Monday, November 3, 2014
Some Much Needed Straight-Talk From the Calculations of Roger Pielke, Robert Bryce, Vaclav Smil, Jesse Ausubel, Etc.
The level of ignorance that politicians and environmentalists have when it comes to energy is absolutely stunning. Just take some of these emission reduction targets, for example. In order for the world to achieve a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 (factoring in both population growth and increased power needs), we would have to a) completely eliminate coal consumption, b) completely eliminate natural gas consumption, and c) reduce our petroleum consumption by 40%, and in order to achieve these targets, we would either have to build 12,000 nuclear power plants (close to one a day for the next 36 years), 2,000,000 solar thermal plants (close to 150 a day for the next 36 years), or 8,000,000 wind turbines (close to 600 a day for the next 36 years). Again, I ask the sane and reasonable folks out there, does this seem even remotely possible?
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These politicians aren't qualified to make these decisions. Most of which really should be left to the people. Except for such necessary regulations as against actual pollutants.
Pointlessly micromanaging multiple sectors of industry like this? Nothing good can come of it, unless you are a crony capitalism plutocrat.
Some of those who stand to gain from "green" energy, carbon trading, etc. - Al Gore, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Enron, Panasonic, Kyocera, G.E., J.P. Morgan, Sharp, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, etc........Yep, there's a lot of cronyism here.
Enron still around? The scam company that flourished under Clinton but foundered when GWB, to his credit, refused to bail them out?
Data links?
The 12,000, 2,000,000, and 8,000,000 figures I got from Roger Pielke's book, "The Climate Fix" (a book that every fucking politician on the planet should read) - page 116 and are totally in line with Robert Bryce's, "Power Hungry" and excerpts from the other 2 fellows.......And the reason that the solar and wind figures are higher is because of the lower efficiency (10-35%, as opposed to over 90% for nuclear) and lower power density (wind has about 1 watt per square meter, solar 7, and nuclear 54) factors.
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