The Crazy Scale of Human Carbon Emissions

Current data (from direct measurements of the atmosphere to historical records of industry) tells us that between 1751 and 1987 fossil fuels put about 737 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Between just 1987 and 2014 it was about the same mass: 743 billion tons. Total CO2 from industrialized humans in the past 263 years: 1,480 billion tons.
Now, let's relate that to something a bit easier to visualize. A coniferous forest fire can release about 4.81 tons of carbon per acre. At the low end, about 80% of that carbon comes out as CO2.
In other words, to release an equivalent CO2 mass to the past 263 years of human activity would require about 1.5 billion acres of forest to burn every year during that time.
That's 6 million square kilometres of burning forest every year for more than two centuries.
Except that is for an average output, spread across 263 years.
Estimates of today's CO2 production go as high as about 40+ billion tons per year. That'd take something like 10 Billion acres of forest burning each year, which is about 42 million square kilometres.
The entire continent of Africa is a mere 30 million square kilometres. So AFRICA plus another third, on fire, each year...every year.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-crazy-scale-of-human-carbon-emission/

Are we brainwashing ourselves in the battle against climate change?

I see headlines like this and I'm immediately skeptical, because I've done a fair amount of looking into U.S. and World total power production and consumption. http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2008/08/brother-can-you-spare-22-terawatts.html

I’m skeptical...I know things are improving, but this seems a bit much...unless they mean 100 “city governments”...okay, so now i'm doing the math... Seattle yes, mostly hydropower...Burlington, VT 55MW (very small) wood-fired with natural gas auto-transfer backup, plus some hydro...I know Aspen is City of Aspen Electric only, with a very small customer base (hydro, 5MW)...and then Eugene, OR - mostly hydro, with some nuke, biomass, wind...88k customers (again, very small)...the rest of the cities are in other countries, and I'm guessing they are very small amounts of power usage/capacity...not many cities/localities in the U.S. are in a position to benefit from hydro or biomass power, unless we start burning our trash, but that's not exactly green/no-carbon...I'll make a guess that the U.S. cities the article cites, and throwing in Aspen, is around 100 megawatts or 0.1 gigawatts...the U.S. total generating capacity is just over 1,000 gigawatts total generating capacity...(note this is nameplate generating capacity in aggregate of all power generating facilities)...

For perspective there are 1308 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. (on 557 sites) with a generating capacity of 310 gigawatts or 310,000 megawatts...460 gigawatts gas/other...just over 1,000 gigawatts total when you throw in nukes, wind, other/experimental...

Renewables/green power plants are a hugely small fraction of our total power production/consumption...well, okay now that I actually look it up, renewables are 215 gigawatts, so call it 22%...(Includes conventional hydroelectric, geothermal, wood, wood waste, all municipal waste, landfill gas, other biomass, solar, and wind power. Facilities co-firing biomass and coal are classified as coal.)...so we have a long way to go, and keep in mind all burning of wood/waste, etc are producing CO2 which is the gas that causes anthropomorphic climate disruption...

here is the link to the source article...
https://www.cdp.net/en/cities/world-renewable-energy-cities

and here is the link to the USEIA data that I used...
https://goo.gl/Yg9Hqk

And finally, my point is that these articles are somewhat misleading to the general public (and what, there are 10 of us actually reading and pondering these articles?)...I think that most people think we are making headway by leaps and bounds in the march towards renewables/green/solar/wind/tidal energy sources...and hence the fight against global warming...but we are not...especially with the addition of 3-4 million people being born each year...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183481/united-states-population-projection/

Baby steps are good...but we have a long, long, long way to go...and it will involve severe cuts to our usage of power, something no one ever talks about...along with over-population...

Bruder, können sie ersparen 22 Gigawatt solarenergie?

I saw this up on Facebook a bit ago. The math didn't sit well with me after a lil' bit 'o pre-coffee sluggish brain cypherin'.

So y'all who know me know what I had to do. Break out the spreadsheet and get to Google'in. Here's what I came up with in response/commentary:

Solar power to nuclear power is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Posts like this are good – necessary to get the information out there to fuel the global paradigm shift to sustainable energy sources. We need more and more of this in the U.S. where the shift has barely begun. We are way behind other countries who are not under the grips of the petrochemicalmilitaryindustrialcomplex/lobby. Way behind.

But these posts/memes are not good when they mis-inform, even if unintentionally. Inaccurate information/math doesn’t help the sustainable energy cause. Don’t even get me started on the topic of intentional/willful disinformation. But I don’t think that’s what we’re seeing here.

Let’s do the 8th Grade math (don’t get me started on the American educational system – let’s say it’s 8th grade math everywhere else in the world – in the U.S. it’s college level math)…grin…

Taking Germany’s nine (9) nuclear power plants at a combined rated capacity of 12,696MW, extrapolating that to twenty (20) plants, yields a capacity of 28,213MW. That converts to 28.21GigaWatts. With an average capacity factor of 70% for nuclear power, we arrive at 173,000GWh (Gigawatt-Hours).

For a total rated capacity of 22GW “Solar”, using a capacity factor of 15% (which is being really generous with the German sunshine – Arizona is 19% - John Wind is correct at about 9% capacity factor) – the simple math gives us 28,908GWh.

20 Nuclear Plants = 173,000GWh

22GW of Solar = 28,908GWh

In this example, the solar values equal 17% of the nuclear values.
So, every 6.58GW of installed solar replaces the output of one (1) average nuclear power plant.

The reason for this is that nukes run almost 100% of the time (downtime for maintenance, repairs, changing fuel rods, decreased demand, etc.) and solar only “runs” when the sun is shining.

To replace twenty (20) nuclear power plants, it would take 131.66GW of installed solar capacity.

Germany’s goal is to have 66GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, which is admirable. It is the right thing to do. But it is not enough.

Germany is currently purchasing electricity from nuclear plants located just outside of their borders, and increasing their coal-fired electricity output to replace the electricity from the eight (8) nuclear plants they shut down in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster.

Adding electricity generating capacity from solar, wind and other renewable sources is the right thing to do.

But it is not everything. It is not the end of the game. It does not get us to where we need to be, energy-wise, nor lifestyle-wise.

The one thing that everyone is not figuring into all of this – is that we ALL need to begin changing our lifestyles to BEGIN USING LESS ENERGY. Using less energy tomorrow than we are today. And even less next year than this year. And less, and less and less.

There is a myth prevailing that we can get all of our energy needs from solar, wind, and other renewables. We can, but not at our current rates of energy consumption. The entire planet will have to drastically reduce its energy needs. And “drastically” is an understatement.

And, indeed, Louis Cruz, Jr. is correct. The photo is of the PS10 Concentrating Solar Facility in Andalucia, Spain.

P.S. None of this analysis deals with the fact that solar only supplies power to the grid during the sunshiney daylight hours – unless we start talking battery storage for every PV array – then the math and economics and environmental benefits get much more complicated.

On a very related subject, check out a prior post of mine...

http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2009/11/brother-can-you-spare-22-terawatts.html