wind

All man-made alterations to the landscape - forests, prairies, countryside, suburban, and urban areas change the local climate - surface and air temperature, range of max and minimum daily temperatures, humidity, clouds, hydrology, and vegetation.

One thing that mankind does not significantly cause is supposed catastrophic, anthropogenic, planet-wide global warming. The sun is by far the main source of warming planet Earth, not infrared excited CO2 molecules at tiny concentrations.

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.

Vijay Jayaraj, Climate Scientist, Contributor to Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation: Wind factories surround my hometown of Chennai, India, and our industries suffer severe losses due to the damage caused by the unstable, intermittent electricity they produce. The claim that wind energy is clean and green is a myth to environmentalists like me who have witnessed its devastating effects firsthand. If you do not raise your voice against the daylight murder of birds in your own backyards, it will be too late to save many species of birds. Before you save the planet, save your own birds.

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.

Vijay Jayaraj, M.Sc. Environmental Science. Research Associate for Developing Countries for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation: In India, record coal production helped the country achieve surplus energy (2017) for the first time in its history. To put it in simple words, wind and solar made no significant contribution to global energy production. They have never done so.

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.

Bonne Posma, engineer, Founder and CEO, Saminco (USA) specializing in electric propulsion systems for off-road vehicles and underground mining conveyances with operations in China, South Africa and USA, principal shareholder in Liquid Coal, Inc. (USA). Comments by John Droz, physicist, Jon Boone, wind energy expert, Eric Jelinski nuclear and wind energy expert: Newly elected leaders in South Africa are changing the energy plan now aiming to use massive amounts of wind and solar energy instead of additional nuclear power. South Africa is unique in the world in having outstanding experience with nuclear power and production of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine. it has some of the world's top experts in nuclear energy. This paper discusses the technical consequences of using wind and solar instead of nuclear. South Africa will squander the expertise they have that can help all of Africa. Political and business lobbying with elected officials will have terrible consequences, when elected officials don't care to understand the technologies they are deciding on.

Michael Shellenberger, Founder - President of Environmental Progress: We are writing as scientists, scholars, and concerned citizens to warn you of a persistent anti-nuclear bias in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on keeping global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.