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The World's Astonishing Dependence On Fossil Fuels Hasn't Changed In 40 Years (qz.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Quartz, adding: "Maybe 'dependence' is a poor description of poor people using the ready availability of cheap energy to help lift themselves out of poverty": There are few ways to understand why. First, most of the world's clean-energy sources are used to generate electricity. But electricity forms only 25% of the world's energy consumption. Second, as the rich world moved towards a cleaner energy mix, much of the poor world was just starting to gain access to modern forms of energy. Inevitably, they chose the cheapest option, which was and remains fossil fuels. So yes, we're using much more clean energy than we used to. But the world's energy demand has grown so steeply that we're also using a lot more fossil fuels than in the past.
Unchanged maybe not. Deepened, I suspect. Setting aside the use of oil as a fuel, the production of plastics and so many other materials that are oil or gas based is almost universal. I look around the office I'm sitting in, almost every surface is covered in plastic or other synthetic material. If all types of fossil fuel disappeared tomorrow, I think this would have more of an impact that the loss of an energy source.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
I recently saw a documentary by the British Coal Board, made in late sixties or so. Their economist went on to explain that the difference between "this" (pictures of Western developed industry manufacturing big things like ships) and "that" (pictures of developing world poor, surviving by making stuff with their bare hands) was ENERGY, and LOTS OF IT.
Then they went on to explain that although nuclear had a lot of promise, it wasn't here yet, for various reasons they did not appear to want to dwell on, and that therefore coal would remain the heart of industry.
I now nobody likes nuclear, and nobody likes consumerism, and we all want a quiet life in the countryside, until we need a hospital and emergency chopper ride, but essentially, there seems to be only one choice, between two kinds of energy:
1. coal, oil, gas, wind, solar
2. nuclear
And the world keeps often choosing option 1.
Which must be to the delight of all those vested interests in the oil and gas (and somewhat lesser extent coal) industries.
Unchanged maybe not. Deepened, I suspect. Setting aside the use of oil as a fuel, the production of plastics and so many other materials that are oil or gas based is almost universal. I look around the office I'm sitting in, almost every surface is covered in plastic or other synthetic material. If all types of fossil fuel disappeared tomorrow, I think this would have more of an impact that the loss of an energy source.
Yes, you are right. However that's actually part of the reason why the dependence on fossil fuel and single use plastic is hugely dangerous. Although we will probably never "run out" completely of fossil fuels sources, as we use more and more we not only damage the health of the poor and the environment they live in (the rich can always buy up the few places that remain comfortable) but we also increase the long term costs of valuable plastic materials which is damaging for everyone.
We should compare things like micro-hydro power with fossil fuels. Micro hydro provides a locally available, maintainable power source which the poor can rely on and which has limited negative impact on their local environment (especially compared to fossil fuels and large scale hydro, both of which can be terrible). Fossil fuels put the poor at the mercy of global markets, disappearing and becoming more expensive every time there is a war or the wrong kind of financial crisis.
The same doesn't apply to long term multi-use plastic items. I have plastic handled tools that are well over 40 years old. They have a nicer shape than the wooden tools and allow me to work more efficiently, however if the plastic version wasn't available and cheaper then the wooden version would work as a substitute. The dependency here is much more positive than dependency on fuel.
Electric cars are nice and all, but they do require a supporting grid to recharge from. They're going to help in developed countries for sure. But will that offset the growth in poorer countries that just don't have the infrastructure?
EVs can actually provide infrastructure, if they have enough battery. You can charge it up in town during the day (while the sun is shining) and then drive it home and use it to power your house.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Did you *read* any of that before you linked to it? Did you pay any attention to WHO was making those ridiculous claims? Don't tell me you read Kevin Steinberger's claims like 40% of Texas energy production is wind and actually *believed* that. Try 3%. Texas DOES produce more wind energy than any other state, but it's a tiny fraction of what we produce. When it's hot, and therefore not windy, we average only about 6 megawatts - the same days we need our air conditioning.
If you click on the About Us page there on the NRDC web site you'll see how they describe themselves:
Even by environmentalist standards, this is a relentless group
Like the National Inquirer, they fail to explicitly state "this is satire and shouldn't be confused with anything real". The Onion is a better source in that respect.