Here and there Eli gets into it with the Breakthrough Institute hippy bashers. Some others do too, Paul Thacker amongst them, which is part of the story, however, allow Eli to show the Bunnies why Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger (and their buddy Roger) are held in such high regard with a poster from Clean Technica
Ethon was quite aware of this when he took up dining.
I had the chance to talk with Bill McKibben tonight at the reception before his Earth Day talk at the University of Hawaii (following Al Gore's presentation a week or so before - somewhat different approaches to the problem). Your chart now makes a lot more sense than if I had not talked with him and listened to his presentation. The verbal fisticuffs between Bill and the carbon industry are very real but Bill is a pretty shrewd organizer with a mission. He's not looking to bankrupt the industry but to make it obsolete by changing the way the world thinks of carbon and to make sure those who use it know they directly impact the livelihoods of those who don't or can't. Best regards.
ReplyDeleteGreat chart, good work, glad you're on the case.
ReplyDeleteThe Breakthrough guys say the German renewables push is a failure, so they must be stooges of the Koch brothers? What if the Energiewende is a failure? Here are the figures for grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour, by country, from that notorious tool fo the fossil industry, the IPCC-
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/sroc/Tables/t0305.pdf
The figures for Germany are five times worse than for nuclear powered France, and worse than every other European country listed, barring Italy, Ireland and Greece, which have all made a virtue of being nuclear free.
The truth is that by far the most of the non-combustion energy used by humans is hydro and nuclear - if you don't have one, and don't want the other, you'll be burning stuff. Carbon capture doesn't exist, and isn't likely to ; burning trees and corn or cane ethanol is about as problematic as fossils. Solar and wind are still less than one percent of primary energy use, and storage that might make them practical is less than one percent of that. That leaves nuclear, and even hippies like Stewart Brand are acknowledging this.
The Breakthrough guys say the German renewables push is a failure, so they must be stooges of the Koch brothers? What if the Energiewende is a failure? Here are the figures for grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour, by country, from that notorious tool fo the fossil industry, the IPCC-
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/sroc/Tables/t0305.pdf
The figures for Germany are five times worse than for nuclear powered France, and worse than every other European country listed, barring Italy, Ireland and Greece, which have all made a virtue of being nuclear free.
The truth is that by far the most of the non-combustion energy used by humans is hydro and nuclear - if you don't have one, and don't want the other, you'll be burning stuff. Carbon capture doesn't exist, and isn't likely to ; burning trees and corn or cane ethanol is about as problematic as fossils. Solar and wind are still less than one percent of primary energy use, and storage that might make them practical is less than one percent of that. That leaves nuclear, and even hippies like Stewart Brand are acknowledging this. John ONeill
Sorry, Maths error in my last (two ) posts. German electricity, at 0.512 grams CO2/kWh, isn't five times dirtier than France's ( 0.078)- it's six and a half times dirtier.
ReplyDeleteApologies, John ONeill
The problem with German electricity generation is that they burn dirt. AKA brown coal, which is also why RWE feels threatened.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can explain why Jim Hansen, Ken Caldeira and Kerry Emmanuel responded favorably to Ted Nordhaus and presumably Michael Schellenberger (and their buddy Roger) when he (they) asked for some climate scientists to step up to the plate and speak their minds about nuclear power in this letter?
ReplyDelete'The problem with German electricity generation is that they burn dirt. AKA brown coal, which is also why RWE feels threatened.'
ReplyDeleteThe big generating companies everywhere are in the business of selling power, and don't care at all how they make it- Vattenfall, which runs nuclear and hydro at home in Sweden, runs dirt-burners in Germany and Poland; Exelon, the largest reactor management company in the states, also runs coal plants. I bought into one of New Zealand's big hydro operators when a previous government sold it off, in an effort to help keep ownership in the country. Instead I find myself with shares in an Aussie gas company. This corporate carbon blindness means that none of them can really make publicity out of their greener products without showing up their dirtier dealings. John ONeill
Eli wrote: "The problem with German electricity generation is that they burn dirt. AKA brown coal"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Take a look at the area just west of Cologne using google satellite view and you will see three huge open pit lignite mines.
Cute picture, but sad to suggest advocates of nuclear are indirectly Koch-funded, and then to turn away from a look at what has happened with CO2 and policy, for the last 20+ years.
ReplyDeleteBurning through 1,000Gt in less than 40 years, when man adds 25 each year, will hopefully become more obvious to those making politics over which non-CO2 emitting resources are best. We have a globe filled with thousands of political regimes and, still, some claiming the mantle of environmentalism feel we can afford to be picky.
CogWheeler
"Take a look at the area just west of Cologne using google satellite view and you will see three huge open pit lignite mines."
ReplyDeleteThe government of North-Rhine Westphalia has just decided to close down these lignite mines. That will still take many years because of the long term planning involved, e.g. the villages that need to be relocated/destroyed.
The right-wing opposition do not agree, but they have promised not to overturn the decision once it is made, for planning stability.