The 2022 World Energy Outlook: World demand is now 624 EJ/yr. up by 32 EJ, with solar growing...
...in the "percent" talk" advocates of so called "renewable energy" use to excuse it's grotesque failure to address climate change, 0% as fast as coal, the use of which grew by 8 Exajoules (EJ).
After the expenditure of trillions of dollars on it in this century, the solar industry produced 5 EJ of energy, the same as it produced in 2021. The wind industry grew by by an astounding 16%, from 6 EJ to 7 EJ, in more "percent talk," 12.5% as fast as coal.
Combined, solar and wind, after half a century of wild cheering, the expenditures of trillions of dollars in this century, and inclusion in all the "stated policies" soothsaying by Governments around the world, are producing 11 EJ of energy, in "percent talk," 1.7% of world energy. (The soothsaying continues, as will be clear in the following table, a new world State Religion, the "Renewable Energy Will Save Us" faith.)
The use of dangerous petroleum grew by 11 EJ, that of dangerous natural gas by 7 EJ. In other words, the increase in the use of dangerous natural gas was equal to the total energy produced by solar and wind after half a century of cheering and the expenditure of trillions of dollars.
The table of data, found on page 435, of the 2022 IEA World Energy Outlook
Source: 2022 IEA World Energy Outlook
I had an English professor in college who stated that what one reads depends on what one brings to the text.
If one reads through this table this without weeping, one isn't really reading it.
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For convenience, I'll repost the data and soothsaying from the 2022 edition:
Here is the equivalent file for the 2000 edition, which used the unfortunate unit, MTOE (million tons oil equivalent):
I built a spreadsheet to convert MTOE into SI units, Exajoules (EJ).
So called "modern biomass" appears in the 2022 edition, "modern solid biomass" consists of clear cutting/strip mining forests, as is practiced by, among other places, the horrible DRAX coal plant in the UK which is now considered "renewable" and "green" because it burns North American forests in lieu of coal. It is obvious that the so called "renewable energy" listed in the 2022 edition is dominated by strip mining forests, dumping phosphates and nitrates on the soil, and destroying rivers. In the "percent talk" utilized by anti-nuke "renewables will save us" types, 75.7% of so called "renewable energy" depends on phosphate mining, the Haber-Bosch fossil fuel driven production of nitrogen, and strip mining forests.
In the 2000 edition, biomass was not discussed in the main tables, but was separately discussed in other tables. This was called "CRW" "Combustible Renewables and Waste," where "waste" referred to burning garbage.
Here is the table referring to it.
It is of some historical interest, that "CRW" was then considered as mostly relevant to the so called "third world," which at that time still included China, apparently. The people relying on "CRW" were all living in a "renewable energy" nirvana of the type that the first world abandoned in the 19th century, albeit at the Faustian bargain (that in their defense they were incapable of understanding, with the exception of Arrhenius) of burning dangerous fossil fuels and dumping the waste into the atmosphere. In 2000, these people living in the "renewable energy" nirvana to which all our anti-nukes would like us to return, were considered "impoverished."
For simplicity, let me put the "pie chart" in the 2000 WEO up showing predicted decreasing reliance in "percent talk" on "CRW" which them included both "traditional biomass" (mostly involving horribly impoverished people and a few westerners with wood stoves and "commercial" CRW, shit like burning garbage and (now) strip mining forests for the three card monte marketing campaign like that at DRAX:
In 1997 - the year to which the 2000 edition referred since accounting was slower - 461 MTOE translates into 19.3 EJ. The soothsaying back then predicted 939 EJ, lower in "percent talk" but larger in real numbers, which translates into 38.6 EJ. The DRAX type schemes, coupled slash and burn approaches to converting rain forest wilderness into palm oil plantations and destroying the Mississippi River Delta ecosystem with run off from Iowa ethanol feedstock, combined with hydro to reach 50 EJ by 2022, with the caveat that this may be the result of the widespread internet driven and marketing driven distribution of popular ignorance. Ignorance is on the rise and becoming ascendent. In 2020 hydro produced 16 EJ, as opposed to the 12 EJ predicted, probably driven by dubious "successes" like the possibly very dangerous and environmentally questionable Three Gorges Dam.
The 2000 WEO predicted nuclear energy to decline because of the announcements by Putin employee - then German Chancellor - Gerhardt Schroeder that Germany would "phase out" nuclear energy, which it did, killing people in the process.
Happily, nuclear energy is showing a slight growth, driven again, largely by China, where they know how to build nuclear reactors quickly and regularly, something that we used to know about, having built more than 100 nuclear reactors between 1960 and 1985, but suffered, because of popular fear and ignorance driven by the selective attention of anti-nukes, the destruction of our nuclear construction infrastructure. The "lesson" of Vogtle that we should take is that we need to reconstruct this infrastructure, and do so quickly, ignoring the fucking idiots who carry on about "cost" of nuclear energy, and have zero interest in the cost of climate change, and the enormous death toll from air pollution that they tacitly endorse.
Note that "traditional biomass" - generally a reflection of poverty, which our antinukes tacitly applaud - has risen; this delineates how little we have done to address poverty, how little we care about it.
I personally believe that it is possible to do both, to address poverty as well as to save what is left to be saved, and perhaps even restore what might be restored, but that is only possible with the worldwide embrace of nuclear energy.
If, as the 2022 edition of the WEO predicts in its soothsaying, nuclear energy is producing only 46 exajoules of energy, not much of the planet will be left to save.
As for the predictions of hydro, to which you kindly referred, that's clearly nonsense. All of the world's major river systems, many dependent on glaciers - including Three Gorges - showed dramatic signs of collapse in 2022, driven by the failure of the so called "renewable energy" fantasy to address climate change. The age of hydroelectricity will come to an end in this century, largely because of climate change.
Thanks for your comment.
