World Sources and Uses of Energy

 

World Sources and Uses of Energy

 There is nothing at all wrong with accumulating and using energy from renewable sources such as the sun, wind, water power, tides, trash, crap, - and any other natural, renewable resources that can be exploited to produce energy.    

 Of course, the ideal long-term solution of the world’s energy needs is not to collect sunlight, but to make it.  Fusion of hydrogen to helium, with release of energy comparable to the sun’s energy production sounds simple, but what it entails is basically making a small star, and controlling it in an energy plant to produce energy.  No one has been able to do it for these 100 plus years.

 Alarms caused by global warming, man-made or natural, have led mankind in recent years, toward sources and uses of renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions using renewable sources of energy, as outlined in the penultimate paragraph above. They have not necessarily led toward use of close to renewable nuclear fission energy production, because of negative public reaction to three anecdotal, but spectacular industrial nuclear accidents over the past 40-odd years, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima Dai-Ichi in Japan in 2011.  World public opinion, and many government policies eschewed building nuclear power production plants because of these spectacular accidents.

 A review of major industrial countries shows that as of 2020, nearly all industrial countries still rely on Fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), for most of their energy requirements, up to 75% in most cases.  Those with substantial hydro resources, Canada, Brazil and now China (from their Three Gorges Project), take advantage of these water resources for energy production.  The U.S., UK, Germany and Japan are leaders in solar and wind with 5-12% of total energy production.  France, South Korea, U.S., UK. Canada and Russia obtain significant energy from nuclear fission.

 So, try as they may, the world’s industrialized countries continue to use about 75% fossil fuels for energy production.  Some will use hydro power if they have large resources, and some will take precautions so that Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima never again happens, and use nuclear fission.  The practical limit of energy from solar and wind seems to be 12-15% as in the UK and Germany.

 For all their rhetoric about “going green”, when an upset in the world’s energy situation arises, such as boycotting Russian sources because of their aggression on Ukraine, the major industrial countries immediately seek whatever fossil fuels are available to burn to produce their energy requirements.  These can be gas, oil or coal.  They can’t get the wind to blow harder, or the sun to shine brighter.

 This link shows the sources and uses of energy for major industrial countries.

 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/piwj32ijn1rr6upc2xspi/Energy-Major-Countries-2020.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=obp1wn4fxlyjzkf9reilthequ

Ray Gruszecki

June 22, 2022