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A device to scrub methane, since it's almost 100x as efficient at holding heat (see entry for GWP) than CO2, and major non biological sources seem to be venting it in mass quantities.

Of the world's maybe. Of the US's maybe. Of Canada, Japan, New Zealand, France, and Iceland not likely.

Wow, cherry-pick much? How long did you Google to find countries that have the lowest possible fossil fuel consumption? Except for Japan, anyway. Percentage wise, Japan's use of fossil fuels (~65%) is almost as bad as the US (~71%).

Just for shits & giggles, let's include China - a rapidly industrializing country whose electrical conspution is and will continue to expand rapidly - with ~82% of their power coming from "conventional thermal" generation. Or the UK with ~74%. Or Australia (~92%), Netherlands (~90%), Greece (~89%), India (~83%), Mexico (~83%), Denmark (~82%), or Italy (~82%). (source)

Hey look, I can be highly selective with my data too!

Here's an idea - maybe, just maybe, it is understood that the phrase "half as carbon intensive as grid power" only applies if the power comes from fossil fuel sources. Call me a radical thinker, but sometimes it's easier to consider the subtext than to throw yourself into a fit of self-righteous rage.
=Smidge=

You've gone right back to cherry picking just a few snippets of the broad range of facts I presented in order to argue that the U.S. is the worst. Policy decisions need to be made based on broad general facts and statistics. It cannot be based on a narrow hatred for a nation or nations.

e.g. Say the U.S. were to adopt nuclear power to the extent France has (78% of its electricity from nuclear). About 90% of the U.S. coal use is for electricity generation, as is about 25% of its natural gas use (source). (Petroleum is also burned for electricity, but accounts for less than 3% of electricity production in the U.S.).

Nuclear currently accounts for 21% of U.S. electricity generation. If that were increased to 78% with hydro and renewable electricity generation held steady, coal and gas consumption for electricity production would drop to just 17.6% of current levels. This would correspond to a 74% reduction in total coal use, and a 21% reduction in total gas use.

Factoring these reductions into U.S. CO2 production (same source as above), total emissions for the U.S. would drop from 5802 million metric tons to 3996 million metric tons. That's a 31% reduction in CO2 emissions without making a single change to how energy in the U.S. is consumed.

You've gone right back to cherry picking just a few snippets of the broad range of facts I presented in order to argue that the U.S. is the worst. Policy decisions need to be made based on broad general facts and statistics. It cannot be based on a narrow hatred for a nation or nations.

e.g. Say the U.S. were to adopt nuclear power to the extent France has (78% of its electricity from nuclear). About 90% of the U.S. coal use is for electricity generation, as is about 25% of its natural gas use (source). (Petroleum is also burned for electricity, but accounts for less than 3% of electricity production in the U.S.).

Nuclear currently accounts for 21% of U.S. electricity generation. If that were increased to 78% with hydro and renewable electricity generation held steady, coal and gas consumption for electricity production would drop to just 17.6% of current levels. This would correspond to a 74% reduction in total coal use, and a 21% reduction in total gas use.

Factoring these reductions into U.S. CO2 production (same source as above), total emissions for the U.S. would drop from 5802 million metric tons to 3996 million metric tons. That's a 31% reduction in CO2 emissions without making a single change to how energy in the U.S. is consumed.

Indeed. I've often wondered how many resources are used just to push usable energy around, and if there is in fact a benefit to having massively distributed power generation rather than massive power plants.

A pity you didn't just Look it up. Then you'd have known it was around 7% in the US and UK. Which yes, is fucking huge. In 2003 the total consumption of electricity in the US was 3,656 billion kilowatt-hours. you do the math...

FYI, Saudi Arabia is the 19th highest CO2 emitter in the world, but is not obligated under Kyoto to reduce emissions like the US would be, because it is a "developing nation." In fact, it's emissions grew by 40% from 1993 to 2003.

The threat is not really the Saudi or Iranian (I hope) governments killing us with nuclear bombs. The threat is either them losing a few and someone else killing us with them, or more likely, them all killing each other (the greenies who. It's been quietly discussed for quite a few years that if one country over there developed a nuclear weapons program, others may very well follow suit so they can at least hide behind M.A.D. It happened right after WWII with NATO and the USSR, and we went "holy crap" and stepped back a bit. It happened just a couple years ago in India, followed by Pakistan in short order, and they went "holy crap" and stepped back a bit. It happened in Israel in the 60's, but for the most part their neighbors didn't have the resources to follow suit immediately, and thank goodness when the Iraqis tried in 1986, the Israelis eliminated the concern. If that hornet's nest of sectarian and political tension we call the Middle East actually does follow through in the development of nuclear weapons, they might very easily say "jihad" instead of "holy crap."

• Nuclear. (France already supplies 80% of its energy needs using nuclear power...

In the USA, we get 20% of our energy from nuclear power plants. Also, the USA consumes more energy than all of Europe, combined. In 2003, the USA consumed almost ten times the energy that France did. We'd have to build another 515 nuclear power plants to get up to 100% of our non-transportation needs. That would result in an annual production of 432600Kg, or 476.85 tons, of highly radioactive waste. We're nowhere near that. That said, nuclear is probably our most practical option.

Ethanol

Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides. But let's say your company has discovered a way of converting solar energy to biodiesel that's more efficient than using photovoltaics or heat engines, and you can produce enough to provide enough for an average US car for a year on only 5 acres (half what it currently takes). That would mean dedicating 50% of the USA land area to growing sugar cane. Just for our cars. Yow.

• Solar
• Wind Power
• Geothermal
• Hydropower

Photovoltaics may be OK if you live in Texas, but it isn't very practical in Seattle.

Solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass together currently provide 2% of the electricity America consumes. Add hydroelectric to that, and you get close to 9%. This is non-transportation energy, if you're willing to discount the tiny fraction of electric-driven transportation used in the USA. The vast majority -- 75% -- is generated by burning fossil fuels.

• Natural gas
• Coal

The world has about 147 trillion cubic meters of recoverable natural gas reserves. The US alone consumes a bit over 22 trillion cubic feet per year -- that's about 623 billion m^3 per year, about 20% of our total electricity consumption. If it were providing 100% of our electricity, then that's about 3 trillion m^3 per year. If we, somehow, were able to get our hands on all of the world's natural gas, that'd last us about 50 years. Assuming that, when we run out of oil, we don't start using natural gas for cars, and that our current electricity consumption doesn't change. More practically, if we assume everybody else starts using natural gas and the consumption percentages don't change (we consume about 23% of the world's electricity), then it'll last us about 12 years.

Coal is much more difficult to calculate. Coal comes in four different types, of differing energy yield and difficulty of extraction. Coal is comparatively energy expensive to harvest. But ignoring that: there is about 1 trillion tons of accessible coal, and the US uses about 1 billion tons per year, providing around 50% of our electricity needs. If we got our hands on all of the coal and it were providing 100% of our electricity, we'd have about 500 years worth of coal. If we got 23% of the coal, we'd have about 115 years.

So, adding it up, the world can provide about 130 years worth of coal and gas to the USA, at today's useage. We can stretch that by using renewable resources, but keep in mind that this useage is non-transportation. In 1990, 35% of the US's total energy use was in the transportation sector, and that's going to come almost entirely from fossil fuels.

Note that I'm not saying that we have 130 years until we run out of coal and natural gas; I'm saying that if that were all that we were using, that's how long we'd have after the oil runs out. Considering that about 75% of our current energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, that does

• Nuclear. (France already supplies 80% of its energy needs using nuclear power...

In the USA, we get 20% of our energy from nuclear power plants. Also, the USA consumes more energy than all of Europe, combined. In 2003, the USA consumed almost ten times the energy that France did. We'd have to build another 515 nuclear power plants to get up to 100% of our non-transportation needs. That would result in an annual production of 432600Kg, or 476.85 tons, of highly radioactive waste. We're nowhere near that. That said, nuclear is probably our most practical option.

Ethanol

Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides. But let's say your company has discovered a way of converting solar energy to biodiesel that's more efficient than using photovoltaics or heat engines, and you can produce enough to provide enough for an average US car for a year on only 5 acres (half what it currently takes). That would mean dedicating 50% of the USA land area to growing sugar cane. Just for our cars. Yow.

• Solar
• Wind Power
• Geothermal
• Hydropower

Photovoltaics may be OK if you live in Texas, but it isn't very practical in Seattle.

Solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass together currently provide 2% of the electricity America consumes. Add hydroelectric to that, and you get close to 9%. This is non-transportation energy, if you're willing to discount the tiny fraction of electric-driven transportation used in the USA. The vast majority -- 75% -- is generated by burning fossil fuels.

• Natural gas
• Coal

The world has about 147 trillion cubic meters of recoverable natural gas reserves. The US alone consumes a bit over 22 trillion cubic feet per year -- that's about 623 billion m^3 per year, about 20% of our total electricity consumption. If it were providing 100% of our electricity, then that's about 3 trillion m^3 per year. If we, somehow, were able to get our hands on all of the world's natural gas, that'd last us about 50 years. Assuming that, when we run out of oil, we don't start using natural gas for cars, and that our current electricity consumption doesn't change. More practically, if we assume everybody else starts using natural gas and the consumption percentages don't change (we consume about 23% of the world's electricity), then it'll last us about 12 years.

Coal is much more difficult to calculate. Coal comes in four different types, of differing energy yield and difficulty of extraction. Coal is comparatively energy expensive to harvest. But ignoring that: there is about 1 trillion tons of accessible coal, and the US uses about 1 billion tons per year, providing around 50% of our electricity needs. If we got our hands on all of the coal and it were providing 100% of our electricity, we'd have about 500 years worth of coal. If we got 23% of the coal, we'd have about 115 years.

So, adding it up, the world can provide about 130 years worth of coal and gas to the USA, at today's useage. We can stretch that by using renewable resources, but keep in mind that this useage is non-transportation. In 1990, 35% of the US's total energy use was in the transportation sector, and that's going to come almost entirely from fossil fuels.

Note that I'm not saying that we have 130 years until we run out of coal and natural gas; I'm saying that if that were all that we were using, that's how long we'd have after the oil runs out. Considering that about 75% of our current energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, that does