The Growth of "Renewable" Energy Has Exceeded 2007 World Energy Outlook Projections by 55%!

[NNadir]

Last edited Sun Apr 15, 2018, 12:06 PM - Edit history (5)

This must mean that the growth of so called "renewable energy" has been... um, um, um... absolutely astounding (!!!) doesn't it?

We're, um saved...um...um...aren't we?

I like to keep track of things and I create and maintain a lot of data files - often Excel files - in my computer. From time to time, in this space for example, I've made reference to the files I keep on the growth of the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide, for example, this post in 2016:

July 31, 2016: Mauna Loa carbon dioxide levels 5.04 ppm higher than one year ago.

My files also include hundreds of thousands of PDF's of scientific papers and books, as well as electronic versions of reports, including, for my amusement and depression, a number of historical projections about the future, going all the way back to Amory Lovin's hilariously insipid 1976 publication in a social science journal: Energy Strategy, The Road Not Taken

Lovins aside, one of the most interesting and probably professional set of publications making energy projections about the future is published annually by the International Energy Agency, The World Energy Outlook issues of which are, regrettably, sometimes behind paywalls but can be accessed in good scientific libraries, libraries such as I am extremely privileged to have access.

In my files I have copies all the World Energy Outlook, "WEO," reports between 2007 and 2017, as well as the report from 2000 and - as a non-searchable (graphic) PDF - from the 1995 version.

The unit of energy utilized in these reports is the unfortunate unit "MTOE" or "Million Tons Oil Equivalent" which as I described elsewhere thus:

The energy unit that is used to described is the non-SI, if evocative, unit, “MTOE” which is an abbreviation for “Million Tons of Oil Equivalent,” a somewhat artificial energy unit – given that the energy content of grades of oil vary considerably depending on their source – that pretends that all the world’s energy comes from a standardized form of the dangerous fossil fuel petroleum, which, of course, it doesn’t. The conversion factor, as given in the free IEA brochure, between the SI unit, the Joule, here reported as terajoules, TJ, a trillion Joules, is 1 MTOE = 41,868 TJ.

(Bold added here.)

Here and now in 2017 when we do things like offer fulsome praise for the highly government subsidized billionaire Elon Musk's stupid electric car for billionaires and millionaires - and clearly in these times our culture has a fondness for subsidizing billionaires and millionaires, the only people who actually count, apparently - we like to pretend that all of our electricity comes from so called "renewable energy."

By reference to the IEA WEO reports - and the title statement in this post is absolutely true, at least if one refers to the "reference scenario" in the 2007 report, which is in later issues as the "Current Policies Scenario" - one can clearly see to what extent this increasingly common belief that so called "renewable energy" is not only (as it is often described) "the fastest growing source of energy" on the planet, but also a significant source of energy on the planet.

To evaluate the extent to which these beliefs are true, I've taken the trouble to import some of the tables from WEO reports into excel - an exercise involving some text manipulation since the reports are not in HTML format, but, in my opinion an exercise well worth taking - to do some calculations to evaluate whether these beliefs that find their way into common parlance are even remotely based on reality.

An example of such parlance I found myself enduring, albeit with a sense of increasing hopelessness - I've had thousands, if not tens of thousands of opportunities to hear this stuff because my own "energy outlook" is certainly not popular among a certain subset of self described, if ersatz "environmentalists" - I'll post an excerpt of just one of the more recent examples of this kind of rhetoric. To wit:

…Both coal and nuclear are looking for govt support to stay competitive. As I said before - wind and solar are growing at a faster rate than any other type of electricity generator and as a result it reduces the number of hours coal and nuclear plants operate during the year which means the cost to operate is going up…

The author of the same text - and to be clear I could have chosen almost identical text from hundreds of bloggers with whom I've interacted over the last twenty years offered this stirring analysis of a type I refer to as "percent talk," "percent talk" being the echoed here by me in the title of this thread:

Wind left 2017 with a roar, providing 24% of Europe's electricity on New Year's Eve!
Germany 65%, Ireland 54%, Denmark 54%, Portugal 47%, Spain 46%, UK 27%, NL 25%
Germany 722 GWh, Spain 266, France 217, UK 205, Poland 76, NL 69

The #1 positive we get with every windmill and solar panel install is a decade long less need for fossil fuels. And because both are manufactured products we will continue to see costs go down along with product improvement. They also are a jobs generator.

Wow!!!

When I say "Wow!" feel free to interpret whether I am referring to the title of this post, which is absolutely true, or to the statement just quoted.

The same correspondent made another statement, dripping with with contempt, about my rhetoric, specifically - with reference to my strongly held opinion that nuclear energy is the only acceptable and sustainable form of energy available to humanity - which I plainly confess is laced with, um, numbers:

You can make all the number intensive arguments you want - that's not going to change.

Nuclear power plants are not popular, so called "renewable energy" is very popular. I'll discuss the meaning of popularity at the closure of this post, but most of what follows will be about numbers.

If you, likewise, have contempt for, um, numbers, if you made it this far, stop reading this post and go over to say, um, Clean Technica where you can hear what you want to hear, rather than what I am about to say.

The numbers in the WEO reports have all be converted into the SI unit exajoules (10^18 joules) by use of the conversion factor since exajoules are clearer units to handle since they have fewer digits.

The WEO reports by the way, besides giving projections, report the data available at the time of publication for the existing situation. Up to and including the 2016 WEO, this usually meant 2 years previous to the date of publication; faster communications have apparently enabled the authors to refer to the 2016 data in the 2017 report.

So called "renewable energy" is actually broken into three significant categories in the reports, Hydro, Biomass - which includes the "traditional biomass" which is responsible for about half of the seven million deaths from air pollution each year - and "other renewables," which includes solar (thermal and PV), wind and presumably the other super wonderful stuff we're always hearing about, tidal and geothermal energy for example.

Now some numbers, translated again, into exajoules, from table 2.2 on page 79 of the 2017 report, giving data from 2017.

In 2016, the world consumed 576.1 exajoules of energy, which in the table is compared with 2000, when the world consumed 420.2 exajoules. (So much for energy conservation as a cure for all our problems.)

According to the quoted "renewables will save us" correspondent above - you hear this a lot - "coal is dead." He or she says that the industry couldn't possible survive without government support, because so called "renewable energy" is so wonderful and so cheap.

You hear this whopper a lot - from correspondents like the one I've quoted above - but the reality is somewhat different:

Irrespective of this wonderful information - and trust me, I wish it were so, that "coal is dead," since I am opposed to all dangerous fossil fuels - in 2016 according to table 2.2 - coal produced 157.2 exajoules of humanity's energy in 2016. This compares with 96.8 exajoules that it produced in 2000. This makes it the second largest form of primary energy utilized on this planet, after the dangerous fossil fuel oil, which in 2016 produced 183.7 exajoules of energy compared with 153.7 exajoules in 2000. The third largest source of primary energy is dangerous natural gas, which in 2016 produced 125.9 exajoules of energy, compared with 86.1 exajoules in 2000.

Thus in the "percent talk" with which purveyors of the "renewables are wonderful" rhetoric abuse language, the dangerous fossil fuels have increased, since the year 2000, respectively for dangerous coal, dangerous oil, and dangerous natural gas have increased respectively by 62.5%, 19.6%, and 39.2% since the year 2000.

In absolute terms, as opposed to "percent talk," dangerous coal, dangerous oil, and dangerous natural gas have increased respectively by 60.5, 30.1, and 39.2 exajoules since 2000.

Now maybe I'm not a "very stable genius" such as we all woke up to learn that the senile orange nightmare in the White House is, but I feel justified in claiming that reports of the death of dangerous fossil fuels is, um, recalling Twain, "greatly exaggerated."

In the period between 2000 and 2016 world energy demand grew in absolute terms by 155.96 exajoules, and in percent talk, 83% of that growth was covered by dangerous fossil fuels.

In "percent talk," in 2000, 81% of the world's energy was provided by dangerous fossil fuels, in 2016, 82% of the world's energy was so provided. Thus even in "percent talk" the world's dependence on dangerous fossil fuels has not decreased; on the contrary it has increase, albeit by a small amount.

Measured in exajoules, the use of dangerous fossil fuels overall has risen by 129.7 exajoules, which is the equivalent of adding more than another United States to the world energy disaster, the United States being the nation on this planet with the highest per capita energy consumption on the planet, and nation of excess. (If the rest of the world consumed energy at the per capita rate of the United States, we'd be talking in zetajoules and not exajoules.)

Bioenergy - including the "traditional solid fuels" that poor people are compelled to utilize if they can't afford dangerous fossil fuels or real swell solar panels on McMansions, and which are responsible for roughly half of the 7 million air pollution deaths each year - grew from 42.8 exajoules in 2000 to 56.7 exajoules, in percent talk, by 13.9%.

Hydroelectricity - which is responsible for the largest single energy disaster of all time outside the ongoing disaster of air pollution and climate change, the the Banqiao Dam Collapse which according to the link killed 171,000 people - grew from 9.4 exajoules in 2000 to 14.6 exajoules in 2016, an increase of 5.23 exajoules or 55.5% in "percent talk." We are, by the way, running out of rivers to destroy.

The form of energy which I regard as the only safe and sustainable form of energy, nuclear energy - which is certainly not popular with the public at large - was a laggard. In 2000 it provided 28.3 exajoules of energy; in 2016 it provided 28.5 exajoules of energy, an increase in "percent talk" of an insignificant 0.7% growth. Since I have refused to change my opinion on this score, despite the clear and unmistakable lack of popularity of my position on this score with the world culture at large, the reader is entitled to question whether I am a "very stable genius" like the orange senile racist nightmare in the White House, or just a reactionary fool.

It's up to you. Everything this post implies is up to you.

Now let's turn to so called "other renewable energy." In 2000, "other renewable energy" - which includes solar and wind energy provided 2.5 exajoules of energy; in 2016 it provided 9.4 exajoules of energy.

Um...um...um...

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, so let's change it into "percent talk."

In "percent talk," "RENEWABLE ENERGY" grew by an astounding 275%!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Wonderful!!!!! Wonderful!!!! Wonderful!!!!

I wish I could utilize a smaller font on DU and to make this remark - you know, since this post is all about marketing, um, fine print - but in "percent talk" so called "renewable energy" as represented by solar, wind and related blah, blah, blah covered just 4.4% of the growth in energy consumption since the year 2000.

If it makes you happy, there's all kinds of talk in the 2017 WEO report about the falling costs of solar and wind energy, pages and pages of it - another chant of the people who have bet the planetary atmosphere on this stuff - but typically these costs are the costs of stand alone systems, and do not include the cost of the necessary redundant systems, most typically dangerous natural gas plants, but we also hear a lot of horseshit about batteries, as if the internal and external (environmental) costs of batteries did not exist.

Proponents of so called "renewable energy" of course, as I experience them at least, couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuels. Mostly they want to attack nuclear energy, which they feel an urgent need to eliminate because it's um, in their very strange rhetorical universe, "too dangerous" even if in half a century of operations it hasn't killed as many people as will die in the next two days from air pollution, nor has it approached the death toll of the two weeks after the Banqiao dam disaster.

The data in the 2017 report, when viewed solely in terms of exajoules divorced from "percent talk" show that the fastest growing source of energy in the period between 2000 and 2017 was coal. No amount of wishful thinking nor chants about the "fast" growth of so called "renewable energy" can in an intellectually honest universe avoid that fact.

Coal is not dead, however much we might wish it so.

Oh and about the title of this post...

The WEO reports always include "scenarios," titled slightly differently from year to year as "reference scenario" or "current policy scenario," or as "450 stabilization scenario" referring to preventing the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere from going beyond 450 ppm. In the 2017 report the "450 stabilization scenario" has been appropriately replaced by "sustainable development," since it's very clear to me, and probably the authors as well, that the stabilization at 450 ppm is essentially impossible. It will not happen, any more than the 350 ppm garbage hyped by that renewable energy advocate Bill McKibben who has trouble saying the world "nuclear" happened.

As measured at the https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/monthly.html, the concentration of of carbon dioxide, as of yesterday, January 6, 2017, was 407.21 ppm.

In the 20th century, there were between 1959, the year the data collection began, and 2000, a period of more than 4 decades, five years during which the annual increase exceeded 2.00 ppm, 1977, 1983, 1987, 1988, and 1998, the latter - an El Nino year. (The "rebound year, 1999, is one of only two years since 1980 to show increases smaller than 1.00 ppm; in 1999 the increase was 0.93 ppm.)

In the 17 years since 2000, there have been 11 such years, one of which, 2015, exceeded 3.00 ppm, with 2016 coming close at 2.98 ppm.

The average annual increase in the 20th century was 1.3 ppm per year; in the 21st century it has reached 2.2 ppm per year. Even if this 21st century average didn't increase - and it will increase - we will be at 450 ppm in less than 20 years, that is by 2047 (when happily, I'll be dead, so "we" doesn't apply to me) - if we're lucky, and we won't be, because there's no evidence that the second derivative - the rate of change of change - won't continue to increase, as it has since the 1960's when every year showed an increase of less than 1.4 ppm, and when 6 of the ten years showed increases of less than 1.00 ppm.

But actually, here on the left, we certainly don't care as much about climate change as we do about cheering for so called "renewable energy" which - to comment on an abuse of language - is not actually "renewable" since the construction of this crap depends on access to access to increasingly limited ores of some very unusual elements in the periodic table, many of which are either known to be highly toxic or to have suspected toxicology issues. The mining of these elements is all dependent on access to dangerous fossil fuels.

And now let's turn to language as I close this insufferably long post...the title of this post.

The 2007 WEO report's "reference scenario" (which could have been called "current policy scenario" as it is in later editions of the WEO) suggested that by the year 2015 we would see so called "other renewable energy" achieving 6.1 exajoules. As we have seen above, the actual figure is 9.4 exajoules, which means that as of 2016 - 2015 not being available in these reports - the goal has been exceeded by 55%; we are producing - albeit at a cost of well over two trillion dollars - 155% as much "other renewable energy" than predicted in 2007.

"Percent talk" - you gotta love it!

In fact, the figure, 9.4 exajoules is roughly the equivalent proposed in the "450 stabilization scenario," which also included increasing the proportion of energy produced by nuclear energy by more than 20 exajoules. The 2017 report for the also calls for a similar increase, around 20 exajoules in the "Sustainable Development Scenario."

Probably that won't happen. Nuclear energy is not popular.

And now let's turn to the subject of the abuse of language, of which "percent talk" is only one example.

There are many pieces of rhetoric that rely on logical fallacies - arguments and appeals that sound good - but actually misrepresent a truth. Here's a list (among many on the internet) of the nature of these fallacies: Drake's List of The Most Common Logical Fallacies (University of Idaho.)

The lengthening list of people I've added to my ignore list here grows (faster than nuclear energy does especially when represented by "percent talk" ) usually in response the logical fallacies they employ.

Examples one of the worst logical fallacies is the "bandwagon" fallacy, which is also sometimes called "ad populum" fallacy. This is a fallacy is often utilized in advertising.

Here is the Ford Motor company advertising itself as "America's best selling brand:" NEW PRODUCTS MAKE FORD AMERICA’S BEST-SELLING BRAND FOR SIXTH STRAIGHT YEAR

Even if this statement is true - and it might be for all I know - this does not imply that Ford automobiles and trucks are more reliable than other cars and trucks, nor that they cost less to drive, or that they are better for the environment, nor that they are safer in collisions.

It may imply that more people believe that these things - or an important subset of them - are true but this has no bearing on whether they are true.

This, like the frankly misleading title of this post is marketing and nothing else. Marketing is neither good nor bad by itself; we can market good things or bad things, honorable things or evil things, but the success of marketing has no bearing on its truth.

The fact that most people who voted in the 2016 election in the State of Montana voted for Trump does not imply that Trump is good for Montana. Clearly he isn't.

It would be a reasonable assumption if one looks in most places - and certainly this is true of much of the rhetoric in the WEO reports - most people, excluding, of course, me, believe that renewable energy is an important tool in fighting climate change.

This does not mean that this common belief is realistic or even close to being right.

So called "renewable energy" is not the fastest growing source of energy on the planet no matter how many people announce that it is or how commonly this is believed. The, um, numbers in units of energy show that it is not growing as fast as coal, oil, gas.

Because almost everyone on the planet consider that solar energy, for one example, is "renewable" and "green" has no bearing on whether it is either sustainable or for that matter safe.

There may not be enough cadmium on the planet to make cadmium selenide or cadmium telluride solar cells significant forms of energy on a ten exajoule scale, never mind a hundred exajoule scale, and even if there were, this in no way implies that cadmium and selenium are good for you.

I was once a fan of so called "renewable energy" and I was among those who thought the experiment was worth undertaking. But the experiment has been undertaken and the results are in, written in the planetary atmosphere.

So called "renewable energy" has not worked to address climate change, it is not working, and frankly, it will not work.

These things bear repeating, at least in my opinion because unless we, as a world culture do not think anew, all future generations will need to bear an unbearable price.

I may be a little late with this, but I wish you a happy New Year.

[hunter]

1. Happy New Year!

I installed a water conserving toilet in our house today but it's probably not going to stop those who believe natural gas powered desalinization plants (with supplemental wind and solar of course!) will solve all our community's fresh water problems.

We'll probably need that reverse osmosis technology anyways to deal with the gas fracking wastes contaminating our groundwater.

It's all good.

[NNadir]

2. One of the interesting uses for water in California is the one you mention...

...fracking.

Of course, they can always use seawater for fracking. Since the State is planning to strip itself of groundwater anyway, by mining it all just in case future generations - those little brats might try to take some - they might as well go whole hog, cut to the chase, and inject salt water directly into it.

Happy New Year to you as well.