An informative graph and not one I've seen before (at least not going back this far). Make sure you realize that the light tan color isn't just the background of the chart...it's WOOD as a fuel source.
I'm truly hopeful that the brown areas will accelerate downward so that by 2050, we are almost entirely reliant on sustainable, or at least non-hydrocarbon-based, energy sources.
Originally shared by The Elon Musk Fan Club
May the Green on this chart displace all the Browns.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=21912
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LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America I just checked out this traveling exhibition from LEGO and was quite impressed. The scale ... -
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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When we let politics trump science, people are needlessly put in harm's way. http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/self-censoring-fears...
shouldn't there be a category for non-hydroelectric water power at least in early industrial times?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see two versions of this: one as pictured, and one showing the absolute amount of energy being used. This (presumably correctly) shows the share of coal reducing over time, but I suspect coal usage has actually increased heavily over time, just not as heavily as natural gas.
ReplyDeleteRobert Partridge Good point. Waterwheel-driven mills were quite common in the 1700s and 1800s.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bump Yes, that would be interesting as well. I do think I read that total coal consumption has dropped over the past 5 years, but beyond that, I'm not sure.
Robert Partridge That isn't fuel. (but arguably you could count food/feed in various ways)
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised the thin blue line hasn't gotten significantly thicker since the Hoover Dam.
ReplyDeleteBy 2018
ReplyDeleteWe gotta grow the Nuclear part too... with LENR, MSR and maybe Thorium. That's more renewable than solar or wind because we don't have to industrialize our remaining natural areas.
ReplyDeleteCarl Page the only way that nuclear makes sense is with fuel reprocessing. A light water moderated Thoruim/U233 fuel cycle needs to be kick started from a large base of conventional uranium fueled reactors. Over the long term, the safest way to dispose of the resulting plutonium is to use it as fuel.
ReplyDeleteEveryone says, "Plutonium, OMG, BOMB!" U233 and U235 both make beautiful bombs. It's six of one and a half dozen of the other.
Darius Gabriel Constantine I worked on a light water moderated Th232/U233 reactor. The technology works, and if you moderate it with molten salt, it works even better.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I am not a fan of nuclear power. As for fusion, it's been 10 years away for the last 50 years. I doubt that I will see a working fusion power station come on line while I am still alive.
Darius Gabriel Constantine: The main advantage of thorium is political, not engineering: you can safely sell a thorium reactor to a potentially hostile power, and be reasonably sure that they won't be any closer to producing nuclear weapon fuel.
ReplyDeleteAndres Soolo Thorium reactors breed U233, and they can be rigged to breed more than they use. You can build a beautiful bomb out of U233. BOOM!
ReplyDeleteEric Mintz: Hm. Good point. I seem to be misremembering my nuclear physics.
ReplyDeleteXgeuhxkt.lrn
ReplyDeleteNo nuclear, there is nothing to contain another leak, is there?
ReplyDeleteDr Simon Dudley I'm not a fan of nuclear power, but I have to give the technology its due. It has a commendable safety record.
ReplyDeleteThere was only one accident that killed people: Chernobyl. Everything about that place was bad. The reactor was unstable (they don't have to be), the construction was shoddy, management was slipshod, and the workers unskilled.
The two bad accidents in the US: Three Mile Island and Fermi I, released no radiation (no fooling), and caused no direct injury. People did suffer stress-related illness, but that happens any time the population panics.
Fukuashima is still playing out. It was completely knuckleheaded to build the plant at that location. It was a bad failure, and we'll see its consequences unfold in the next few decades.
The real problem with nuclear power is waste disposal. I'm not worried about the stuff that glows green. That stuff decays quickly over a few days, weeks, or years. It's the stuff that takes a quarter million years to decay that concerns me.
If we reprocess the waste and extract its usable fuel, we will reduce, and possibly eliminate the nasty, long-term risk. However fuel reprocessing carries its own risks, including risk of diversion.
You pays your nickle and takes your choice. Remember, coal kills thousands of people each year.
Your wrong
ReplyDeleteCarl Page
ReplyDeleteWell I think energy from "Thorium" is a Myth...
If it's for real, why aren't they developing or using it? Did you know that it was discovered in 1829... It's been a long long time and never proven....
Melvin Cordovez look up the LWBR, the Light Water Breeder Reactor, which ran successfully in Shippingport, PA. I worked on the project. It can, and has been done.
ReplyDeleteEric Mintz
ReplyDeleteYup, I did some research and it works, but it also has radio active wastes just like Uranium. But yeah, Thorium is much better!
So, the Big Question is, Why aren't they using Thorium?
Melvin Cordovez all nuclear reactors produce radioactive waste. Every single design and every single one. It's just the way the world works.
ReplyDeleteTo talk in detail we need to define some abbreviations:
Th is Thorium, element 91 (meaning that it has 91 protons)
Th232 is the isotope of Thorium that is composed of 232 protons and neutrons. Note that it has 141 neutrons, many more than its 91 protons.
U is Uranium, element 92.
N is one neutron
e is one electron.
OK, here we go:
Th232 + N => Th233
Th233 => U233 + e. The electron flies away extremely quickly and is also known as a beta particle.
U233 + N => 2.1 N (on average) + gamma radiation + fission products. What fission products is a matter of luck.
Ok, let's assume that our reaction produces three neutrons and two equally sized atoms. Each of these atoms will have 46 protons, so we get two palladium atoms, Pd115, to be precise. The problem is that 46 protons are not strong enough to hold onto 69 neutrons; result: radioactive waste.
That's just how things are.
Eric Mintz: And they conveniently put all the produced nuclear waste into a single place, unlike coal-powered power plants that spew much of the produced nuclear waste up, up in the air.
ReplyDeleteEric Mintz
ReplyDeleteWow, tnx for the explanation. So, what do think is the best way to power the Earth?
Melvin Cordovez you are most welcome, Sir. I am always happy to share knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHow to power the Earth? That's a hard one.
I'd start by raising efficiency using mundane technologies like double glazing, LED lighting, efficient air conditioning, sealing air leaks, improving manufacturing. Nothing glamorous, but you can save a whale of a lot that way. Over the 27 years we have owned our house, we have cut our electricity use by a factor of 3, mostly by improving our lighting. Replacing one fixture in the kitchen cut enough electricity use to pay for itself in 4 years.
So we can lower our household energy use significantly with some commonsense upgrades.
Same for transportation. I think, but cannot prove, that it is more efficient to bring goods to people than it is to bring people to goods, which means that home delivery (think Amazon.com, for example) could actually lower our carbon footprint, all else being equal. We have found it more convenient and much easier to have the UPS man throw a 50 pound bag of dog food onto our front porch than it is to fetch it from the local PetSmart.
I believe this because supply chain managers spend a great deal of effort minimizing their delivery costs, which tends to maximize their efficiency. Shoppers generally wiz about willy-nilly.
OK, that's the easy stuff. The rest, I think can come from a combination of sources: wind, solar, water, nuclear, and probably others as well. I don't see any single source coming to rescue us. We'll just have to muddle through.
One of the best ways to capture solar energy is to grow something like sugar cane, which is the most efficient crop in terms of calories per hectare. I believe that sawgrass is an efficient crop to grow for fuel. So growing stuff and burning it is a nice, potentially carbon neutral energy source.
We should investigate using solar power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. We can distribute the hydrogen, which would make solar energy available 24 x 7.
We are going to have to try different technologies and see which work in practice. That's the long and the short of it.