Archives par mot-clé : Energy Transition

better to know...?, climate-debate

“No Bricks, No Glass, No Cement” – What Net Zero 2050 Demands According to Government-Funded Report

by . C. Morrison, Apr 29, 2023 in WUWT

No bricks, the walls and foundations made of compacted earth, cement made from clay and glass scavenged from demolition skips are just some of the construction changes needed to comply with Net Zero by 2050. The latest paper from Government-funded U.K. FIRES looks to “minimise new construction”, and notes the shape of the urban environment will change, allowing for “denser living and reduced transport needs”.

The latest U.K. FIRES paper seems to have slipped out quietly at the end of last year and has to date attracted little publicity. But the group, which comprises a number of academics led by Cambridge engineering professor Julian Allwood, made headlines around the world recently with previous work noting that all flying and shipping must stop by 2050, beef and lamb must be banned, and only 60% of energy will be available to cook food and heat homes. The group, which receives £5 million from Government sources,  is interesting because it bases its recommendations on the brutal, and many would argue honest, reality of absolute Net Zero. It does not assume that technological processes still to be perfected or even invented will somehow lead to minimal disturbance in comfortable industrialised lifestyles. It could be further argued that its continued existence and pronouncements are important, since they highlight the dishonesty and deceit that surrounds many other Net Zero promoters.

U.K. FIRES sees the future of construction based on stone, earth and timber, along with components “reused and repurposed” from demolition. Recycled steel, cement and bricks can be used, although this will be “constrained” – rationed might be a better word – by a supply of “non-emitting electricity under high demand”. Transformational construction changes will take longer to achieve, state the authors, but the U.K.’s ambitious target of a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030, “can only be achieved through reduced material demand”.

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energy and fields, minerals and ores

Australia warned of ‘over-mining’ risk in race to secure minerals needed for clean energy

by J. Barrett, May 3, 2023 in TheGuardian

 

better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

Claim: A Majority of Voters believe Climate Change is a False Religion

by E. Worrall, Mar 15, 2023 in WUWT

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But just maybe the tide is turning.

A lot of things have been going wrong for wind and solar fanatics lately. Biden, arguably the President with the greatest record of subsidizing unreliable wind and solar in America’s history, had his chance to bring down energy prices with his solar panels and wind turbines. Instead, he delivered the spectacle of the US Secretary of State crawling to the Saudis, begging for access to their oil, oil which could have been delivered by the Keystone Pipeline and other petroleum projects the Biden administration sabotaged.

In Britain and Germany – energy prices. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany has implausibly promised an energy miracle, but Britain and Europe have already waited a long time for the promised reward for all the hardship they have endured and the trillion Pounds and Euros spent over the last few decades.

The measures Britain and Germany have taken to avert catastrophe in the face of Russian gas supply disruption, and the utter failure of  the climate alarmist’s energy programmes to deliver, are beyond embarrassing. Germany is bulldozing villages, old growth forests, even a wind farm to dig up coal to avoid further deindustrialization caused by their maniacal reliance on intermittent wind and solar. Britain deferred decommissioning her decrepit coal plants. Just as well, Britain needed those coal plants again just last week.

In Australia, Prime Minister Albanese, who won on the promise of a substantial drop in energy prices, well that promise is now looking pretty shaky. Household energy prices are set to rise 20%, 30% next year?Who knows. What we do know, is it will be a lot – and the dirt cheap coal power which bring down prices is scheduled to be shut down.

With the promises of the climate religion wearing thin, and climate concern faltering in the face of mortgage stress and soaring energy bills, perhaps this Rasmussen poll is what it appears to be – an early indication of a sea change in public opinion concerning climate change and climate action.

energy and fields

World Energy: There Is No Energy Transition, Just Unreliable Energy Addition

by L. Weijers, Mar 12, 2023 WillemPost

As Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright explained in his viral video a few weeks ago, dishonest terminology surrounds the climate debate.  One of these terms is “Energy Transition”.

The term’s use gives the impression that there exists a quick, easy and scalable alternative to eliminate fossil fuel use without serious impact on people.

Current primary energy distribution, by source, and forecasts by organizations, such as the EIA in their International Energy Outlook 2021, show that this “energy transition” is non-existent.

SEE URL FOR A BETTER RESOLUTION GRAPH

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/12/there-is-no-energy-transitio…

Also see Liberty’s ESG report on Bettering Human Lives,

No present quantity of primary energy generated by oil or gas or coal is currently replaced by renewables. 

A couple of headlines from the Liberty report that you don’t hear a lot:

  • Global primary energy use is about to grow by almost 50% between 2020 – 2050, due to impoverished people rising from poverty;
  • Oil consumption rises in all EIA scenarios. In their “Reference Scenario”, oil consumption rises at about 1 million barrels of oil per year for the next 30 years, almost the same steady yearly increase of the last 5 decades;
  • Natural gas consumption will continue to growth through 2050.

The reason for this growth is simple: fossil fuels are abundant, cheap and efficient to provide reliable and dense energy at scale.

They have helped to generate a quality-of-life revolution for a portion of humanity, THE GOLDEN BILLION.

 people in poverty who have missed out on this blessing rightfully want what you and I already have.

Sadly, few entities report on this blessing we take for granted.

Good news about renewables is breaking records, however, much of it is bogus.

There are marketing strategies/ruses renewable advocates have used that make it appear as if renewables have a larger market share than in reality:

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better to know...?

Half The World At Risk Of Starvation Under Net Zero, Warn Top Climate Experts

by C. Morrisson, Mar 3, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertilizer derived from fossil fuels.

This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides “will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat.” [emphasis, links added]

They add that eliminating Net Zero fertilizer will create “worldwide starvation.”

In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emissions – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”.

The battle over nitrogen fertilizer is being hard fought by green activists who argue for massive reductions in its use and more organic methods to be mandated.

This can extend to fanaticism, as marked by the Guardian’s George Monbiot, who argues for an end to dependence on farming. The ground for less choice and food is also being prepared in academia.

Recently, three barking academics operating through the University of Leeds suggested World War II rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions.

Also harking back to the days of spam and when spivs controlled parts of the supply chain was the actress Joanna Lumley, who suggested a return to a points distribution system and a form of wartime rationing.

Back on Planet Reality, the authors publish the graph below showing a “remarkable” increase in crop yieldsafter the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer began around 1950.

The authors [point out that any present or future government actions that omit analysis of the disastrous consequences for low-income people, people worldwide, future generations, and the United States by reducing fossil fuels and CO2 for Net Zero are based on “fatally flawed science and appalling government policy.”]

Happer and Lindzen state that they are career physicists who have specialized in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades. These are said to be integral to atmospheric climate science. In their opinion, all Net Zero regulations are scientifically invalid.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Apocalyptic Versus Post-Apocalyptic Climate Politics

by J. Curry, Aug 11, 2022 in WUWT

From Climate Etc.

The Inflation Reduction Act that has passed in the US Senate contains a healthy dose of funding for energy and climate initiatives.  There is much discussion as to why this bill looks like it will pass, when previous climate bills (carbon tax, carbon cap and trade) failed.

The Senate bill includes billions of dollars in tax credits and subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles. In addition to renewable-energy funding, there is also commitment to federal oil and gas expansion, albeit with fines for excessive methane leakage. The bill includes climate resiliency funding for tribal governments and Native Hawaiians and other disadvantaged areas disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate warming. Funds are also allocated to tackle drought remediation in the West.

I’ve received requests to write on this topic, here are some bits and pieces that I’ve pulled together.  My main points:

  • Post-apocalyptic climate politics have a much better chance of succeeding than fear-driven apocalyptic climate politics
  • Energy policy should be detached from climate policy to make a robust transition to a 21st century energy system that emphasizes abundant, cheap, reliable and secure power with minimal impact on the environment (including land use).

Apocalyptic climate politics

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energy and fields

Mining Industry Warns Energy Transition Isn’t Sustainable

by I. Slav, Jul 03, 2022 in OilPrice

  • There is a glaring problem in the energy transition that not many people are acknowledging.

  • It is being built on the back of finite resources, and the mining industry is already warning that there aren’t enough metals for all the batteries the transition will require.

  • Because of the short supply, prices are on the rise, as are prices across commodity sectors.

    The energy transition has been set by politicians as the only way forward for human civilization. Not every country on the planet is on board with it, but those that are have the loudest voices. And even amid the fossil fuel crunch that is beginning to cripple economies, the transition remains a goal. It is no secret that the transition—at the scale its architects and most fervent proponents envisage it—would require massive amounts of metals and minerals. What does not get talked about so much is that most of these metals and minerals are already in short supply. And this is only the start of the transition problems.

    Mining industry executives have been warning that there is not enough copper, lithium, cobalt, or nickel for all the EV batteries that the transition would require. And they have not been the only ones, either. Even so, the European Union just this month went ahead and effectively banned the sales of cars with internal combustion engines from 2035.

    “Rare earth materials are fundamental building blocks and their applications are very wide across modern life,” a senior VP at MP Minerals, a rare-earth miner, told Fortune this month. He added that “one third of the demand in 2035 is not projected to be satisfied based on investments that are happening now.”

    Because of the short supply, prices are on the rise, as are prices across commodity sectors. According to a calculation by Barron’s, the price of a basket of EV battery metals that the service tracks has jumped by 50 percent over the past year as a result of various factors, including Western sanctions against Russia, which is a major supplier of such metals to Europe.

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energy and fields

The renewable energy policy Paradox

by J. Blazquez et al., Feb 2018 in ScienceDirect

Abstract

One major avenue for policymakers to meet climate targets is by decarbonizing the power sector, one component of which is raising the share of renewable energy sources (renewables) in electricity generation.

However, promoting renewables –in liberalized power markets– creates a paradox in that successful penetration of renewables could fall victim to its own success. With the current market architecture, future deployment of renewable energy will necessarily be more costly and less scalable. Moreover, transition towards a full 100% renewable electricity sector is unattainable. Paradoxically, in order for renewable technologies to continue growing their market share, they need to co-exist with fossil fuel technologies. Ignoring these findings can slow adoption and increase the costs of deploying new renewable technologies.

This paper spots the incompatibility between electricity liberalization and renewable policy, regardless of the country, location or renewable technologies. The Paradox holds as long as market clear prices with short term marginal costs, and renewable technology’s marginal cost is close to zero and not dispatchable.

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energy and fields

The Role Of Critical Minerals In The Clean Energy Transition

by P. Homewood, Nov 10, 2021 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Minerals are essential components in many of today’s rapidly growing clean energy technologies – from wind turbines and electricity networks to electric vehicles. Demand for these minerals will grow quickly as clean energy transitions gather pace. This new World Energy Outlook Special Report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the complex links between these minerals and the prospects for a secure, rapid transformation of the energy sector.
Alongside a wealth of detail on mineral demand prospects under different technology and policy assumptions, it examines whether today’s mineral investments can meet the needs of a swiftly changing energy sector. It considers the task ahead to promote responsible and sustainable development of mineral resources, and offers vital insights for policy makers, including six key IEA recommendations for a new, comprehensive approach to mineral security.

https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions

 

The salient points follow:

 

image

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Are governments able to deliver the energy transition?

by S. Furfari, Nov 16, 2020 in EuropeanScientist

On 4 December 2019, in her first Brussels press conference the newly appointed president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she will lead a ‘geopolitical Commission’. One year later, we are still waiting for some ‘geopolitical’ results. Indeed, it is rather a ‘green Commission’, as even the Covid crisis – though its cause is totally unrelated to energy – is used to reinforce the ‘energy transition’, wanted by the German Chancellor. In September 1999, arriving as president of the European Commission Mr Romano Prodi has been convinced that energy was not so important and that it did not deserve to be managed by an energy general directorate. It merged it with the transport energy directorate. What a difference twenty later: energy is now the centre of all interest, not for its own merits, but because it is at the centre of the climate change debate. But are politicians able to drive the vast, complex and multi-dependent energy system? Is their willingness’s able to master it effective?

Not surprisingly, this concept of ‘energy transition’ was invented in Germany in the early 1980s. In a book entitled ‘Energie-Wende, Wachstum und Wohlstand ohne Erdöl und Uran’ published in 1980, researchers from a German environmentalist organisation, the Öko-Institut, proposed to stop using oil and uranium. The simplified term ‘EnergieWende’ was quickly coined to refer to the fight against climate change and the abandonment of nuclear energy. Germany has firmly followed this track since the beginning of the 21st century, aiming at a radical change in its energy policy. The German population has also adhered to this concept because, after 40 years of green nuclear bashing, it has become widely opposed tonuclear energy.

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Figure 1Correlation of electricity price for dwellings with intermittent renewable electricity production
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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Great Energy Non-Transition

by B. Everett, Oct 15, 2020 in CO2Coalition

One of the troubling characteristics of today’s civic discourse is the tendency to confuse predictions with reality.  Nowhere is this problem more severe than in the debate over climate and its associated issues.

The last hundred years have seen increasing emissions of carbon dioxide – a benign gas.  In reality, this slight increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (from 0.03% in the nineteenth century to 0.04% today) has brought nothing but beneficial effects, including increased crop yields and greater drought resistance.  Nonetheless, climate alarmists argue that rising temperatures are bringing catastrophic storms, flooding, disease, inundation, extinction and general misery.  Unlike the benefits of CO2 which are clear and measurable, climate catastrophe remains nothing more than a prediction generated by computer models which have never produced meaningful forecasts of climate impacts.

A frequent corollary of climate alarmism is that the world has undertaken a radical transformation of the global energy system away from fossil fuels toward zero-carbon, renewable energy.  A Google search of the term “energy transition” yields over 5 million hits, many accompanied by terms such as “unstoppable” and “irreversible”.  But is this transition actually taking place? Three arguments are generally offered – none of them valid.

First, “energy transition” supporters point to the high growth rates for renewable energy sources with wind increasing at over 20% annually since 2000 and solar at over 40% per year, compared to less than 2% for fossil fuels.  Sounds great, but the absolute numbers tell a different story.  In 2019, despite forty years and trillions of dollars of subsidies, wind energy contributes about 2% of total global energy use and solar just over 1%.  Fossil fuels accounted for 84%, down just two percentage points over the last 20 years.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Green Energy: German Electricity Prices Skyrocket To Record Highs

by P. Gosselin & H. Douglas, Jan 27, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

For a long time, electricity prices have known only one direction: upwards! Ever faster, ever more clearly.

Now the shock for many families: The Federal Government has presented official figures in an answer to an inquiry from the FDP Free Democrats parliamentary group in the Bundestag and announced the true extent of the electricity price increase.

320 euros extra annually per household

In the past ten years, the price of electricity for households and industry has risen by a third.

According to the Augsburger Allgemeine, which quotes from the paper, the price of electricity rose by 35 percent between 2009 and 2019.

For a typical household with 4,000 kWh per year, this means 320 euros in additional costs for electricity alone.

This is even more than the various comparison websites had previously calculated.

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energy and fields, renewable energy

Transition énergétique : une régression sans précédent ?

par J.P. Bardinet, 16 janvier 2020 in Contrepoints

L ’éolien ne sert à rien et la politique gouvernementale, voulue par l’Union européenne, Emmanuel Macron et ses deux prédécesseurs, est néfaste pour notre pays.

Lors de son évolution, l’humanité a utilisé des énergies primaires avec des densités énergétiques de plus en plus fortes : bois, charbon, gaz, pétrole, uranium. La densité énergétique des énergies renouvelables (EnR), éolien et solaire, est très faible, ce qui est une régression sans précédent dans l’histoire de l’humanité.

Chiffres de production totale RTE 2018 : 548,6 TWh dont

  • nucléaire 71,7 %
  • thermique à combustible fossile 7,2 %
  • hydraulique 12,5 %
  • éolien 5,1 %
  • solaire 1,9 %
  • agroénergies 1,8 %

Le facteur de charge de l’éolien est de 21 % et celui du solaire de 13,6 %.

Ces EnR intermittentes ont de faibles facteurs de charge, ce sont donc des moyens de production peu efficaces, mais particulièrement onéreux.
L’Espagne et l’Allemagne en ont fait la douloureuse expérience.

Avant le développement des EnR intermittentes, nous exportions environ 10 % de notre production d’électricité. Nous pouvons donc nous demander pourquoi nos gouvernants, à la suite des Directives de la Commission européenne, ont imposé  manu militari ces EnR intermittentes alors qu’une politique de prolongation de la durée de vie des centrales nucléaires, un programme de construction de plusieurs EPR, et un financement approprié de la R&D sur la surgénération à uranium appauvri auraient été les meilleures options.

La filière des SMR (small size reactors) qui utilise la technologie des sous-marins nucléaires, serait également une piste à développer, car elle permettrait de produire de l’électricité à proximité des centres de consommation, rendant ainsi les pertes lors du transport quasiment nulles.

LE CO2 LOURDEMENT TAXÉ

Les politiques climat-énergie de notre pays et de la plupart de pays de l’UE sont basées sur l’hypothèse non prouvée que nos émissions de CO2 ont une action mesurable sur la température moyenne annuelle globale (TMAG) et sur le climat de notre planète.

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energy and fields

Energies du monde et perspectives d’un MIX 2050?

by E. Simon, 27 décembre 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

1/ Introduction

Face aux gesticulations de masses organisées contre les énergies fossiles et le CO2, dits nuisibles, nos amis logiciens examineront utilement la situation à l’échelle planétaire. Une situation où nos 500 millions d’habitants d’UE ne pèsent finalement que 1/15e de l’actuelle population mondiale !

Tâchons d’identifier des faits chiffrés, ils reflètent la vie réelle sur notre globe. Leurs ‘tendances lourdes’ y échappent à l’emprise des idéologues ! Si nos besoins capacitaires belges post-2025 provoquent déjà l’entrechoc d’avis entre la CREG (régulateur belge) et l’administration SPF (Energie, plus experts), il sera plus éclairant de raisonner dans une atmosphère sans frontières, à l’échelle planétaire. Là s’ajoutent les dimensions géopolitiques et divers facteurs de sensibilités culturelles. Les joutes de pouvoirs institutionnels y deviennent alors titanesques ! L’Union Européenne en restera-t-elle subordonnée aux thèses du GIEC et aux manoeuvres aux COP21 (… COP25) onusiennes ? Une thèse vaut ici : les 5 pays dits BRICS (ou Brésil/Russie/Inde/Chine/Afrique du Sud) et d’autres Etats ne suivront pas les dogmes prônés par l’ONU. Sa démonstration par l’absurde en est perceptible dans les faits. Explorons-la davantage ?

Cette note consacrée au MIX mondial passe en revue les points suivants :

• Où en sommes-nous (UE, monde) actuellement ?
• Vers où le reste du monde se dirige-t-il, à l’horizon planifié de 2040/2050 ?
• Trancher le noeud gordien des perspectives exige de chiffrer les + et les – !
• Combien cela coûtera-t-il à l’humanité (celle apte à le payer) ?
• En guise de conclusion, à ce stade …

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climate-debate, energy and fields

Claim: Russia will be Ruined by the Clean Energy Transition

by Eric Worall, June 29, 2019 in WUWT

According to Forbes, when renewable energy programmes like Germany’s Energiewende mature, demand for Russian fossil fuel will collapse.

World Energy Consumption. By Con-struct – BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Will Russia Survive The Coming Energy Transition?

Jun 27, 2019, 10:35am
Ariel Cohen Contributor

A new global energy reality is emerging. The era of the hydrocarbon – which propelled mankind through the second stage of the industrial revolution, beyond coal and into outer space – is drawing to a close. The stone age ended not because we ran out of stones. The same with oil and gas.

We have now entered the era of the renewable energy resource, whereby zero-emission electricity is generated via near unlimited inputs (solar radiation, wind, tides, hydrogen, and eventually, deuterium). Cutting-edge, smart electric grids, utility-scale storage, and electric self-driving vehicles – powered by everything from lithium-ion batteries to hydrogen fuel cells – are critical elements of this historic energy transition.
Each of these technological trends will displace demand for Russia’s primary source of budget revenues: fossil fuels.

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energy and fields

Weaning US power sector off fossil fuels would cost between $4.7tn and $10tn

by Reuters News Service, June 27, 2019 in CyprusMail

Eliminating fossil fuels from the U.S. power sector, a key goal of the “Green New Deal” backed by many Democratic presidential candidates, would cost $4.7 trillion and pose massive economic and social challenges, according to a report released on Thursday by energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.

That would amount to $35,000 per household, or nearly $2,000 a year for a 20-year plan, according to the study, which called the price tag for such a project “staggering.”

The report is one of the first independent cost estimates for what has become a key issue in the 2020 presidential election, with most Democrats proposing multi-trillion-dollar plans to eliminate U.S. carbon emissions economy-wide.

Front-runner Joe Biden’s plan to get to zero emissions, for example, carries a $1.7 trillion price tag, while Beto O’Rourke’s proposal comes in at $5 trillion. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the authors of the “Green New Deal,” a non-binding Congressional resolution, put the cost of a comprehensive climate solution at around $10 trillion.

Such ideas aim to tap into a growing sense of urgency about global warming on both sides of the political divide, but have been panned by President Donald Trump and many Republicans as being unfeasible, costly, and a threat to the economy.

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A power-generating wind turbine is seen in Saint-Laurent-Des-Eaux near Orleans, France

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climate-debate, energy and fields, renewable energy

German Employer’s Association Op Ed: “No Expert Politician In Berlin Believes In Switch To Green Energies Any More”

by P. Gosselin, May 14, 2019 in NoTricksZone

As the pressure mounts in Germany to switch off coal power plants and to rapidly transition over to green energies, one gets the feeling that it all has more to do with a desperate, last-ditch effort by the green energy proponents to rescue their pet green project.

Behind closed doors, no one in Berlin believes in it

Now, just days ago, energy expert Dr. Björn Peters wrote at the German Association of Employers site that the Energiewende has deteriorated to the point that: “No specialist politician in Berlin believes in the success of the Energiewende any more. Whoever you ask, everyone says this only behind closed doors and thinks that if you go to the press with it you can only lose against the ‘green’ media mainstream.”

Peters warns that what is needed in Germany is a good dose of reality and “a fresh start on energy policy.”

Advantages of fossil fuels “too great”

The German expert writes that despite the hundreds of billions of euros committed to green energies, “chemical energy from coal, oil and gas supplies about four fifths of primary energy worldwide and also in Germany and thus represents the present energy supply”.

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energy and fields

Transition énergétique : et le grand gagnant est… le gaz !

by Michel Gay, 3 mai 2019 in Contrepoints

C’est le gaz, bien plus que les énergies renouvelables, qui répond à la hausse de la consommation mondiale d’énergie. Cette dernière a augmenté de 2,3 % en 2018 selon un rapport de l’Agence internationale de l’énergie (AIE) publié mardi 26 mars 2019 qui souligne « une performance exceptionnelle »…

Le marché du gaz naturel, auparavant limité par les possibilités des gazoducs, se mondialise rapidement avec des bateaux transportant du gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) à travers le monde.

L ’ÂGE D’OR DU GAZ NATUREL (INCLUANT LE GAZ DE SCHISTE)

L’Association allemande des industries de l’énergie et de l’eau (BDEW) a mis en garde sur l’écart en Allemagne entre la capacité de production classique (pilotable) d’électricité (nucléaire, charbon et gaz) et la demande d’ici 2023. Elle a exhorté les décideurs politiques à aider les investisseurs en récompensant les nouvelles capacités pilotables de production d’électricité, notamment le gaz.

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better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

La transition énergétique, inutile, dispendieuse, injuste

by Rémy Prud’hommme, 22 février 2019 in ClimatoRéalistes

INTRODUCTION
Le paysage énergétique du globe et de la France a peu changé durant les siècles antérieurs au 19ème siècle. Napoléon et César se déplaçaient, s’éclairaient, se chauffaient, s’habillaient à peu près de la même façon. Depuis le début du 19ème siècle, en revanche, ce paysage change rapidement et radicalement. Les énergies traditionnelles (hommes, animaux, vent, eau) ont été presque éliminées, et remplacées par des énergies nouvelles (charbon, pétrole, électricité, nucléaire). Dans le domaine des transports, par exemple, la marche à pied, le cheval et le bateau à voile ont été supplantés par le chemin de fer, puis l’automobile, puis l’avion, et par le bateau à moteur. Ces changements ont largement contribués à l’extraordinaire amélioration du niveau de vie enregistrée au cours des deux derniers siècles, dans les pays dits développés d’abord, puis, depuis un demi-siècle dans les pays dits en développement.

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energy and fields

Les limites des lois de la physique dans la transition énergétique

by Alain Préat, 17 octobre 2018, in ScienceClimatEnergie

Bertrand Cassoret a récemment publié un excellent ouvrage [1] sur le sujet. Cet auteur est ingénieur et docteur en génie électrique et s’est lancé sans a priori dans le dédale des ‘promesses’ des énergies vertes en tentant de préciser ce qu’il en est à partir d’une quantification rigoureuse des rendements énergétiques réels. Pourquoi ‘réels’ ? Simplement parce qu’il faut débusquer tout ce qui n’est pas mis en avant (principalement pertes énergétiques cachées) et surtout mettre à plat les ordres de grandeurs du monde de l’énergie. Sa conclusion sera sans appel « même si l’efficacité énergétique est utile et même indispensable, elle ne sera pas suffisante… il est nécessaire de modifier l’usage que l’on fait des appareils consommateurs ». Autre conclusion sans appel « mon objectif n’est pas de critiquer les énergies renouvelables, ni les nécessaires mesures d’efficacité, mais plutôt de montrer qu’elles pèsent bien peu face à l’ampleur des problèmes ».

…Figure 1 : Image du trafic aérien du 29/06/2018 par le site    FlightRadar24 (©Filght Radar14) [4]

climate-debate, energy and fields

“There Has Never Been An Energy Transition”

by David Middleton, September 20, 2018T in WUWT

One of my favorite sayings is, “We didn’t leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones.”  Technically we never left the Stone Age because we use more rocks now than we did in the Stone Age.

And we never left the “Wood Age.”  There was no energy transition from biomass (wood) to fossil fuels. Coal piled on top of biomass, oil piled on top of coal and natural gas piled on top of oil

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