A Sudden Reversal of Reality?
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Intelligent readers can see the contradiction in the graph above: In order to achieve the “global decarbonisation” called for by the world green movement, the world as we know it must cease to exist… and an alternate universe must come into being to suddenly sweep us into a grand green future without a need for fossil fuels.
Just look at the curves: The exponential growth in global fossil fuel consumption is expected to stop abruptly and be replaced by a steeper-than-exponential reduction to zero fossil fuels over a 30 year period. Simultaneously a relatively inconsequential and essentially flat-line contribution from mostly-intermittent zero-carbon power sources will suddenly leap up and begin providing all power consumption over the next 80 years. In what universe can such a thing happen without the deaths of billions of human beings?
On a global basis, the magnitude of the implied decarbonization effort illustrated in the graph takes us beyond the possible and into the world of junk science fiction. In 2018, world consumption of fossil fuels rose to 11,865 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe). To get that down to near zero by 2050 as proposed by the zeroists would require a lot of alternative energy sources.
University of Colorado scientist Roger Pielke Jr. did some of the rough numbers. “There are 11,161 days until 2050. Getting to net zero by 2050 requires replacing one mtoe of fossil fuel consumption every day starting now.” On a global basis, such a transition would require building the equivalent of one new 1.5-gigawatt nuclear plant every day for the next 30 years.
If not nuclear, then maybe solar? According to a U.S. government site, it takes about three million solar panels to produce one gigawatt of energy, which means that by 2050 the world will need 3,000,000 X 11,865 solar panels to offset fossil fuels. The wind alternative would require about 430 new wind turbines each of the 11,865 days leading to 2050.
So far, other tested technologies do not exist to offset the fossil fuel energy that would be lost under the green zero targets. __ Terence Corcoran in Financial Post via WUWT
Nuclear fission is a safe and reliable form of electrical power, but global industry cannot be mobilised to build one new 1.5 gigawatt plant per day over the next 30 years. Even if it could, the green-biased politics in the governments and non-governmental organisations of the developed world would not allow it to happen.
What about nuclear fusion? New fusion technologies have a number of wealthy backers, but it takes a lot of time to develop radical new technologies — even if they can be made to work safely and affordably. There really isn’t time to do it in the next 30 years that greens are insisting is all we have left.
Intermittent Energies Are a Fool’s Play
Greens want to replace all fossil fuels with mostly intermittent and unreliable energy sources such as big wind and big solar. But the sun and the wind only provide useful power at unpredictable times. If reliable and affordable power cannot be switched on command then the unreliable energy that attempts to stand in will kill a lot of people by failing at the worst possible times.
But people behind the scenes stand to make $trillions of dollars in the attempt to do what is essentially impossible, all the while their fellow Earthlings are dying in large numbers from the inability to heat their homes in winter or provide the affordable power to keep medicines and vaccines from spoiling or to keep the lights & power on in operating theatres and intensive care wards.
Reliable and affordable power of high quality is a life and death matter. Power is at the foundation of the other critical infrastructures that make modern life possible. You cannot remove reliable and affordable high quality electric power without pulling the rug out from under modern civilisation. But the “decarbonisation people” do not tell you that.
There is only one way for the green future of zero carbon to come about: Make the world go away. And then magically bring a new fantastical green world into existence, where an entirely new set of universal rules and constants hold sway.
Judging from the headlines, Canada and the world are on track to ratchet up renewable energy and begin the rapid scale-down and ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels. Most energy analysts consider the fossil-fuel phase-out to be a scientific, economic and political fantasy, akin to levitation and time travel, but the movement keeps making news.
To avoid a mass human die-off, new replacement energy technologies must be developed over time. During that time, current technologies must be used and improved in order to prevent a human disaster of unimaginable proportions — if governments attempt to force an impossible mandate on their economies and their people.
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Maybe you are being too literal. It is a start on a perceived problem. Whether the problem is the existential threat to mankind it is said to be remains to be seen. Eventually it will be acknowledged that nuclear power is the only medium term answer.
Maybe I am being too subtle. What we are seeing by the green political movement is an attempted wholesale leap into political corruption never seen in human history. It is easy to perceive a problem if by doing so you can become wealthier, have improved job security/prestige, or become more important. But it is not wise to threaten the future of advanced civilisation whenever any particular special interest group imagines or claims it is perceiving a problem.
In this case the interest group in question uses unscientific means to stake scientific claims. Such abuse of science should be punished harshly.
Bureaucrats say ‘global warming’ exists and can only be cured by bureaucrats taking over the world economy.
What do people EXPECT them to say?
Environmentalism is The Shortage Industry. It is no more interested in the environment than socialists were interested in working people.
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We absolutely can and should manufacture fission reactors at that pace.
I like the “Can Do” spirit. New reactors that burn 95% of fuel instead of just 5% will be needed, however.
To make wishful sentiments into reality one must provide workable details to the appropriate people. At this time there are far more people in power who oppose such a policy than support it. That will have to change, if the WWII type of industrial and energy mobilisation you suggest could ever take place.
When the US mobilised for WWII it changed the global calculus. This giant mobilisation for war was able to help save China, the USSR, Britain, Western Europe, Australia/NZ, Indochina, and essentially most of the world from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. The world might mobilise for an expansive and abundant human future, but the poison pill of socialism and fake environmentalism (carbon holocaust etc) is not likely to cooperate.