Against denial. Against fascism. Against climate nonsense, racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and anti-intellectualism.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Depressing graph of the day
We will at some point need to talk about the old mayonnaise in new bottle that is "ecomodernism." For today, a pie chart from the IEA that illustrates what is happening in the world while we are distracted by nonsense:
Coal certainly depressing. Tiny bright spot: "other" including solar and wind 11 times as large in a pie that is more than twice as large. My back of envelope says U.S. wind alone generates as much as burning ~40 million tons of oil annually.
The "other" piece is growing briskly, no doubt about it. It just feels as though the progress is too slow relative to the cumulative effect of AGW. I mean, imagine if we came back in another forty years and that grow had continued in a similar way. Now "other" is 11-12% of the pie, but it is 2050 already!
We need to get serious as a civilization about cutting emissions through collective political action, with investment and deployment on a war footing. We don't have an abundance of time.
Couldn't agree more. So, have you contacted your Representative and Senators to urge extension of the federal tax credit for wind energy? That's a very simple step that would result in a ton of new wind generating capacity being installed.
Things will turn out ok, because we are running out of fossil fuel reserves. If you consider oil, consumption is much lower as a share of total. Many of you may not realize, but the world's conventional (easy to get) oil production has already peaked.
We aren't running out of fossil fuel reserves. Not even close. More difficult-to-extract resources are being substituted for easily extractable ones with no end in sight.
What an encouraging development- Chernobyl and Fukushima have not stopped nuclear power from growing fivefold in four decades, to 4.8%. One encore of the same performance, and coal will be toast come 2053 sooner if courageous greens reflect on the alternatives.
Coal certainly depressing. Tiny bright spot: "other" including solar and wind 11 times as large in a pie that is more than twice as large. My back of envelope says U.S. wind alone generates as much as burning ~40 million tons of oil annually.
ReplyDeleteThe "other" piece is growing briskly, no doubt about it. It just feels as though the progress is too slow relative to the cumulative effect of AGW. I mean, imagine if we came back in another forty years and that grow had continued in a similar way. Now "other" is 11-12% of the pie, but it is 2050 already!
DeleteWe need to get serious as a civilization about cutting emissions through collective political action, with investment and deployment on a war footing. We don't have an abundance of time.
Couldn't agree more. So, have you contacted your Representative and Senators to urge extension of the federal tax credit for wind energy? That's a very simple step that would result in a ton of new wind generating capacity being installed.
ReplyDeleteThings will turn out ok, because we are running out of fossil fuel reserves. If you consider oil, consumption is much lower as a share of total. Many of you may not realize, but the world's conventional (easy to get) oil production has already peaked.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't running out of fossil fuel reserves. Not even close. More difficult-to-extract resources are being substituted for easily extractable ones with no end in sight.
DeleteWhat an encouraging development- Chernobyl and Fukushima have not stopped nuclear power from growing fivefold in four decades, to 4.8%. One encore of the same performance, and coal will be toast come 2053 sooner if courageous greens reflect on the alternatives.
ReplyDelete