Last edited Tue Aug 9, 2016, 10:13 AM - Edit history (1)

You write, "The world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy is nuclear energy."

When you write "primary energy" you do so in order to use an irrelevant measure that creates the false impression that nuclear derived energy is anything but a trivial contributor to global energy use.

The graphic below is from 2014. It excludes the energy embodied in fuels that is wasted as heat during the process of generating electricity. Primary energy is the energy embodied in a fuel and includes an accounting of the wasted energy. So, in point of fact, most of the energy from nuclear power (70%+?) is expelled as heat and is actually a contributor to the warming of the planet.

Final energy or energy consumed is a far more revealing metric.

“On our wind and solar numbers, emissions in IEA scenarios could peak as early as c.2020, rather than 2030.”

It doesn't matter how many of my neighbors have put solar panels on their roofs.

The sun is shining here now, past noon, fog cleared, so I'm guessing this post from my little chromebook and dsl modem is solar powered, courtesy of my self-righteous neighbors whose credit ratings are not in the toilet. (My own credit rating is in the toilet owing to various medical misadventures, and I don't use much electricity as it is, so the solar-selling guys driving their white gasoline powered vans are definitely not interested...)

When the sun's not shining our house power is "natural" gas all the way. "Natural" my ass. There's nothing good or natural about gas. It's not even better than coal when it's fracked.

How do you propose we change that?

The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels. Has anyone posting here in E/E quit fossil fuels?

A fully "renewable energy" or "nuclear energy" society would look nothing like our current high-energy fossil-fueled society.

I can quit using electricity any time I like. All I have to do is quit paying the electric bill. The new smart meters allow the electric company to shut off my power remotely. They don't even have to send a guy out anymore.

I can quit driving too. All I have to do is quit buying gasoline. My car won't run without gasoline.

I'll confess, I'm not in the market for whatever it is you are selling, Kristopher, I don't have any extra dollars sloshing around.

Once upon a time I was living in a shack in a crazy Vietnam war vet's backyard. I rode my bike wherever I needed to go. I used trivial amounts of electricity lighting the shack, connected to the house with a 16 gauge extension cord. That, today, is higher than the basic standard of living for billions of people.

Those of us now living as one-percenters don't know shit. I'm a one percenter, and so it seems are you.

We humans will survive this global warming catastrophe, and it will mostly be those now living in poverty surviving, but only because there are so many people living in poverty.

If I'm selling anything then it's education and empowerment, especially for women, and planned parenthood for all. (I'm a radical Social Justice Catholic heretic who hasn't been expelled from the church yet.)

Alternative energy schemes, solar wind or nuclear, will not magically make the world a better place. Unless fossil fuels are simply banned, then renewable and nuclear energy schemes will merely be supplemental. The truth of that is measured at Mana Loa.

Knowing that climate change catastrophe is upon us doesn't make me a "doomer" and it doesn't turn me into any kind of backwoods survivalist. I'm an perverse optimist, I think we can still crash land this world civilization gracefully. But I'm not interested in false hopes.

The only way most of us this civilization survives is by establishing robust local communities and a peaceful world. The gadgets -- solar, wind, or nuclear power -- simply don't matter.

...included in previous posts along these lines.

Here goes:

There have been 2114 of these weekly data points collected comparing the levels with those of the previous year, with the July 2016 figure, 5.04 ppm being the worst ever observed.

Seventeen recorded data points exceeded 4.00 ppm. Ten of them occurred in 2016.

Of the 10 worst such data points recorded for week to week comparisons of previous years, six of the worst 10 have occurred in 2016.

Sixteen of the worst 30 have been recorded in the last 5 years, 19 of the worst 30 have been recorded in the last 10 years. Fourteen of the worst 30 occurred in 2016.

Twenty-two of the worst 30 occurred in the 21st century.

The average of all these data points recorded since 1975 is 1.76 ppm; the average for the 20th century was 1.54 ppm; for the 21st century, it is 2.09 ppm, for 2015 - the worst year ever recorded - it was 2.25 ppm. For 2016, the average is now 3.59 ppm. Over the last 4 weeks the average is 3.42 ppm.

Since Japan shut it's nuclear reactors to see if they're "safe" after Fukushima - and replaced the power with that generated in dangerous fossil fueled plants which kill people whenever they operate and not just in accident situations - the average increase is 2.34 ppm.

If any of this bothers you, don't worry, be happy.

Joe Romm is here to tell us that solar prices are dropping!!!!!

The fact that he's been saying the same damned thing for more than 25 years, since he was a babe in swaddling clothes sitting on the knee of the equally delusional Amory Lovins, doesn't count, just as the fact that no matter what the dropping!!!!! price of solar cells are, they remain a trivial source of energy, even more trivial than wind, the entire industry which cannot even match the growth of dangerous natural gas use also doesn't matter. Even if it's the greatest thing ever, the cheapest thing ever, cheaper than air, water or road salt, no one seems to be using it, at least on any scale that matters.

Here's what matters:

It's the thought that counts, not results.

As Joe Romm, tiresome fool, loves to point out, the means outweigh the end. Who gives a rat's ass if we surge up to 450 ppm in the next 15 years? Solar energy is grrrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaat.

In any case, since 2015 was so bad, and 2016 is sure to be even worse, I can no longer make my favorite Joe Romm joke, which involved stating that when Joe Romm was running the EPA's climate office (1998), we had the highest surge in carbon dioxide ever recorded.

He no longer has any kind of official position beyond mumbling idiotic crap on his website for the faithful, and that, of course, is for the better, although, that said, we can see he - and is equally mindless pals - had their way, and the signature is written in the atmosphere.

Again, we will never again see a reading at Mauna Loa lower than 400 ppm.

Since we signed off on this delusional wishful thinking crap, we deserve what we are getting.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

Life goes on as usual for the affluent guy with solar panels on his roof and a brand new "green" hybrid SUV in his garage. Solar guy's future' is so bright he's got to wear shades. The song got it wrong. It wasn't nuclear science, it was selling solar.

Meanwhile, for every affluent solar guy there are hundreds of people living in poverty, people who have just about the smallest environmental footprint imaginable, people who couldn't reliably keep a cell phone charged, who are suffering and DYING from fossil fuel wastes in earth's air and water, from rising seas, and from increasingly violent weather extremes.

wind energy, with no result, this on a planet where two billion people lack access to even primitive sanitary facilities.

Our indifference is appalling.