Letter to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry - 2021

Letter to John Kerry, U. S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate - August 2, 2021 Subject: Flooding in Germany, carbon dioxide, fossil fuels, nuclear power, green energy Dear John Kerry, The extreme flooding in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands this July resulting in loss of life has renewed efforts by certain scientists, government officials, and the media to force stopping use of fossil fuels.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is essential for plants to grow. Plants are the base of the food chain. They produce oxygen we breathe. No other molecule plays such a key role for life as CO2. The addition of more should not logically cause existential catastrophes.

Click here for a key message by Tom Moser, retired NASA manager for the Apollo, Shuttle, and Space Station programs.

Click here for messages from specialists around the world. World leaders must embrace this knowledge and advice.

Below is a graph of total world energy use from 1965 to 2015. Dark blue is hydroelectric. It cannot expand much. Light gray is nuclear. It can expand a lot but has many roadblocks. The green and light blue slices on the right are wind and solar. They are very dilute, not available a lot of the time, require backup from fossil fuels or batteries, occupy the most land, kill birds, and produce the greatest volume of waste and mining pollution. Fossil fuels provided about 85% of the energy to build the modern world. Wind and solar won’t power the world. Nuclear power will provide electricity, process heat, space heating, drinking water, and synthetic fuels after coal, oil and gas are used up.

Every country will decide what mix of energy – wind, solar, biomass, hydro-electric, fossil fuels, and nuclear - they will use. Wrong decisions lead to loss of freedom, poverty, and suffering. Right decisions lead to national security and prosperity.

Sincerely, John A. Shanahan Civil Engineer, Editor of allaboutenergy.net, email john.shanahan@allaboutenergy.net