solar

We are currently living in a time of never-before abundance of energy and all kinds of niceties, suggests Vaclav Smil in his new book, "How the World Really Works." Modern humans are animals, products of evolution like any other, and yet we noticeably do not spend every minute of every day struggling to get the material required to survive. Instead, we build cathedrals and watch football, we make art, we waste time on Twitter. That is because we live on the gigantic, blessing of our fossil fuel inheritance. We can’t do without them, and there’s no easy carbon-free alternative way of making them.

Most of us don’t realise how that energy is actually used. A large percentage, for instance, is used to create four materials which are the building blocks of modern society – materials which are so ubiquitous that we barely notice them, even as we depend on them. These four basic pillars of human civilisation as steel, cement, plastic and ammonia. We can’t do without them, and there’s no easy carbon-free alternative way of making them.

This is a hugely important and very timely book. At a time when thinkers in the developed world are split between environmental catastrophism and unbridled techno-optimism, here is a firmly grounded analysis of the present day, informed by the previous history that got us here, and the likely short-term future.

Most of what we hear and read about today by way of prognostications and nostrums for the future will simply not come to pass. The complexity and inertia of the systems of the modern world – energy acquisition and use, food production, materials requirements for contemporary living – place strong constraints on the pace of change in any preferred direction. This is true even if all the world leaders should agree to move in any particular direction, say on a net-zero global economy by 2050, with a global command economy.

Clinton Crackel, Co-Founder, Nuclear Fuels Reprocessing Coalition: According to the EIA, as of 2017 in the U.S., nuclear power on the utility scale has the highest average capacity factor (reliability, also stated as CF) of 92%, while geothermal is rated at 76.4% and coal is rated at 53.5%. The optimum CFs for wind, solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) are 36.7%, 27% and 21.8%, respectively.

Vagisha Nidhi, Lecturer, Department of Nuclear Science & Technology, Mody University of Science & Technology, India: This PowerPoint Presentation is for education about things related to nuclear energy, nuclear medicine and nuclear science in India.

By the year 2032, Irish and European historians will wonder as to how the Western World in the early 2020’s unquestioningly believed that there was an “existential climate emergency”, predicated on exaggerated IPCC models and unbalanced media myopia.

They will also wonder how the associated costly drive towards intermittent renewables did not take into account the fundamental electrical engineering imperative of maintaining power grid reliability, in the then absence of any viable grid-scale storage technology.

Jonathan Lesser, Economist, President, Continental Economics: Nuclear power provides valuable benefits. It is highly reliable, emissions-free, and offers far greater power densities than renewable resources. It has proved its value in extreme weather events, when fossil-fuel generation has been unable to deliver because of supply constraints and operational issues. It also provides additional diversity, which can reduce the adverse impacts of fuel price shocks. At this time, the best hope for the nuclear industry appears to be SMR technology.

Michael Shellenberger, Environmental Progress: This presents video talks by Michael Shellenberger, Founder - President of Environmental Progress. EP focuses on realistic, practical energy equality for people around the world as well as improving/protecting the environment through better living for people, better practices in all areas of the food industry, manufacturing, harvesting from oceans, preservation of wildlife habitat and wilderness. A significant strength of Environmental Progress is that they look for areas where their assumptions and policies can be improved and acknowledge mistakes. Many organizations settle on policies without being open to better ideas.

Paul Driessen Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow: Demands that the world replace fossil fuels with wind, solar and biofuel energy – to prevent supposed catastrophes caused by man-made global warming and climate change – ignore three fundamental flaws. 1) In the Real World the unprecedented warming and disasters are simply not happening: not with temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather or other alleged problems. 2) The process of convicting oil, gas, coal and carbon dioxide emissions of climate cataclysms has been unscientific and disingenuous. 3) Renewable energy proponents pay little or no attention to the land and raw material requirements, and associated environmental impacts, of wind, solar and biofuel programs.