand, is a method of Enroning the entire national electricity system.
But hey, all Western Industrialize countries are following this mad paradigm, all because the UN elites demand more money to save the UN version of a modeled planet.
50
The reason everyone is following Enron’s example:
Enron And BP Invented The Global Warming Industry – I know because I was in the room. by Chris Horner
20
The loan made by Duke was reported to have been written off and the stockholders got stuck with the loss. I am constantly telling people that Duke Energy is into politics big-time and they are out the to make money, not save the planet. Saving the planet might happen, but they really don’t care as long as the money comes in. Companies that put up industrial wind plants are not doing so out of caring. They make money that way. I don’t object—the purpose of a business is to make money. Some deals are probably unethical in all of this, but it is business and probably legal. What I do object to is people pretending in their heads that Duke or any other renewables company is in it for society and making the world a better place.
60
I feel really sorry for the Americans. Seriously, I do.
Firstly, they only get half of the voltage that the developed nations get, apart from Japan; and
Secondly, it looks as though they are only going to get that, for half the time, just like Japan.
50
Hi Jo
It just occurred to me this is precisely why the population reductionists hate coal.
80
“Dual Title Day: Line up for your Brownouts. or Future America to Produce Energy by Harnessing Happiness.”
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/dual-title-day-line-up-for-your-brownouts-or-future-america-to-produce-energy-by-harnessing-happiness/
60
“Every state, province or nation that’s jumped on the renewables bandwagon has failed, spectacularly. Good luck on that America. It’s okay though, it’s only supposed to cost $8.4B.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2015/08/hopey-changey-1.html
And links
50
I went to the actual article about this new Obama plan, because I was intrigued that it mentions that it would only cost around $8.4 Billion.
Let’s actually pretend for a minute that the cost of renewable power will come down, and this is totally contrary to what is actually happening as each new wind plant sees a rise in costs, but for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend they can construct these wind plants for around half of what they are currently costing.
So then, $8.4 Billion would see, under this cheaper costing, eight new huge scale wind plants.
That’s 8 plants of 200 towers, each topped by a 3MW generator nacelle, so, a 600MW wind plant, and eight of them in all.
Sounds reasonable.
So, that gives us a Nameplate of 8 X 600MW, so 4800MW Nameplate.
Total yearly power generated is:
4800 X 24 X 365.25 X 0.3 giving us a yearly power delivery of 12,623GWH
Now keep in mind that this will be the ultimate cost to replace 32% of the coal fired power fleet.
So, the current delivery from that coal fired power fleet is 1,585,697GWH.
Then, 32% of that is 476,000GWH, and that’s the power he’s cutting, with this 32% reduction in the coal fired fleet.
So, we are replacing 476,000GWH of existing power delivery with 12,623GWH of new power delivery.
What the!
That’s getting rid of a whole lot, and replacing it with what is only 2.65% of what they have gotten rid of.
That’ll work!
Incidentally, that cutback of 476,000GWH is 12% of the total generation for U.S. power.
Somebody, somewhere, is Maths challenged.
$8.4 Billion.
Just who are they trying to kid?
Tony.
90
Tony, you forgot, demand growth @ 2% P/A, the backup, the land and land taxes and the transmission lines and land for them. Then you need to add the fact that it’s being funded by government meaning that they’ll pay about twice as much as they need to. My guess, they’ll run out of the 8 Bn before a single windmill is built.
40
White House Anticipates ‘A Difficult Transition’ to ‘Clean Power’
“But it’s a transition that is clearly in the best interests of our economy, it’s clearly in the best interest of the health of children all across the country, and it’s in the best interests of the planet.”
40
What astounds me in all this is the inherent beliefs of all these people, that you can replace 24 hour electrical power with power that is only available on around a third of that time basis.
These people right at the very top actually believe it, and because they do, the masses just believe it verbatim, knowing implicitly that these people have advisers who tell them the truth, so it must be true. Why would President Obama say something that isn’t correct.
Therein lies the problem.
While ever people actually believe that electrical power will always be just coming out of the figurative hole in the wall, then it doesn’t matter where it comes from, because it’s all just electrical power.
People just DO NOT WANT TO HEAR that these renewables of choice cannot provide the power that is needed to actually make a Country function.
As long as people believe that electrical power consumption is what they consume ….. at a PERSONAL level, in other words, in their own homes, then we are in serious trouble.
The very idea that you can run a Country on rooftop solar panels is just beyond my comprehension.
As an example, walk into you nearest large shopping mall. We have one here on the North Side of Rockhampton, Stockland. It has a Coles, a Woolworths, K Mart, Big W, and around 110 other shops and banks and food outlets etc etc.
That shopping mall will consume a similar amount of power equating to around fifteen hundred or more homes, and it requires access to power on a 24 hour basis. If it loses power for four hours, Coles and Woolies have to throw out everything in cold or cool storage, at a cost of probably millions, and then restock.
Access to power on a 24 hour basis is an ABSOLUTE physical requirement, and until people actually realise that, then this myth of renewables ability to supply will just keep on going.
You CANNOT replace large scale coal fired power with wind or solar power.
I’m certain that advisers are just telling these senior people what they want to hear.
If ANY politician says otherwise, that we can’t do without coal fired power, he’ll be howled down and then out of Office.
There must be a lot of executives out there who know this, and what they also know is that as soon as the bovine waste hits the fan, then it won’t be the politicians kicked out, but them, for failure to supply.
There’ll only be one winner.
The lawyers!
Tony.
100
The very second I finish explaining how wind power and solar power just fail to deliver, the (automatic) response is ….. “You would say that. You just hate the Labor Party.”
See how the whole argument has distilled down to just who you support in politics.
No one understands engineering. No one understands Maths. No one understands Logic. If the truth is to be told, they don’t want to understand it.
It’s the nature of something unseen. The generation of electrical power. It’s always there, and always available, and that is ONLY because of one thing. Large scale coal fired power.
You cannot explain that to people.
It’s like Holden Falcon, Nissan, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, etc. They are all cars. They all start first time and get you from (a) to (b). The only difference is the manufacturer. They all perform the same task.
The same applies with electrical power, only no one ever sees it. It’s just there. One generator is the same as the next. They all supply electricity.
People are dumbfounded when I try to explain it.
Just ask anyone, anyone at all this simple question.
How do you get electricity from coal?
Very few people can explain the process, very few, and other than those who know exactly, no one will get it right.
No one wants to know, because they cannot understand it, and I can see that, but when people begin to want to understand about it, that’s when it distils down to which side of politics you support.
There’s only one way to make people see.
Just take it away. Stop the plants from generating.
That will never happen, because it does not support the narrative.
Renewable power operators know this, and that is the only thing that keeps them from being found out. They know that politicians of every persuasion will NEVER allow the closure of coal fired power as a demonstration of their total and utter inability to supply.
The developed World was built on coal fired power.
Take that away, and we all go back to Africa, literally.
Tony.
100
Nice argument, Tony. But there are leftists who know this, but will deny it forever. Best Example is Obama. He has said no nation should be higher than another or over another. Now, there are two ways to do that. 1) Raise every culture, economy, and government to Western standards. 2) Lower countries with Western standards to the level of the poorest countries. Obama said this (#2) and he is trying everything he can to accomplish that objective.
It does not matter what radical leftists understand about coal, they do not seek to raise all people, they seek to lower all people. Of course, the precious ones like him will continue to live like kings. Don’t assume a lack of knowledge. Look to the objectives of the radical leftists. Studying the Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, Holdren, Obama, etc. will show you their objectives.
40
You said it Tony. If they can’t see what’s coming they deserve what’s coming.
20
Don’t bet Obama will not shut down coal in the US. He really does not care at all about anything. He’s God now and can run rampant and no one stops him.
As for how to explain wind and solar, the only way, short of energy producers developing a backbone and shutting down the plants (which you have stated won’t happen and I’m inclined to agree), I refuse to listen to anyone push wind and solar unless they live in a house with NO line to the power grid, no backup generator and have done so for at least 5 years. Otherwise, they know nothing of which they speak. I will note that wind/solar only working for a few people on a small scale still is NO proof of concept for large scale. And try to get people to take care of their own power. You can bet they will not and someone will make a mint fixing failing systems.
In addition, there is absolutely no possible way to get the materials or to install wind and solar without massive use of fossil fuels. It is just not possible. Ask for a detailed explanation of how this works. People usually wonder off. I also agree that those who most fervently pushed the wind and solar are going to end up some of the first who are despised for what they did to society. It is not an enviable position.
10
Thanks again Tony, for another insightful post.
Gai, below, reminds us of the role of water, in towns and cities. The role of 24/7 power in providing 24/7 water to our urbanised populations is another we could add to your list. The odd pump is used overnight to top up reservoirs I understand.
Cheers,
Dave B
40
Prepping for a hurricane and living through one drives home just how important a decent water supply is. No electric for a week and most people would kill for a shower and that is just those who had a good supply of water on hand for purposes besides washing.
If you have livestock and no natural running water you are really in a world of hurt. Unfortunately the EPA now wants to regulate farm ponds… ARGGGgggghhhh.
30
We are constantly bombarded with the supposed fact that renewable energy will become cheaper than fossil fuel powered energy generators.
The renewable energy business has been massively subsidised for a full quarter of a century now in a bid to find and implement those very elusive increased efficiencies it claims it will but has yet to demonstrate it has achieved.
As the penetration of the so called renewable energy increases in a nation’s energy sector the costs of power rise in an almost direct relationship with the amount of renewable energy that is in a nation’s energy mix.
Such increases in power costs are quite large with the obvious outcome that power costs per unit are the same for everybody and as has been demonstrated on a number of occassions , the power usage per household does not vary all that much between rich and poor.
So higher power costs have a much higher economically debilitating impact on the living standards of those in the lower earning brackets than they ever do on the high income earners such as the green inner city luvvies and latte sippers who in their arrant nonsensical arrogance and wallowing in their self imposed abject and utterly selfish ignorance are the main promoters of renewable energy.
Via Paul Homewoods the “Not a Lot of People Know That” blog, a graph showing this relationship of increasing power costs and the increased penetration of renewable energy into a nation’s power grid can be found here;
Electricity Costs versus Installed Renewable Capacity per Capita
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Thanks Tony,
I am glad I am out in the middle of nowhere. Time to buy a second generator and dig some shallow wells (hand pumpable)
What people do not realize is that it is WATER that is a major limiting factor. In the country we have a chance with our forests and gardens and ponds and livestock and private wells. (Someone usually has a shallow well in the area) The cities are going to be death traps if Obama has his way.
20
gai
Don’t you have some shining city examples already?
20
Best stock up on gas or diesel for that generator and make sure you hide this. Not all areas have shallow wells—mine is 168 feet deep. However, human nature being what it is, most uprisings are limited to cities because of the cover, the number of people there (increases fear factor) and the relative helplessness of those in the cities. Will it get that ugly? Obama has 17 months left to destroy people’s lives. It certainly could. Congress doesn’t care. They seem to think they’ll still have jobs if fighting breaks out.
10
The dip in the population growth rate in England and Wales in the mid-C17th is likely due to the English Civil War followed by the Puritan Dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell followed by the Plague in the mid 1660s. Later dips are the World Wars – replicated in Sweden and USA.
It reminds us that adverse climate may have an influence (particularly cold weather), but the biggest threat is from war and dictatorships. If the figures were available for Russia (1917-1925, 1935-1939, 1946-1950), China (1949-1968) and Zimbabwe (1995-2015) you would see massive negative population growth rates in these countries due to dictatorial regimes. It reminds us that the biggest threat to humanity has always come from utopians, divorced from reality, imposing their dogmatic beliefs on the populations they control. There are many other instances in history where this has happened.
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Actually I think this is so much horse hockey.
When you look at all populations they all grow as a geometric progression, so population growth given no limitations is naturally exponential. What we have here is not energy driving growth but energy removing a constraint on natural growth. Prior to the industrial revolution things relied on small scale subsistence+ agriculture, it was only mechanisation that permitted the mass agriculture we have today and the ridiculous levels of growth and population centralisation we have.
Natural constraints are in the form of mortality and we have definitely put a lid on that. Energy stops the climate being a major mortality factor and provides the basic resource for the others, food production, water purification and distribution and disease control.
While we have capped natural mortality, developed societies have restored the balance by decreasing the birth rate, it is knowledge that did that, knowledge of birth control, and knowledge of
Reproductive biology, along with the removal of the major incentives for having children… -cheap Labour for the family farm and superannuation, someone to look after you when you’re old. People have less children “because they can” unlike pre contraception when it was all left up to Gaia! In the developing countries people still need large families because they are still subsistance farmers they need labour, and they need a benefactor to take over when they get too old to continue. The caps due to mortality are increasingly removed but the incentives to reproduce have not. Energy use is just a proxy for wealth, and departure from small scale manual labour based subsistence methods. These days it about the economics of contraception choices, nothing more / nothing less.
The thing about geometric progressions is that they work both ways . The resulting graph is just a compound of the natural geometric growth patterns, and dozens of changes in birth and mortality factors over that period, with energy being one of them
60
I’m stunned like a vegetable!
For Obama:
Unbelievable!
40
Why would you link this handjive?, you can’t Un un un un un unwatch this, the horror will remain. 🙁
10
Jonovians will be thrilled to know that California is upscaling its CO2 production efforts as their countryside erupts into flames at hundreds of sites throughout the state. This must be awesome news for contrarians as it means more CO2 to feed plant growth,…somewhere.
And the energy being released,…..has got to mean lots of babies, apparently. I don’t get that connection but I will take your very expert word for it.
19
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
……………….
If you vote for the people who:
pass laws keeping people from clearing brush…..
pass laws making controlled burning illegal……
ground the planes that can put out the fires….
THEN YOU ARE STUPID!
Unfortunately it is not just the terminally stupid who are affected and the results of the terminal stupidity in the USA are only going to get much much worse.
100
As long as none are yours we’ll be happy, there’s enough stupid on the planet already and your spawn could be the tipping point!
50
Give it a rest BilB.
The overwhelming majority of forest fires are man-made. The number of forest fires is increasing because of population growth in California:
Read the following link and quit with the ill-informed alarmism:
wildfires in California article in the National Geographic
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Oh, one more thing BilB. That article in NG took me about 30secs to find.
You should try using Google sometimes instead of running around screaming,”Carbon Dioxide is killing us! The end of the world is nigh!”
50
Bobl, there really is no limit to the cluelessness and blind faith of human beings, is there? It’s interesting that you would take the time to create a nonsensical statement on CA “upgrading its CO2” so as to make skeptics look bad. Skeptics are probably the ones fighting the fire, sending aid to the fire victims and you’re busy trying to buy political mileage out of the whole thing. You certainly do help make my case that environmentalism is composed of human-hating, angry people who are gleeful when people die en masse.
20
Although energy usage is behind a massive growth in population, the impact on economic growth is much more dramatic. The first form of non-human energy was not fuel, but the beast, shackled by a yoke. With an ox it enabled one person to plough the area of a soccer field (an acre) in a day. Try doing that with a hoe! Better horse-drawn ploughs enabled a greater area. But with the latest diesel driven tractors many acres are possible in a day.
The next innovation in England was the water wheel. A local museum – Quarry Bank Mill – has a 100hp water wheel that could power dozens of cotton-looms, producing the cloth of many thousands of foot-powered frames in cottage industries.
After that can the steam engine, meaning factories were no longer constrained by local environment. Steam also meant revolutions in transportation, both on land (rail) and sea.
The next innovations were the internal combustion engine (enabling transportation revolutions) and electrical power. Suddenly personal transport was available to the masses and fuel for heating and cooking did not require laborious work for the housewife, but just the flick of a switch.
These energy revolutions have not just enabled population to rise ten-fold, but per capita income to rise over 200 times and real incomes to rise 35-40 times.
Climatism aims to reverse that trend. Energy will become more precious.
Electric cars are more expensive, have a much shorter range and take much longer to refuel. Journeys need to be planned much better, and more time allowed. They require more human input to work optimally that a diesel or gasoline car.
Modern heating and air conditioning systems use less energy, so require greater human input to work optimally. The same goes for energy efficient washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Homes in the UK have to be much better insulated to keep electricity costs manageable. So instead of the wee wifie shoveling ash and coal (then scrubbing floors to get rid of the soot) you need a computer nerd to optimize the use of all sorts of fancy energy-saving gizmos. So instead of the woman staying at home to mind the house, both have to work all day, then spend the evenings getting numerous gadgets to work optimally.
Sorry about the sexist inferences, but increase in energy usage not only raised living standards but liberated women from the toil of full-time housework.
40
“….increase in energy usage not only raised living standards but liberated women from the toil of full-time housework.”
AMEN! But do not forget food.
A friend’s mother would spend a couple days canning a whole cow after it was butchered. And then she had to can all the veggies and fruits from the garden. Women also were expected to take care of the Kitchen Garden, Milk the cow, make butter, feed the chickens, collect the eggs and weave the cloth as well as make clothes. (We have the wool blanked from my husband’s grandmothers farm.) All the while she was either pregnant or nursing a child. No wonder a man often wore out more than one wife!
30
Kevin: I actually prefer the toil of full-time housework to fixing gadgets after both of us work. While I don’t can cows (as referenced by gai), I do take care of the garden, feed the ducks, collect the eggs, build the duck enclosures, do repairs around the house (I’m a huge believer in the use of caulking after I did all the windows last fall!), shop for groceries, make some clothing but not weave the cloth, paint the house and outbuildings (none of this while pregnant—no kids). I love staying at home. Wouldn’t go back to work unless I had no other choice. I had a business for a while, but gave that up and just go with doing things around the house.
20
Sheri,
You are like many people who take pleasure in work. I have a colleague who grows blackcurrants and redcurrants, then spends many hours washing and topping the things, to make delicious jams. She makes excellent marmalade.
I enjoy the apples, greengages and raspberries from my garden. Guaranteed 100% traditionally organic.
But these are by choice. Many people take pleasure in work. These are freedoms enjoyed by countries with high living standards. The toil of women a few generations ago was a matter of survival with no alternative. Cooking was to get every bit of nutrient out of meager food supplies. Washing was by hand and ironing was by flat iron heated over a range that first had to be fueled with coal.
10
Yes, my choice to stay home was mine. Whether I stay home or work outside the home, I still work. You are correct that I like my work. And, as you note, many people like their work. Many people do not like their work, and many women stay home who may not really want to do so, either due to religious beliefs or guilt about not fulfilling their role as a mother.
I believe the toil of men a few generations ago was also a matter of survival with no alternative. If they were farmers, they worked from dawn to dusk. The kids probably had to help with the work, too. My objection is you seem to be characterizing women as having the short shrift here when basically everyone was in the same state. Plentiful, cheap energy and mechanization made our lives easier definitely.
10
gai –
have noted the Judith Curry info. thanx.
would appreciate comments on the following:
3 Aug: Business Day, South Africa: Carol Paton: Renewable energy would be cheaper for SA than nuclear power, study finds
A SUBSTANTIAL increase in renewable energy by 2030 would result in far cheaper electricity than if SA persists in its bid to build 9,600MW of nuclear power, a study by Stellenbosch University has found.
The study, published a week ago, confirms in broad strokes the findings of two other recent expert analyses — one by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and another by the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town — which warn that nuclear energy will be the most expensive of the options available to SA…
The study by senior researcher Paul Gauché was commissioned by environmental lobby group the World Wildlife Fund to test the feasibility of a larger mix of renewable energy in SA.
The Integrated Resource Plan 2010, which is the government’s key planning document, proposes that renewables generate 9% of the annual electricity produced by 2030. The WWF has suggested that this be increased to 20%…
Mr Gauche uses a spatial-temporal methodology that predicts the energy supplied by wind and solar in 2030 based on detailed real sunlight and wind data in the year 2010.
In the IRP 2010 model, in which the energy mix includes existing coal of 34,746MW (including Medupi and Kusile); additional coal of 6,250MW; the full additional 9,600MW of nuclear power; 24,000MW of renewables; 7,330MW of open-cycle gas turbines; 2,370MW of combined cycle gas; and pumped storage of 2,912MW, the estimated cost of the energy mix is R1.50/kWh.
In the WWF model, which includes no new additional nuclear and no additional coal but 38,708MW of renewables; 7,680MW of open-cycle gas turbines and 4,000MW of combined cycle turbines and the same amount of pumped storage, the overall cost of the energy mix is R0.65/kWh…
Gauche: “Asking whether renewables can provide unvariable power is not the right question. Instead we should see renewables as a cornerstone of our future system that in the right combination serves our national interest.”
http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/energy/2015/08/03/renewable-energy-would-be-cheaper-for-sa-than-nuclear-power-study-finds
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You can not have an advanced civilization built on variable power. You end up with a civilization on par with the 1700s possibly the 1800s if you are very very lucky.
As this article points out we have had coal for hundreds of years. You do not get high grade steel without coal and without high grade steel you can forget wind turbines. You also need high temps for cement, glass and aluminium.
http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-coal/coal-steel/
Thomas Newcomen created the first practical steam engine for pumping water out of mines. (It was a major problem and still is.) So there goes all your mining for the materials to make solar panels and batteries.
Warmists are in cloud cockoo land. All they seem capable of is destruction.
40
***an anomaly in Newfoundland?
3 Aug: VOCM,Newfoundland: Cold, Wet July All Bermuda’s Fault
The coldest July on record in the St. John’s area may have been because of the absence of a traditional high pressure system which would normally sit over Bermuda this time of year, giving us those warm southwesterly winds…
The average daily high for the entire month was 15.8, the coldest ever. The average daily temperature was 12.2. Only five times did we achieve 20 degrees and only once did the mercury hit 25; in fact, 40 per cent of July saw temperatures in the single digits.
Provincial Airlines and Aerospace meteorologist Brian Walsh notes that July 2014 was the hottest month ever, so he suspects this year was ***an anomaly.
http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&id=56457&latest=1
3 Aug: BBC: Cold, wet and gloomy July weather for Northern Ireland
Last month was the coldest July since 1993 with an average temperature of 13.4C…
But just two weeks later Katesbridge in County Down recorded the UK’s lowest temperature in July, a chilly -0.6C.
That was the fourth lowest July temperature on record for Northern Ireland…
A number of weather stations also set new individual records for the lowest average July temperatures including…etc
Thomastown set a new individual record for the lowest amount of sunshine.
It recorded just 87 hours of sun for the whole of July, down from an average of 139 hours.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-33757981
in the Bangor Daily News, Judy Harrison has: Brrr … 2015 Bangor’s coldest year on record
The National Weather Service has confirmed what residents of the Queen City have been saying for weeks — 2015 is the coldest on record for the city…
30
Off topic a little, I just had surgery in my abdominal area and have been feeling quite sick. I have recently discovered they pumped me full of carbon pollution. They poisoned me!!!!! This is malpractice.
Seriously….how much carbon tax will the hospital have to pay, do the warmbots need more evidence to show they are being conned?
60
Make you point forcefully; send them photos!
00
They shaved my belly ga…..its not a good look. And yes rw they should have fitted a gas meter as the emissions have been quite large. Lol.
40
At least they did not remove your sense of humor.
Hope you get better every day. (Just stay away from those beans.)
20
There’s only so much carbon one can stomach crakara24. 🙂
On a serious note do have an innie or an outie?
10
Ouch ot hurts when I laugh yonnie enough with the jokes and its an outy cheers
10
I am sorry to learn that you have not been well. I am even sorrier to have to confess, that you have been missed.
I sincerely hope you get back to fighting fitness quickly.
I am tempted to point out that there is probably a carbon tax imposed on your f**** [gas emissions], but I suspect that sort of comment is non-PC, so I will resist the temptation.
40
RW
PC here? Isn’t that more correctly Jo Nova Correct (JNC)?
00
if “success” is maintaining the myth of CAGW, then those bonuses are well deserved maybe:
3 Aug: UK Daily Mail: It’s raining money! Met Office staff given £20.8m in bonuses over the past five years amid claims they have got better at weather forecasting
Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, has branded the bonuses ‘very odd’
Piers Corbyn, of forecasting firm Weather Action, also slammed the sums
Met Office says ‘we have performed well, especially when it mattered most’
Piers Corbyn: ‘The problem is it sets its own rules and what constitutes success. This is not an independent way of giving bonuses, it’s just like the bankers’ bonuses.
‘As to whether the bonuses are worth it to the public, I don’t see that the standard of meteorology has improved over the past five years.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3183312/Met-Office-staff-given-20-8m-bonuses-past-five-years.html
40
Are the bonuses for making the MET a laughing stock? Have they ever gotten a forecast right in recent years?
20
gai,
The Met seem to get quite a few forecasts right. But there is a definite pattern to the correct forecasts, which leads me to suspect that one of the cleaners might be correcting the errors prior to publication.
Just joking. The cleaner doesn’t exist, anymore than the correct forecasts exist.
20
Worth a read is this publication from the Lavoisier Group published in 2009 when the Carbon Tax was introduced “Back to the 19th Century”.
Green polices are likely to lead to a significant reduction in economic productivity and a decline in living standards. Wasn’t life wonderful back in the 19th century? /sarc
30
3 Aug: The Economist: The president calls for a greener America
by M.S.L.J.
States will be able to decide for themselves exactly how and when they cut their emissions, but need to submit their plans by 2018 and to start acting on them by 2022. The plan reckons that new efficiency measures and greater access to gas and renewables will lower energy bills for American families…
A little over a quarter of electricity will still come from coal…
The new standards have been met with both fanfare and fury. Jennifer Macedonia from the Bipartisan Policy Centre, a think-tank, praises them for setting more realistic expectations for states and utilities, which now have an extra two years to prepare themselves. This reprieve creates “a better chance of reaching a long-term solution,” she says. Others see the dallying as a climb-down, and complain that cutting 2005 emissions by 32% by 2030 shows a pretty puny level of ambition, given that the boom in natural gas from shale—which is much cleaner than coal—has already reduced emissions by 15% in the past decade.
The new standards have been met with both fanfare and fury. Jennifer Macedonia from the Bipartisan Policy Centre, a think-tank, praises them for setting more realistic expectations for states and utilities, which now have an extra two years to prepare themselves. This reprieve creates “a better chance of reaching a long-term solution,” she says. Others see the dallying as a climb-down, and complain that cutting 2005 emissions by 32% by 2030 shows a pretty puny level of ambition, given that the boom in natural gas from shale—which is much cleaner than coal—has already reduced emissions by 15% in the past decade…
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/08/environmental-policy
3 Aug: The Economist: Daily chart: Washing away coal, blowing away carbon
Obama’s clean energy plan by The Data Team
A Supreme Court ruling in 2007 classified CO2 as a pollutant, putting it within the remit of the Environmental Protection Agency. That allows the president to take unilateral action, bypassing Congress. The limits on carbon emissions have great political significance: they delight climate-conscious liberals, but will hit America’s struggling coal country hard….
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/08/daily-chart-washing-away-coal-blowing-away-carbon
(in the comments, readers seem bemused by The Economist’s stance on CAGW)
20
***the “civil war” between gas and coal!
4 Aug: Bloomberg: Obama Climate Plan Squeezes Asian Coal as China Fights Pollution
by Aibing Guo & James Paton
It’s also giving ammunition to opponents of the hydrocarbon in top exporting nations including Australia in the run up to international climate talks in Paris this December.
“The news out of the U.S. will toughen the rhetoric against global coal use,” said Helen Lau, an analyst at Argonaut Securities (Asia) Ltd. in Hong Kong. “For coal as an industry, it’s definitely bad news.”…
As countries from China to Brazil make commitments to curb carbon emissions, Australia’s coal miners say technology exists to limit pollution from their fuel, which releases twice as much carbon when burned as gas. And, as Glencore Plc’s head of coal assets Peter Freyberg said in June, it’s “the cheapest way of powering people out of poverty.” Meanwhile, the country’s gas industry is promoting itself as a cleaner-burning alternative.
***Civil war
“The civil war going on between the gas and coal industry is not helpful,” Dean Dalla Valle, chief commercial officer at BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, said last month in Sydney. “It plays into the hands of others.”…
China will limit coal consumption to about 4.2 billion metric tons by 2020, reducing the fuel’s share of its energy generation to less than 62 percent. Coal accounted for 64 percent of China’s energy consumption last year, according to the country’s National Energy Administration…
Declining demand among U.S. power plants may force the country’s coal to be exported…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/obama-climate-plan-squeezes-asian-coal-as-china-fights-pollution
on Fran’s Breakfast yesterday, Cameron Clyne:
Former head of NAB says Australia’s dependence on coal exports is ‘economically reckless’
on Fran’s Breakfast today:
Obama pledges to lead the world in tackling climate change, announces plan to slash carbon emissions
Guardian on last nite’s ABC Q&A:
Neil deGrasse Tyson: “One of the great tragedies of modern society is that we have politicians cherry-picking science in the interests of their own social, culural, political and religous belief systems, and that’s the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.”…
Guardian Australia columnist, Ranjana Srivastava: said the scepticism of some members of politics about climate science and the repercussions of climate change reminded her of the now discontinued pain relief drug Vioxx, which doctors continued to prescribe in the face of mounting evidence that it was causing strokes, heart attacks and death.
Researchers who tried to highlight these adverse reactions were badmouthed and labelled troublemakers, she said. “If someone had listened to the weight of evidence at the time instead of just saying, ‘These people are just trouble,’ I think we would have had a different outcome, especially for those families who have lost loved ones.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/04/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-qa-calls-scientific-illiteracy-a-tragedy-of-our-times
10
2 Aug: U.N.: Ban hails UN Member States’ agreement on ‘people’s agenda’ to end poverty, promote sustainability
“Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda that heralds an historic turning point for our world. This agreement results from a truly open, inclusive and transparent process,” the UN chief said in a statement issued this evening.
Concluding a negotiating process that has spanned more than two years with the unprecedented participation of civil society, the 193 Member States agreed to an ambitious agenda that features 17 new sustainable development goals that aim, by 2030, to eradicate extreme poverty, promote prosperity and people’s well-being, while protecting the environment.
“This is the People’s Agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind. It seeks to ensure peace and prosperity, and forge partnerships with people and planet at the core. The integrated, interlinked and indivisible 17 Sustainable Development Goals are the people’s goals and demonstrate the scale, universality and ambition of this new Agenda”, stated Mr. Ban.
More than 150 world leaders are expected to attend the Sustainable Development Summit at the UN Headquarters in New York, from 25 to 27 September, to formally adopt the outcome document agreed this weekend…
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51546
2 Aug: Reuters: Michelle Nichols: U.N. states agree post-2015 sustainable development agenda
There was a standing ovation and cheering by diplomats when the agenda was agreed…
The new Sustainable Development Goals will aim to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, reduce inequality within and between states, achieve gender equality, improve water management and energy, and take urgent action to combat climate change.
***Meeting the goals would cost between $3.3 trillion and $4.5 trillion a year in state spending, investment and aid, analysts say, an amount roughly equivalent to the United States 2016 federal budget of $3.8 trillion…
Pope Francis will address the United Nations before the summit starts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/02/us-un-development-goals-idUSKCN0Q70XX20150802
20
This is a carefully thought-out analysis of President Obama’s new energy policy
10
http://www.theonion.com/graphic/details-obamas-climate-change-plan-50989
Here’s a carefully thought-out analysis of President Obama’s new climate policy.
10
pdf: 29 pages: TRANSFORMING OUR WORLD: THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
30. We acknowledge that the UNFCCC is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change. We are determined to address decisively the threat posed by climate change and environmental degradation. The global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible international cooperation aimed at accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions and addressing adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change. We note with grave concern the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
31. Looking ahead to the COP21 conference in Paris in December, we underscore the commitment of all States to work for an ambitious and universal climate agreement. We reaffirm that the protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties shall address in a balanced manner, inter alia, mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building, and transparency of action and support…
74. Follow-up and review processes at all levels will be guided by the following principles:
***a. They will be voluntary and country-led, will take into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and will respect policy space and priorities…
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/7891TRANSFORMING%20OUR%20WORLD.pdf#page=8&zoom=auto,-14,159
20
You all seem to be under the misapprehension that it is coal that is the enemy of the Greens,it isn’t,people are the enemy,coal permits more people to live longer that’s why coal and the other arch enemies petroleum and nuclear energy are also targeted.
The Greens are people haters,how they are able to reconcile with the fact that they are humans must require some amazing mental gymnastics.
71
In my kinder moments I call them Malthusian Luddites.
31
reality. a must-read:
3 Aug: Financial Times Blog: Nick Butler: The reports are false – coal burns on
Casual readers of the media coverage of the energy business could be forgiven for getting the impression that the coal industry is on its last legs. “Coal is dying and it’s never coming back”; “King Coal’s stages of grief”; “The noose tightening on the coal industry”. Those are typical headlines from the past few weeks…
This sense of an industry in decline is reinforced by the rhetoric of the campaigns advocating disinvestment from fossil fuels in general and coal in particular. If you have Oxford University, Michael Bloomberg and the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund against you what hope can there be? The impression of an industry in terminal decline does not, however, quite reflect the reality. Reports of the death of coal owe more to wishful thinking than to any analysis of what is actually happening.
The coal industry is growing. Demand was up last year despite the slowdown in China, and globally almost 30 per cent higher than a decade ago. Coal will soon (perhaps as soon as next year) overtake oil as the world’s most substantial single source of energy, regaining some of the market share it has lost to oil and gas over the last half century.
The first era of coal began with the industrial revolution and extended through the 19th century, thanks to the development of railways and shipping across the world. The second era has its origins in the economic transformation of China which began in the last two decades of the last century, followed now by that of India. The next 50 years are likely to see more coal burnt than in the whole of the 20th century…READ ALL
http://blogs.ft.com/nick-butler/2015/08/03/coal-burns-on/
30
Not just energy. How many more humans are alive because of man’s mastery of water?
The Greens want to stop that too. No more dams, no more hydro, no more channels and pipes, no more irrigation, artificial lakes, husbanding of water and greening the deserts. It must all be let run free. So no water, more floods, more drought, less food, more misery and death in the heat and the cold. No buffering of extremes. Heat and thirst. People must suffer to be cleansed. Australia has not built a major new dam in 50 years despite the known cycle of droughts, a cycle unknown to the Climate Change mob. We should be building madly but nothing is happening while $100Bn of desalination plants lies idle and we spend $3Bn a year paying them off.
To science ignorant Greens, cyclical weather patterns are always the fault of industrialization, farmers and miners and manufacturers. In England they are letting the drains and canals clog up to restore the habitats of water fowl while destroying human habitats with floods. Shutting down industry in Tasmania and South Australia has been the aim of the Greens and they have been successful while preventing a popular democratic government from passing any laws or reduce profligate spending. Now everyone has to pay more tax to support these mendicant Green states.
Water is the key, one of the two major and essential components of all life on Earth. The other is CO2. Luddite is not strong enough for Greens. Anarchist is closer.
51
“Anarchist is closer.”
Not at all. True Anarchists are the polar opposite of the greens.
9,000 years of anarchy in Ireland
You might want to look into Murray Rothbard too.
As usual the word was mangled. (I did not find that out until recently H/T to Mark Stoval.)
30
Not my definition of Anarchist. More an entertaining view that anyone who was anti central government was effectively an anarchist, making it seeem more benign than deadly. So Protestants by this definition are religious anarchists?
synonyms: nihilist, insurgent, agitator, subversive, guerrilla, terrorist, bioterrorist, narcoterrorist, ecoterrorist, cyberterrorist, agroterrorist, freedom fighter, resistance fighter, rebel, revolutionary, revolutionist, Bolshevik, mutineer; More
None of these fit the casual chaos of Ireland or Scotland, organized more on local and family units and clans rather than a government. It was their downfall against the organized Romans and then the English. These were not peaceful times, no Pax Romana. More habitual revenge, blood fueds, murder and mayhem.
What they achieved in advancement was minimal against what was achieved. To view these as happier times would be very wrong.
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I mean achieved by the Romans and the Renaissance and most recently the industrial revolution.
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Glory Glory.Rejoice! Long may the human spirit exist.It will find its founder!
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In case this hasn’t been added
http://pickeringpost.com/story/-climate-the-greatest-challenge-of-our-time-says-obama/5204
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Canute Obama has just delivered a damaging blow to the US economy. Willful stupidity.
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Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)
Coal (elect, heat,cook –world avg) 100 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal electricity – world avg 60 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal (elect,heat,cook)– China 170
Coal electricity- China 90
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (0.2% of world energy for all solar)
Wind 0.15 (1.6% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro – world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)
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