JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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My not-especially-groundbreaking takeaway from this exercise in honing my energy intuitions is that we built our energy infrastructure primarily around hydrocarbons, a technology with a particular set of capabilities and constraints. Hydrocarbons are very energy-dense, easy to move around, and easy to store, which to some extent makes up for the fact that it’s hard to convert them into other types of energy without incurring large losses.
The technology we’ll replace it with will likely not share those particular capabilities: electricity can be converted to different forms of energy with fewer losses, but it’s not as easy to store and move around as hydrocarbons are. Decarbonizing doesn’t just mean building lots of solar power and wind — it probably means completely rethinking how our energy infrastructure works.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/energy-cheat-sheet?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=tks73&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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In short hydrocarbon energy storage is 10x more dense than batteries. And the basis of life on earth all driven by solar power from perfectly natural carbon compounds, specifically carbohydrates, another name for hydrated carbon dioxide.
But now we have to ‘decarbonize’? No. It’s a fantasy from the Greens who would be appalled to realise the green they worship is a long chain hydrocarbon. (Or very rarely an oxide of copper as Malachite or VerdiGreen, the dull Grey green of copper domes.)
I see Greens as people scared of technology, any technology. And so of the industrial revolution which they demand is now reversed. Which would take us back to slavery, destitution and the Dark Ages, literally.
Meanwhile China chases our dreams based on carbon power and nuclear and automation but driven by utterly dictatorial communism in a world scale military dictatorship. The War on the West is well underway. Supported by easily manipulated Greens who demand we ‘decarbonize’ but stay rich. Except that’s not possible.
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Correction in country level energy is being done per comments
The country-level energy consumption vs per capita numbers look off? China almost certainly does not have more per capita energy usage than the US.
And as for the impact of growing renewables on grid (and off grid) uses, I wrote something almost three years ago now but I think is still very relevant
https://www.tsungxu.com/p/clean-energy-transition-guide
Yep, this is an error, I’m away from my computer atm but will correct it as soon as I’m able.
Thanks!
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Clean energy transition? Why is the use of natural solar energy in the form of hydrocarbons now dirty? You are breathing out CO2 at the moment.
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We don’t and can’t control the CO2 levels. 98% of all CO2 we put into the atmosphere gets rapidly absorbed by the sinks, mostly by the ocean. Anthropogenic CO2 is removed from the atmosphere with a half-life of about 10 years:
https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/9d896-donkeyland.png
90,000 measurements of CO2 levels compiled by Georg Beck show a very different history of CO2 levels. So does Stomata data. The ice-core shows CO2 levels below 280ppmv but has been shown to consistently underestimate paleo levels:
https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/5fb43-main-qimg-0b5b17574244ade3b5fe9b1aa71d78d52b252812529.png
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C14 levels look sort of OK but the lower graph of atmospheric CO2 is bizarre.
Who is this George Beck?
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