Via Energy Bad Boys – By Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling: It might come as a shock to lawmakers like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but nearly all the energy used by humans until a few hundred years ago was renewable, and life was not a utopian heaven on Earth. The graph nearby shows the amount of energy used by humans from 1800 through the present. In 1800, humanity used 452 times less energy than humans in 2019, and nearly all of it came from biomass. The “Low Energy” world humans lived in was no paradise. Average life expectancies were less than 40 years. In Germany, every second child died. People’s statures were shorter because poor nutrition and illness limited human growth. Life was indeed nasty, brutish, and short, and it remained this way until humans began using coal at scale in the 1800s.
Wind as an energy source had first been used for sailboats in Mesopotamia. Until the first windmills were invented by the Persians to grind grain and pump water between 500 and 900 A.D., wind energy was primarily used for transportation. Windmills became widespread in Europe in the 17th century, and approximately 200,000 windmills operated at the peak of the technology. Of course, the disadvantages of wind we experience today were still present back then. Because wind power cannot be stored, it was used primarily to mill grain into flour, pump water into livestock tanks, and saw lumber into boards.
In fact, because wind energy was dependent on the weather and wasn’t reliable, horses were used as “backup” sources of power for milling grain during calm stretches in Europe, similar to how natural gas power plants “back up” wind turbines for generating electricity when the wind isn’t blowing on modern electricity grids. …
While each of the “renewable” energy sources above increased the human standard of living, they also had limited availability and reliability. It was the discovery and widespread use of coal that enabled humans to access vast supplies of reliable energy on demand and perform more work than ever before dreamed. This energy powered the industrial revolution.
The widespread use of oil for lighting was short-lived, however, because, in 1882, Thomas Edison built his first commercial electricity plant, ushering in the era of electricity. When it comes to energy, nothing is as powerful, versatile, safe, easy to use, or clean as electricity. …
Unlike other forms of energy, electricity is not a primary source of energy by itself. Instead, electricity is a secondary source of energy that must be generated by converting primary energy sources (such as coal, natural gas, oil, uranium, water, solar, or wind energy) into electric power.
Wind and solar don’t produce much power because they are unreliable and the exact opposite of energy-dense, requiring vast buildouts to produce only a small amount of electricity. As a result, they have an exceedingly low energy return on investment (EROI). …
In fact, if all the electricity you used for 70 years was generated at nuclear facilities, the amount of uranium used would fit inside a soda can. The high energy density of uranium is why nuclear power has the potential to someday generate electricity at a lower cost than fossil fuels and is why it is most likely the future of electricity generation. Unlike wind and solar, it produces carbon-dioxide-free electricity around the clock, so a grid powered by nuclear power won’t experience California-style blackouts.
https://www.cfact.org/2024/09/09/trump-has-a-plan-to-fix-the-electricity-grid-increase-supply/ By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. Citing the need for more electricity to continue growing the artificial intelligence (AI) sector and keep the U.S. tech industry ahead of China, former President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 vowed in a second term to issue a “national emergency declaration to achieve a massive increase in domestic energy supply.” But […]
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/drill_baby_drill_63_of_battleground_state_voters_want_more_fossil_fuels Despite concerns about climate change, increased domestic oil and gas production is favored by a majority of voters in key “battleground” states in this year’s presidential election. A new telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute finds that 63% of Likely Voters in six battleground states would support a law that would […]
Bjorn Lomborg: ” The US produces mostly fossil fuel energy (84%). Solar and wind make up just 2.2% of all energy (not just electricity). Over the past decade, solar and wind increased total energy production by 2.1%. Fossil fuels increased energy production by 27.9%.
The US is mostly run on fossil fuels, also in 2023. 82% of all energy (not just electricity) consumed comes from coal, oil and gas. Nuclear is 9%, renewables (mostly biomass) is 9%. Solar and wind contributes 2.5%.
The US, has since 2019, produced more energy than it consumes. And it has never been more energy-independent since WWII. Last time of small energy surpluses was 1957.”
China is the coal furnace of the world, and everyone is fine with that By Jo Nova Even though India now consumes more than Europe and the US combined, there is really only one coal consumer. Just to update those figures… Remember you are a planet-wrecker, but China just has growing pains China burns four times as […]
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/07/not-transitioning-india-burns-more-coal-than-the-us-and-europe-combined-and-just-ordered-33b-in-new-coal-plants/ By Jo Nova India is going gangbusters building coalThe need for energy in India is so dire, the Modi government just leaned on the power companies to get their act together. Instead of adding the usual 1 – 2 gigawatts of new coal power, which they have for a lot of the last decade, […]
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/06/26/stephen-moore-climate-change-movement-goes-to-court-will-judges-ban-fossil-fuels-1468223/ By Stephen Moore Things aren’t going well at all for the global warming crusaders. Despite hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on green energy over the past decade, the world and America used more fossil fuels than ever before in history last year. The electric vehicle movement is stalled out, solar and wind […]
Washington Post: “The voracious electricity consumption of artificial intelligence is driving an expansion of fossil fuel use — including delaying the retirement of some coal-fired plants. …
Tech companies had promised “clean energy would be this magical, infinite resource,” said Tamara Kneese, a project director at the nonprofit Data & Society, which tracks the effect of AI and accuses the tech industry of using “fuzzy math” in its climate claims. “Coal plants are being reinvigorated because of the AI boom,” Kneese said. “This should be alarming to anyone who cares about the environment.” … Data centers, the nondescript warehouses packed with racks of servers that power the modern internet, have been around for decades. But the amount of electricity they need now is soaring because of AI. … A ChatGPT-powered search, according to the International Energy Agency, consumes almost 10 times the amount of electricity as a search on Google.
