David Craig, on March 26th, 2021(Friday/weekend blog)
There are so many examples of the mindboggling stupidity of the global warming alarmists’ and politicians’ rush into supposed ‘clean, CO2-free, renewable energy’ that it’s difficult to choose which is the most ludicrous. But today I’ll just pick one that I haven’t seen covered in any media – the amount of land that will be needed for all the windfarms and solar farms. I’ll use some figures from the USA. But you can apply the same principles to any Western country committing energy suicide.
Total energy use
The USA has about 7,700 power plants each having at least 1,000 megawatts of usable capacity. If it was to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2050, then it would need to increase electricity production by around 80% – that’s about 14,000 of these power plants in total
Renewable energy
Under Joe ‘China’ Biden and the ignorant bouffant climate czar John Kerry the USA plans to get 42% of its energy from renewables – mostly wind and solar – by 2050. The most efficient clean energy, of course, comes from nuclear. But the greenies don’t like nuclear.
Land use
A typical gas or coal power plant occupies about 900 acres. To generate about 1,000 megawatts from solar power would need about 51 square miles and from wind would need about 550 square miles. So, let’s take 42% of the 14,000 power plants the USA will be replacing by renewables. That’s 5,880 power plants.
And let’s assume that half of the renewables would come from solar and half from wind. The solar farms would use 150,000 square miles (2,940 x 51 square miles) and the windfarms would need about 1,617,00 square miles (2,940 x 450 square miles). That’s a total of 1,767,000 square miles of solar farms and windfarms needed to provide 42% of the USA’s power needs by 2050.
The total land area of the USA is around 3,800,000 square miles. So, to get 42% of its power from wind and solar, almost half (47%) of the USA’s territory would have to be used for solar panels and windfarms. That’s not going to leave much room for homes and food production.
Given that the UK (275 people per square kilometre) has a much higher population density than the USA (only 36 people per square kilometre), I suspect that if the UK was to try to get 42% of its energy from renewables (solar and wind) there wouldn’t be enough land for all the solar panels and windfarms so our rulers would have to demolish most of our homes in order to build solar farms and windfarms to power the homes they are demolishing.
Duh!!!!
I wonder if any of the geniuses planning the USA’s and the UK’s supposedly carbon-neutral clean energy future or any of the global-warming alarmists at the BBC and C4 News have thought about this?
(you can leave comments by clicking on the headline)
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Excellent David, Thank you, again. Those unmitigated idiots/liars/crooks (strike out what does not apply) will HATE you for telling the truth.
The link below is so impressive, IMO, it simply knocks the living daylights right out of the debate :
Unpayable and unfeasible – The impossibility of Windmills
By Jan Smelik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7PHUMd7PYA
After all, the Hollanders do have a fair amount of windmill-experience, do they not ?
Dank u wel Meneer Smelik !
Hmmm, not thought it through have they.
Similar to a fact i learnt recently ( UK Column ) is that to replace petrol/diesel cars with electric, the UK, just the UK would need around 380% of the total of the rare materials needed for the batteries.
Hmmmmm.
Cheers
Daveh
Excellent link, thanks. It shows that Holland isn’t big enough for the wind turbines that would be needed to provide electricity for the country. Just what I predict for the UK
Read this on the Australian IPA (Institute of Public Affairs) website and thought one could easily substitute the UK for Australia in this article – we emit one percent of the world’ CO2 emissions, not much different from Aussie.
China Emits More Carbon In 16 Days Than Australia Does In One Year.
Every 16 days China emits more carbon than Australia does in an entire year, according to new research released today by free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. This means the annual effect on global emissions from Australia mandating a net zero emissions target would be cancelled out by China in just over two weeks.
“The complete de-industrialisation of Australia would have no discernible impact on global emissions but would inflict significant and irreparable economic and social damage,” said Cian Hussey, Research Fellow at the IPA.
The analysis identified that Australia’s carbon emissions per capita have declined by 15.4% since 2004, while China’s emissions per capita over the same period have increased by 83.5%.
China is responsible for 63.3% of the increase in global carbon emissions since 2004, while Australia is responsible for just 0.35% of the increase.
In absolute terms, China’s annual emissions have increased by over 5 billion tonnes since 2004, while Australia’s annual emissions have increased by only 27.4 million tonnes.
“It is reckless and futile for the political class to impose on Australians further severe cuts to emissions which costs jobs and livelihoods, while China – the world’s largest emitter– continues to rapidly increase its emissions without consequence,” said Mr Hussey.
“Calls for Australia to adopt a net zero emissions target ignore the significant economic, social, and humanitarian costs which would inevitably be the result of such a target,” said Mr Hussey.
The analysis also shows that China operates 57 coal fired power stations for each one currently operating in Australia.
This figure will increase in coming years as China is currently constructing 92 coal-fired power stations, with a further 135 in the pre-construction phase, while Australia has none in the construction or pre-construction phase.
The analysis also identified that Australia’s share of global carbon emissions declined from 1.3% in 2009 to 1.1% in 2019. Despite Australia’s negligible share of global emissions, under the Paris Agreement Australians are subject to the deepest per capita emissions cuts in the developed world, as identified in previous IPA research.
The IPA also analysed the most recently available information about the Paris Climate Agreement, and found that only 0.4% of countries (eight of 196) that signed the Paris Agreement are on track to meet their emissions reduction obligations.
Gambia, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Philippines, and India are the eight countries on track, and represent only 7.9% of global carbon emissions.
“Not only should Australia not proceed with a net zero emissions target, but we should withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Mr Hussey.
IPA research released on 10 February found that a net zero carbon emissions target would place up to 653,600 jobs at direct risk of being destroyed, and that those job are concentrated in industries such as agriculture, heavy manufacturing, and coal mining.
Previous IPA research estimated that the Paris Climate Agreement would cost over $52 billion over the period 2018-2030. This equates to $8,566 per Australian family.
$52 billion is the equivalent to building 22 new hospitals or paying for 20 years’ worth of the Gonski 2.0 education funding.
Note: Analysis is based on data from Climate Action Tracker, Our World in Data, and the Global Coal Plant Tracker.
https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/regions-smashed-by-net-zero-fallout
Australia’s political class must exchange their obsession with climate mandates for an obsession with Australian jobs by ditching the Paris Agreement and refusing to adopt a job-killing net zero emissions target.
The debate over Australia’s emissions target has fired up in recent weeks. But while there’s plenty of bumper sticker politicking, as Senator James McGrath said on 17 February, there is not much honesty.
Here are some key facts about Australia’s carbon emissions and the costs of a net zero emissions policy.
If Australia completely deindustrialised overnight, it would have no discernable impact on global carbon emissions.
Since 2004, China has increased its annual carbon emissions by 5 billion tonnes. Australia has increased its annual emissions by only 27.4 million tonnes. This means that China’s emissions growth has outpaced Australia’s 184 to 1. China is responsible for 63.3 per cent of the increase in global annual carbon emissions since 2004. Meanwhile, Australia is only responsible for 0.35 per cent.
Even though Australia’s emissions have grown in absolute terms, they are declining on a per capita basis. Australia’s per capita emissions have declined by 15.4 per cent since 2004. China’s per capita emissions, on the other hand, have increased by 83.5 per cent since 2004.
China operates 57 coal-fired power stations for each one currently operating in Australia. This figure will only increase in coming years: 92 new coal-fired power stations are currently being constructed in China, with a further 135 in the pre-construction phase.
Australia has no coal-fired power stations in either the construction or pre-construction phase.
Between 2009 and 2019, Australia’s share of global emissions decreased from 1.3 per cent to 1.1 per cent. China’s increased from 24.7 per cent to 28 per cent.
While Australia’s political class have been obsessing over Australia’s negligible carbon emissions, China has done nothing to restrain its emissions. If Australia were wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow, it would take just 16 days for China to produce Australia’s entire annual carbon emissions footprint.
An Institute of Public Affairs report published this month found that a net zero emissions target would put 653,600 Australian jobs at direct risk, and those who would be most effected live in regional Australia. Before they could even collect their first Centrelink payment, China would have already emitted more carbon than Australia does each year.
One year ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged the fact that a net zero target would destroy jobs. He said that those who commit to a net zero emissions target “can’t look Australians in the eye and tell them what it will mean for their electricity prices, what it will mean for their jobs.”
Australians were given the choice at the so-called ‘climate election’ in 2019. They delivered the same message that they did at the 2013 election: we care about our jobs, our livelihoods, and the prosperity of our communities more than we care about the global elites who signed the Paris Agreement.
The message was particularly clear in three key seats which the IPA has identified as having the highest share of jobs which would be put at risk by a net zero emissions target. Flynn, where 24 per cent of jobs are placed at risk, had a swing towards the LNP of 7.62 per cent. Maranoa and Capricornia had similar numbers. Destroying jobs in these heartland seats to chase inner-city votes would be a betrayal of the Coalition’s new working-class base.
A section for your climate book. Here is a link to an article about the cost of it all:
https://principia-scientific.com/report-uk-govt-grossly-misled-public-over-net-zero-costs/
There is another aspect of it, which is the recycling. Turbine blades do not have a long life and are apparently difficult to recycle, partly because of their size and because they are a composite of plastic and fibre glass. I read that in the USA they are cutting them up and burying them in the deserts. Solar panel recycling is also a problem because of the dangerous materials used to make them.
Is there any hope that the new Reform Party under Tice will tackle any of these issues?
No one at The Brexit Party/Reform seems to have the intelligence or guts to touch climate crap or the RoP.
@Alex Tice is a lost cause as he is pro vax.