Curve fitting the wind: A calculation involving the "exponential growth"

[NNadir]

of wind power.

Frequently in response to my advocacy of nuclear power as a tool in the struggle against global climate change, I am met with remarks about the "exponential growth" of various renewable energy schemes.

Those who are familiar with my thinking - and who understand it correctly - will recognize that I welcome renewable energy, and with the exception of hydroelectric plants, I am generally in favor it it. The big caveat that often leaves me assuming an unpleasant mocking tone is that I do not regard renewables as having much capability to provide base load power, especially economically acceptable base load power. In all cases, I see renewable power as a viable strategy for displacing natural gas peak type capacity and not coal capacity. To replace coal capacity - and I strongly believe that we must replace coal capacity - we must in my view have nuclear power.

In these debates, I frequently note that the scale of renewable energy, in spite of the hype, remains small: The promised potentials have never been realized. To demonstrate these unpleasant facts, I often refer to data on this issue, using links like this one:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5b.html

When we look at the table in this link, we see that over the last four years recorded, the growth of renewable technologies has been, measured in units of energy, been rather flat with one exception: The growth of wind power. Everyone should know that I support wind power with enthusiasm, and I hope that this capacity will grow quickly - I have high, but realistic, hopes for it.

If you graph this growth it looks (nosily) linear in growth, but suppose we assume that the growth is exponential. What would the exponential function look like?

It happens that curve fitting techniques for exponential functions are well known and readily available. I happen to have built a spreadsheet around this technique which is clearly spelled out here: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LeastSquaresFittingExponential.html

When I apply the equations contained in the links I find that the "exponential growth" curve for the growth of wind power has the following form, measured in quads (1 quad approximately equals one exajoule) E = 0.0487 e^0.213t where E is the energy, and t is the time, measured in years.

Using this equation, for what it's worth, one can estimate the time required for wind power energy production to grow to be comparable to modern hydroelectric energy production, which is 2.725 quads (about 3% of total US energy demand). If one does this by the appropriate technique, one sees that the answer is 18.9 years.

[phantom power]

1. Refresh my memory: do regression parameters come with error-bars?

As in, can we get "0.0487 +/- one standard dev?" (likewise for 0.213).

Another question that's on my mind regarding these debates: is the growth of technology deployment ever hyper-exponential? In all the examples I'm familiar with, it appears to follow the logistic curve. Growth is exponential, until it begins to saturate, and then it asymptotically approaches it's saturation limit.

Just to play devil's advocate, as it were. Could we (out of sufficient desperation) force hyper-exponential growth?

[NNadir]

2. Yes they do, but I have not calculated them.

Moreover, I'm not going to spend the time doing so.

Actually I very much doubt that these regression formulas are particularly valid. There is an element of a tongue in a cheek in my post, except to make some reference to the important issues of scale and time. People have been talking about the wind as a source of power for many decades. I note that in spite of this, wind power didn't grow very much at all in the 1990's, except in the last year of that decade:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5a.html

I believe that some important issues have been worked out, and that the capacity is likely to grow in a way that is not predicted by previous years. It some function that is hyper exponential, but I wouldn't really want to hazard a guess on the question.

Here is a graphic showing the growth of nuclear power over three decades:



I have no idea what function models it. It looks sort of gaussian, and of course, there are lots of people who have confidently predicted that it would be gaussian, but I doubt that if we come back in 20 years, it will actually be so. The attitude towards nuclear energy is clearly changing and there are too many imponderables to predict how it will go.

(We may come back in 20 years and be the only ones there at all.)

[jpak]

3. Wind indeed...

ChimpCo is spending $12 billion to build 6000 MW of new nucular capacity. If everything goes as planned (LOL!!!) these plants should be on line in ~2016.

The US installed 2500 MW of wind and 51 MW of grid intertied PV capacity last year.

Both US wind and PV installations are growing at >35% per year.

California will also add 900 MW of solar sterling capacity by 2012.

If the rate of wind and PV installations remained **constant** between now and 2016, the US will have added 25,000 MW of new wind, 900 MW of new solar sterling and 510 MW of new PV capacity.

That's >26,000 MW of new wind and solar capacity compared to a measly 6000 MW of GOP subsidized nucular.

And will that 6,000 MW of new nucular keep pace with nuclear capacity retired in the next 10 years?????

Exponential growth or not, wind and solar will beat nucular hands down...

[NNadir]

4. I am merely reporting the measure of energy now produced.

I have noted many times before that renewable energy has been the subject of extravagant predictions that have not been borne up by measurements recorded in exajoules.

I repeat, as I often do, that announcements of power are not the same as announcements of energy. Most renewable energy projects operate at best at fractional capacity loading, on the order of 30%.

I note that I do not agree with any of your other representations in this post either.

To illustrate my rejection of the claims made here, I will, as usual, refer to data. The link gives clear representations of the size of wind power growth:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

By calculation we can see the percentage growth of wind energy over the last several years:

From 2000 to 2001 it grew by 22.8%

From 2001 to 2002 it grew by 50.0%.

From 2002 to 2003 it grew by 9.5%

From 2003 to 2004 it grew by 24.3%

The average for these values is 26.6%, not 35%. Only in one year, 2001, did it grow by more than 35%.

Still, 26.6% is very good growth, and there is a reason for optimism. However we still must note that the capacity is still small. The total capacity is still 0.85 exajoules shy of a single exajoule with US energy demand measuring now at over 100 exajoules per year.

Wind energy will do very well to equal the production now provided by hydroelectric capacity. I include myself among those who hope it will do so. Still I assert that wind power is poorly suited to meet the challenge to humanity represented by global climate change. It's a drop in the bucket.

[jpak]

5. Converting 26,410 "mystical" (LOL) MW to "physicist" (LOL) MW

means renewables still win: 8800 MW compared 6000 MW for stupid ridiculous silly little nuclear by 2016 - without invoking exponential growth.

:)

[NNadir]

8. Units of energy are not the same as units of power.

Neither are promises the same as energy.

I don't know why it is necessary to repeat this fact about the difference between energy and power, but it is.

The facts are clear: Wind energy production is still much less than one exajoule.

I have already produced a thread showing that handwaving predictions about the energy future are unreliable, and thus feel that it is only necessary to link that thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=39929&mesg_id=39929

The first post offers many references to predicted levels of wind energy at the quad (approximately exajoule) level by 2000.

To repeat, the actual value is unambiguous: The produced energy is less than two tenths of an exajoule 5 years after 2000.

The world, again, uses over 400 exajoules of energy.

[jpak]

9. Yawn

And I have shown that, without invoking exponential growth, US wind and solar-electric capacity will outstrip the growth in GOP-subsidized nucular over the next 10 years.

And if one wants to do the calculations using a 25% per year growth rate, renewables will FAR outstrip the growth in GOP-subsidized nucular over the next ten years (that is if Democrats don't derail ChimpCo's Nucular K-Street Gravy Train)...

:)

[NNadir]

10. I don't believe you have shown anything.

When you say "and I have shown" you must be referring to your assertion which I do not believe is substantiated in any way.

I do not place much credibility in unsupported assertions. Because global climate change is a serious matter that is now under way, and threatens all living things, I continually warn against undue optimism as being incredibly dangerous.

I repeat my evidence: The report on untrue predictions for wind energy, off by a factor of about 7 for the most accurate (i.e smallest) prediction (Brookhaven Labs predicted 1.4 quads of renewable combined solar/wind, whereas the 2003 production figures were 0.143 + 0.063 quads = 0.206 quads = 0.217 exajoules..

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

Once again I have used units of energy and not power, because I am familiar with physics, as are all of the countries building 178 new nuclear reactors.

I note that every 1000 MWe nuclear reactor (or other type of plant) produces at 90% capacity loading produces 0.028 exajoules of electrical energy and approximately 0.1 exajoules of primary energy. Thus it requires only 8 nuclear reactors or 8 coal plants to equal the entire output of all solar and wind plants combined and three such plants if one is looking at primary energy.

I repeat that because global climate change is not a game, but a serious deadly issue, the production of renewable energy is unacceptably low to rely on, especially in light of many historical undelivered promises from the renewable energy advocates who have continually been wrong with their predictions.

Now I will return briefly to explicate once more, no matter how much it bores the physics challenged, the difference between power and energy.

In 2003 the world used 417.6 quads of energy or about 440 exajoules of primary energy.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablef1.xls

If one divides the latter number by the number seconds in a year, 31,556,700, one sees that the average power demand is about 14 trillion watts.

According to this link, an average lightning bolt produces about 5 X 10⁸J/0.003 sec = 160 billion watts.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00876.htm

Since there are about 100 lightening bolts striking the earth per second, the power provided by lightening is enormous.

http://www.dola.state.co.us/oem/PublicInformation/LIGHTN.HTM

Thus the power from electrical storms is more than sufficient to meet the world energy demand. However these facts are of no practical import because the energy is diffuse. The power is huge but the recoverable energy is nil.

The source of primary energy for electrical storms, is of course, solar energy, but the problem is not whether this energy exists, but whether it is recoverable. This has been the subject of much confusion and misrepresentation, but the output of carbon dioxide continues to increase in spite of all the claims about solar power. The problem is that power is not the same thing as energy.

The links I continually produce are unambiguous and clear. It is surprising and more than a little sad that the comprehension of these numbers is so poor.

When I hear the unsupportable claim that renewable energy is sufficient to address to extremely serious and deadly crisis of global climate change, I feel very much as if I am listening to 19th century salesmen trying to claim they can bottle lightening. They cannot do so of course and if we discard the real in favor of the claim, we are making a fatal mistake.

Thus far, the bottling of lightening has not proved possible. So far, and the numbers support me, such claims have proved little more than hucksterism.

An exajoule remains an exajoule, and salesmanship, poor or otherwise, does not produce exajoules.

Unless we have nuclear energy, which is concentrated and not diffuse, it is likely we will die from our fantasies. This is why the topic is important and why I press the matter in spite of all obfuscations and exaggerated unsupportable claims.

[jpak]

17. I believe I have made my case quite convincingly

Growth in US renewables (both power and energy) will outstrip growth in GOP-subsidized nucular over the next ten years.

period!

:)

[NNadir]

18. Well we'll see, won't we? And now for some IPCC scenarios:

I'm sure you feel that you have made your case convincingly. I disagree with your statement in that regard, just as I disagree with most statements you make, but that's life in the big city.

As best I can see, your case, such as it is, consists largely of your own fiats, and I am completely unconvinced by the case and the fiats, except if I focus on the "guilt-by-association" qualifier "GOP financed." Certainly renewables will be hard pressed to meet the world nuclear capacity that is not GOP financed (178 reactors).

I will confess though, personally I would be happy to see renewables match this new nuclear capacity.

The 178 reactors aforementioned will have a capacity of about 144,000 MWe. Each MWe operating at 100% capacity loading, as I frequently mention, is about 32 terajoules. As nuclear reactors typically operate in the 90%-100% capacity loading these days, we see that the new planned nuclear capacity will provide about 5 exajoules of greenhouse free electrical energy and about 15 exajoules of primary energy.

If renewables could match or exceed this output, this would certainly help ameliorate the issue of global climate change. Of course it is one thing to make promises and another to provide delivery. I will personally be thrilled by such delivery.

I do expect that if humanity survives global climate change, not necessarily a good bet, nuclear capacity to grow much rapidly than predicted, even in the IPCC (International Panel on Global Climate Change) scenarios A1, A3, B and C2 which postulate in the first 3 cases, 12,000 TWh (43 exajoules) of nuclear capacity and in C2, about 7500 TWh. I certainly wish for more than the IPCC, which is looking for atmospheric CO₂ stabilization at 550 ppm.

(cf Metz, Davidson, Swart and Pan, eds. Climate Change 2001, Mitigation Cambridge University Press, copyright 2001 by the IPCC, page 577. Full text available on line: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/364.htm)



I suspect with the now obvious world wide decline of irrational fear of nuclear energy, which I predict will further decline as the wolf comes closer to the door, the future of nuclear power is far better than people can anyone can anticipate, much as it is far better now than what many people, including me, predicted for 2000 shortly after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. That accident as I recall was supposed by many pundits to have sounded the death knell of nuclear energy. I note that even scenario C1, which calls for the phantasmagoric "nuclear phaseout" shows only slightly less nuclear power in 2050 than there is now, about 2500 TWh.

I am hoping for better than the outcome shown in table 9.7 of the IPCC document:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/364.htm

(Ibid, pg. 978.)

[jpak]

19. The ChimpCo/GOP Energy Bill most certainly

subsidizes the construction of 6000 MW of new nuclear capacity.

$2 billion per plant.

Those that support this program support ChimpCo/GOP energy policy.

Those that support ChimpCo/GOP plans to renew spent fuel reprocessing support ChimpCo/GOP energy policy.

There is no logical fallacy in that.

[NNadir]

21. Whatever. I have clearly stated what I regard as logical fallacies.

My personal opinion is that saying "Chimpco" in every sentence that one says "nuclear" is, in fact, an example the logical fallacy of "guilt by association." I have referenced this logical fallacy too many times to recall how often I have done so. I am incapable of making my contentions about the nature of logical fallacies any clearer than I have already.

But, again, whatever. I don't really care how nuclear capacity is built as long as it is built. The issue for me is global climate change, not the existence or non-existence of subsidies. Nor am I really interested in another fiat declaration presenting itself as a statement of fact. Some things I hear I take with a very large grain of salt. I have spent zero minutes contemplating the Cheney energy bill, because I can't do anything about it other than what I have already done by participating in this, and similar communities.

I am not trying to change Republicans so much as I am trying to argue for the policies of the Democrats, since I am now and always have been a Democrat. I take responsibility for my own. If a free and fair Democracy is restored in the United States, I expect we will regain power and it is my goal to see that with power we also take responsibility. The biggest responsibility that a new Democratic government will face will surely be global climate change. I cannot think of a bigger issue.

I support any and all subsidies for nuclear power anywhere in the world they are undertaken, noting that subsidies on infrastructure most often pay for themselves many times over. Subsidies for war on the other hand, oil wars included, do not pay for themselves. In fact war subsidies create more obligation as they destroy infrastructure. I note that the growth of the solar industry would more or less vanish tomorrow without subsidy. Still, I think solar subsidies are fine even if they are not really cost effective, so long as they do not obscure reality.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. Again, you are assuming

that the USA is the centre of the universe and contains 90% of the human population. This is not actually correct, and the majority of people don't give a fuck what the the current US admin thinks about energy. The problems appear to be more general, and can't be pinned down quite that easily (although I admit it's tempting!).

[jpak]

23. I am referring specifically to US energy policy

The dissemblers are obfuscating...

:)

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Silly me.

I thought that, since you were replying to a post about the IPCC, and their global scenarios for a global problem, with references to a Norwegian website, your reply would be concerned with global energy problems, as opposed to something else.

I have a great recipe for bolognaise sauce, shall we talk we about that as well?

[jpak]

25. As long it calls for apples and oranges

and lots of "Balogna"....

please do...

:)

[NNadir]

26. I assume that opponents of the "Chimpco/GOP" energy bill object to these

provisions: http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/EPAct-05.htm#solar

I suppose that the case could be made that anyone who supports these tax credits supports the Chimpco/GOP Energy bill, but I would certainly characterize such an assertion as poor thinking.

Somehow I don't think it will matter much to the world, nor does it have any technical bearing on the future or desirability of solar energy. Solar energy will either continue to fail to be industrially important or it will reverse it's past performance solely on its merits. It succeeds if it produces and it succeeds only if it grows, irrespective of what function one uses to model it.

Of course, Republicans love to put these solar tax credits in energy bills - Governor Hydrogen Hummer Steroid Boy out in California made great noise about it - because they are practically free. Why are they free? Because few people can actually afford to take them up on the subsidy. Since no one uses the program it costs very little money. As the data shows, all the solar subsidies in the world have failed to produce a solar nirvana.

This is not only true in the US, it's true elsewhere.

There are tremendous solar subsidies in Germany for instance, and still the total renewable (Geothermal, Solar, Wind, and Wood and Waste Electric Power Consumption) energy production for Germany is still less than a single exajoule. Total production for these forms of energy amounted to 0.12 exajoules about 2% of German energy. (Germany consumed about 5.6 exajoules of primary energy in 2003.) Note that German law requires utilities to pay 5 to 10 times as much for any renewable energy as they would pay for any other form of energy. This policy will escape notice by the public only for as much time as German renewable energy production remains insignificant. When the subsidy appears as real Euros, the situation will suddenly change.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

The Feed-in Law fixes tariffs for approved renewable energy projects for a 20-year period from the plant commissioning and will apply incremental price cuts. Tariffs were initially set at 48.1 cents per kilowatt hour for solar energy, 8.6 cents per kWh for wind, from 9.6 to 8.2 cents per kWh for biomass, 8.4 to 6.7 cents per kWh for geothermal and 7.2 to 6.3 cents per kWh for hydropower, waste and sewage gas.

http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm

[jpak]

27. Those solar provisions were in the bill because Dems fought for them

The GOP repeatedly attempted to strip these from the bill - and Dems reinstated them.

on edit: California's solar rebate program was a Gray Davis initiative....lol

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2003/10/20/story5.html

http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2001_releases/2001-05-22_higher_rebate.html

CA's Million Solar Roof initiative was a bipartisan effort...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/26/EDGFVC9IGB1.DTL

Republicans, however, were instrumental in its defeat...

I also note that California has no Million Nuclear Plants campaign either...

Nice try though...

:)

[NNadir]

28. Really? Any references to this claim about the Chimpco Energy Bill?

Or do we have another fiat declaration?

[jpak]

29. LOL!!!!!

Senate Dems proposed an amendment to the bill that would require US utilities to produce 10% of their electricity from renewables by 2020 - the GOP House defeated it.

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/page.jsp?itemID=27193969

John Kerry voted against defunding solar and renewable energy from the bill in 1999

http://www.issues2000.org/John_Kerry.htm#Energy_+_Oil

and more...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/22/MNG45CDDBS1.DTL

I could go on but you get the idea...

:)

[NNadir]

30. Um, the Chimpco solar energy bill was not passed in 1999.

Reference 1:

The reference from the Union of Concerned "Scientists" does not say anything except that one Republican congressman led opposition, specifically Joe Barton. It also notes that the Repuke Texas legislature approved a solar bill.


Reference 2:

John Kerry's actions in 1999 are irrelevant to the issue of whether one must oppose all provisions of the energy act including those that are solar energy. There was no thought of a "Chimpco" bill in 1999.

Reference 3: This journalistic reference mentions "solar" exactly one time. It neither specifies or counts "House Democrats." Two "House Democrats" complaining would make the statement true.

House Democrats complained that the bill was too heavily focused on oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy, although it also authorizes more than $2 billion in subsidies for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

I find the references listed here inconclusive and irrelevant to the claim that "Democrats put the solar provisions in the bill, and protected them."

If course, I am happy that the energy bill includes solar incentives, even though I recognize that in solar terms, 2 billion dollars is next to worthless, since it will not produce a single exajoule of energy.

My comments are directed to expose, once again, the obvious flaw in saying "Chimpco" "energy bill" and "nuclear" (or "solar") in the same sentence demonstrates anything about nuclear energy and whether it is essential to survive global climate change.

[jpak]

32. Ummm Congress has been trying to pass an Energy Bill for quite some time.

Sorry to inform you of this bit of legislative history.

And the rest of the post is rubbish...

Please find me a pro-nuclear anti-solar Greenpeace hatin' Democrat in the House, Senate or DNC leadership.

They don't exist!!!

(except maybe on the "Internets")

:)

[NNadir]

33. Um, you haven't informed me of legislative history.

The topic was whether or not the "guilt by association" logical fallacy that says Chimpco and Nuclear in the same sentence is relevant.

In response I got a remark about John Kerry in 1999. Further it was claimed that this remark somehow proved that the solar energy portion of the 2005 Energy Act was inserted and protected by Democrats.

Many people who are familiar with history, and thus are in a position to actually inform other people about history, legislative or otherwise, know that in 1999, Bill Clinton was President of the United States. He was, in fact, the last freely elected President of the United States.

No one at that point knew that George W. Bush or Dick Cheney would be in a position to propose energy bills.

Therefore I think it clearly follows that a remark about John Kerry's position in 1999 has little if any bearing on the equation Chimpco = nuclear = solar.

I have already identified many important Democrats who have spoken in favor of nuclear reality, and feel no need to repeat myself again simply because a person exists who claims not to remember this. I suspect that there are many more Democrats who know the importance of global climate change and are prepared to support additional nuclear power to address it. Of course, it has historically been true that many Democrats felt a de riguer need to embrace anti-nuclear rhetoric in the 1970's and 1980's (I was one of them) but effectively the anti-nuclear position has been rejected by international consensus.

I have never seen a prominent Democrat trying to win the Darwin award by laying himself or herself on a railroad track in a Greenpeace "look at me" rally. Not one.

If I were to see such a Democrat, I would oppose that person in the primary process. (I think I spoke quite clearly during the primary process on Dennis Kucinich, the Chemtrails fellow - I do not believe that the Democratic Party is necessarily free of nutcases, although I am quite sure that the frequency of nutcases is far lower than it is in the Repuke party.)

[GumboYaYa]

6. Personally, I don't think we have the leadership or commitment to change

in this country to build alternative power supplies, whether they be nuclear or alternative sources, in the time frame needed to avert disaster. Ultimately the survival of ourselves, our families and our communities will depend upon the actions we take as individuals. No centrally distributed power system or government program is going to be there to help. While I applaud efforts to change course on a societal basis, I don't think it will happen.

[skids]

7. Maybe we should go for an arctangent then.

Seriously, does anyone really think that fitting simplistic mathematical functions to real world data has any revelance. Wind will grow based on a lot of nonlinear factors, not the least of which is the level and consistency of private risk investment, and government stimulus injected. If we dropped as much money on it as we did for the Iraq war, for example, it would grow quite large quite fast.

[NNadir]

11. Wind has not grown based on lots of non-linear factors.

Note the tense of the verb.

It is complete speculation to assert that it will do what it has not done in the face of historical predictions of the same quality that were made decades ago.

Advocates often say "solar will (or worse, is) grow(ing) exponentially. "Wind is growing exponentially." This is certainly not my parlance.

I have been hearing this "exponential" word abused like this for decades. The word is nonsense (as the data shows), which of course, is the point of this entire thread.

I will make a prediction: Wind power will not stop global climate change in the next century; it won't even come close. I would love to be proved wrong of course, but I won't be. 50 years from now, should humanity survive global climate change - which it may not - there will still be talking about wind and solar as the energy future and not as the energy present.

On what basis to I make this prediction? I am over 50 years old and have been hearing this stuff a real long time.

[iconoclastNYC]

31. How long has oil been at 60/bbl

What 3 of your 50 years?

Circumstances are different now.

Right now the problem with solar is a materials shortage. If some breakthru comes out and we can make the stuff out of something more common you'll have an energy revolution overnight. Billions in revenue awaits for the company that can solve the silicon shortage.

Don't discount innovation.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. It does have relevance...

Although I don't want to sound like the reincarnation of Malthus, population does grow exponentially, whereas resources typically don't. The only resource - if it can be called such - that has increased exponentially is the use of oil, resulting in the current clusterfuck.

Unless we find a replacement that is capable of exponetional growth (I'll wager $5 on "no chance") we're going hit a world of pain in the very near future.

[skids]

13. "capable" is just a matter of communal willpower.

[NNadir]

20. No, willpower alone is not involved.

It actually happens that somethings depend more on the laws of physics than on will.

One gets exhausted by these perennial calls for another "Manhattan Project" or "Apollo Project" or whatever.

Some Apollo and Manhattan Projects failed. Nixon's "War on Cancer" more or less fell flat as have various repeated calls for "US Energy Independence" also dating back to Nixon.

Many people don't recognize this, being puerile, but the world is far more complex than it was in 1943 when it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys without a score card. It is even more complex than it was in 1961 when there were only two populations on the face of the earth that were widely believed to have mattered, one such population being the population I belonged to in those days, the US population.

[bananas]

14. Here is a graph from that website (eia.doe.gov)

I noticed this graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_energy_development
It's from World Energy and Economic Outlook http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html
Figure 10 http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/figure_10.html

[Dogmudgeon]

15. That map is wishful thinking

Oil and natural gas are likely to start falling off in the next few years. Coal will probably stay robust for a while, but it's currently the most dangerous fuel from the standpoints of pollution, greenhouse gas emission, radioisotope release, and deaths from mining. Coal gasification could dramatically improve coal's environmental safety. Nuclear is probably currently the safest, but is also the most feared. Renewables could potentially out-do nuclear, but there is still relatively little money going into renewable investment, and most of what is going into it is dedicated to hydroelectric (in the USA, mainly the Colorado River), and there is little direction given to it.

So all these sources of power have significant problems, but few of them are problems of development, engineering, or science. They're problems of turf and profitability, so the solutions will have to be political, whether to keep nuclear energy safe, or to ramp up the development of wind farms and PV solar energy, or to promote coal gasification (which can make the end product much safer).

I'm beginning to think that it's ALL political intransigence that's hurting us. Most people would prefer converting to a lower-energy, less suburban-sprawl-vs-urban-crowding, lower stress lifestyle, and not care too much if they'd have to forgo having two privately-owned automobiles, purchasing all consumer products encased in several ounces of thick plastic, and living in poorly-built housing.

--p!

[NNadir]

16. It is very interesting to compare historical projections with reality.

The practical limit of the use of fossil fuels is not how many can be found, but is, instead, global climate change which will probably destroy the entire agricultural infrastructure of the planet.

No matter.

The IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, does not offer predictions, but only scenarios. They do not involve wishful thinking, but the do comment on the results of what wishful thinking might bring.

Several, of course, includes the rapid growth of nuclear power and others do not. A few call for more than 10,000 nuclear reactors, of which I would approve.

Here is a scenario with 11,000 nuclear reactors:



I will remark, that I don't really like this graph. I would like to see the total size of the bars projected in the future be more like the total size of the bars today, and I would like to
see the pale blue (gas), red (oil) dark blue bits to disappear completely. This can be done.

The link from which I produced this graph remarks as follows:

We are in the same situation than a chain smoker : the risk for the future does not disappear the day he(she) quits smoking (as for us the risk of a major climate change does not vanish the day we stop massively emitting), and if he(she) quits Monday but joins again Tuesday, the benefit will be very small (as for us a decrease in the emissions must be long lasting to yield effects).

Only a sustained effort will produce results (just like for a chain smoker), but in the long term the difference might be a major one.

http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/greenhouse/emission_scenario.html