Chart from the Wikipedia

Source

So a few interesting things here that we maybe all know, but are worth reviewing. Fossil fuels are dominating the energy mix in every sense. They are the largest component of the energy mix, and they are growing the fastest. We would need between five and six times the amount of low-carbon energy currently in existence to phase out fossil fuels, assuming demand remained static. And demand is not going to remain static.

Renewables produce twice the energy provided by nuclear power plants. An inconvenient truth for climate-conscious white individualist hierarchist males who whilst crying up nuclear power delight in dismissing renewables as pie-in-the-sky hippie moondust, but the truth, nonetheless.

And the excuse that this is mostly hydropower, and hydropower can't be scaled up, won't wash here, because we can see renewable energy as a category is rapidly growing -- if only the hydro resources matter, where is the growth coming from?

When I look at the share of fossil fuels, though, and the tiny shares of its rivals, I'm reminded of how guerrila organizations like the IRA or Fatah and Hamas, faced with an overwhelmingly powerful and dominant force, turn on each other and their own people in sheer frustration, fighting over turf like rival gangs, murdering informants, acting like criminals.

It's stupid and self-destructive, but sometimes when you're tired of losing you ache for a fight you can win. For environmentalists, nuclear is an easy target, because it's unpopular, expensive, and people are just plain afraid of it. All things we wish could be said about fossil fuels. The environmental movement, aided by public mistrust and fear and lack of corporate investment, are within striking distance of shutting down an entire industry. It's just that it's the wrong one.

What the hippie-punching nuke-boosters want is a little more complex. I don't think it's really about the climate for them. They want to fight the cultural wars, bash greens, promote big and manly and heterosexual things -- but they are smart enough not to go down the road of denying the science.

And the beauty of it is, they don't have to! By lining up with James Hansen and other smart greens behind a policy of more clean nuclear energy, they have found the one part of the argument between environmentalists and conservatives that they can actually win. For once they have (a part of the) real solutions, and the other side is sticking their heads in the sand.

Meanwhile the first column keeps growing.

UPDATE:

 

 H/t blueshift, via the Rabett, from BP.

What this chart adds to our understanding is that, as far as the last decade is concerned, anti-nuclear environmentalists are winning the aforementioned pointless catfight. And what they have won is a total stagnation in the proportional of non-fossil-fuel energy. And make no mistake, the blue line is what history will judge us on.

GISTEMP: May 2014 is the hottest May ever

For reals this time.

"New" Indian nuclear plant illustrates what's right and wrong about nuclear power

The first unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is up and operating at full power, a mere 26 years after it was commissioned as part of a joint project by Indian and the Soviet Union. Big victory for the international trade and diplomacy of the Soviet Union! Hey, where'd they go?

So what is good about this? It is 1 GW of very low carbon energy. When the second unit is operating a full capacity (which is scheduled for May 2015, but so far the builders have not stuck to their schedule very well) it will provide 2 GW of power, with a carbon footprint comparable to wind or solar, but compared to a solar or wind energy project, a lot bigger.

The photo above is of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in California’s Mojave Desert. It's currently the largest solar thermal project in the world. It generates 1,000 GW-h annually, compared to Kudankulam's roughly 17,000 GW-h.

If you care about environmental issues at all, you've probably hear of Ivanpah. You've probably never heard of Kudankulam, built in the poor, underdeveloped (but proud and growing) state of Tamil Nadu. Yet Kudankulam will generate -- is already generating -- amounts of low-carbon electricity that dwarf Ivanpah as well as almost any renewable project in the world.

So what's wrong with Kudankulam? They have been trying to build it for twenty-six years, and it's still half-finished. This has taken so long that one of the countries that agreed to build the plant no longer exists. It's been delayed by bitter anti-nuclear protests, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, by technical problems. In the time it took to build this one plant, the cost of solar PV cells fell by 90%:

Building nuclear plants is too damn slow (for a combination of human and technical reasons). And that means that innovation and the spread of new technologies is too damn slow. And that means that by the time we could slog through another quarter-century nuclear construction project, both the renewables industry and the climate will have moved greatly on. And that in a nutshell is the greatest problem for nuclear energy.

GISTEMP redux: (Still) 2nd warmest April in the temperature record

+.73C, an increase of .03C compared to March and the hottest April ever, bar 2010 (as an aside, the first half of 2010 was a scorcher.)

How hot is that? Well, prior to 1970, the hottest April since records begin was in May 1969, +0.15C. The people alive in 1970 had never seen a April within half a degree of what we just saw. Given the inherent variability of monthly temperatures, that's pretty amazing.

GISTEMP: 2nd warmest April in the temperature record

We seem to be venturing back into the dismay routine of record-breaking. And El Nino is just getting into gear (maybe). But don't worry, it's not like the world's major ice sheets are crumbling.

Presented without comment: Neil deGrasse Tyson on AGW

[W]e’re dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn’t seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past, the ones that led to mass extinctions. We just can’t seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that will bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs, a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves. All the while, the glorious sun pours immaculate free energy down upon us, more than we will ever need. Why can’t we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What’s our excuse?

 -- Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos

h/t Grist

March GISTEMP: +0.70C

Fourth warmest March in the record. If the sages are right, and an El Nino is coming, there are a hot couple of years headed our way.