Wind and solar are a fraction of global total energyJohn Shanahan Comment by Hugo Kruger
April 17, 2024
Many people read and quote exclusively from the mainstream media, MSM, regarding man-made global warming, fossil fuels, wind and solar energy and the politicians who insist on these energy sources..
Here is a link someone sent me today:
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/new-windinstallations-hit-record-last-year-report-says-2024-04-16/
“LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - The global wind industry installed a record 117 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity last year but needs to add triple this amount annually by the end of the decade to meet climate targets.”
One hundred and seventeen gigawatts of new wind turbines is equivalent to 117 standard size nuclear power plants. The global nuclear power industry never built 117 nuclear power plants in one year. They won’t for a long time because of the way anti-nuclear power activists have blocked licensing and sent fear into people’s imaginations for sixty years.
Pro wind and solar people are delighted.
Anyone who wants to live in a modern world must understand real data, not misleading headlines in the MSM.
Real energy data is here:
The total energy supply by fuel for 1971 and 2019 as reported by the International Energy Agency is reported here.
Other renewables (tidal, wave, geothermal, wind and solar, etc.) are the top color band in this graph. In 2019, renewables made up a tiny fraction of global energy use. Yet, the MSM publishes daily headlines about the tremendous progress with wind and solar in the United States, Germany, India, China, etc. The MSM reading public is excited and cheering.
After 48 years of determined government support, global wind and solar nameplate capacity is less than four percent of global energy real use. Actual global wind and solar annual production is a little over 1 percent. That comes with tremendous environmental damage at mineral mine sites, at installation locations and at landfills for non recyclable used turbine blades and solar panels. It comes with loss of habitat for birds, marine animals, and desert animals. It kills birds and bats by the millions. Yes, cars, cats and buildings kill a lot of birds, but who on Earth wants to kill birds and bats deliberately to produce unreliable, not always available, variable speed, very bad for the electrical grid wind energy?
The answer is the extreme environmentalists and their politicians who don’t care. Not to mention the power oligarchs that control the public, the politicians and the mainstream media!
All these people are determined to destroy the modern living standard, reduce the world’s population by over 80 % and rule over what’s left.
Extreme Green Alarmists are causing billions of ordinary people and the modern world to careen down the well to hell!
Many in Australia, Europe and North America are falling for this sham.
People in BRICS, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and the new
member countries to this club) are not!
Renewable energy facilities are much more vulnerable than coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants to common destructive acts of nature.
A little wind and structural defects can bring down wind turbines. They catch fire from the lubricating oil. Their blades fly off or snap.
Solar panels destroyed by hail.
See comment below by Hugo Kruger in Paris about the graph above.
Environmentally friendly (?) wind farm in Germany
Sunlight and wind driven rain and snowstorms are beautiful and the foundation of life in the oceans, on land and in the sky. It all happens without edicts from politicians, mainstream media alarmism, and behind the scenes power mongers and oligarchs.
Comment by Hugo Kruger, engineer in Paris, FranceThe energy pie chart above is correct, but can also be a bit misleading, because 2/3 of all energy is rejected out of the system.
If you look at net energy, then fossil fuels provide a lot less. Around 20% of all energy, it is still the dominance source, but a lot less than many advocates want to admit.
What needs to be pointed out more is that currently, all renewables require an additional fossil fuel system that is standing idle, and the question remains, how does it pay for the economically inefficient usage of the asset?
It is however possible that cheaper batteries might make it obsolete, California might be leading with it, but it is coming at a cost.
So in essence: Solar panels in particular have gotten remarkably cheap, and they do have an incredibly low operational cost (zero fuel cost), but they do require batteries and firm electricity on standby and the question remains who pays for that?
Comment
by John Shanahan, engineer in Denver, Colorado, USAPlease explain in detail the statement that fossil fuels only provide 20% of the total global energy. In detail, what provides the other 80%?