Resource World Magazine

76 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 7 Oil Patch Report by Bruce Lantz T he shifting landscape of climate change grabs more than its share of headlines. And, to a lesser extent, climate change deniers get some ink as well. But after the debunking of 'global warming' caused the environmental sector to morph into the harbingers of 'climate change', everyone from political leaders to environmentalists eas - ily adopted the assumptions of doom if we don't soon eliminate fossil fuels and replace them with a glittering array of wind, solar, geothermal and other power sources, including nuclear. Thus, they say, the world will be saved. The world, apparently, has listened. Former US president Barack Obama committed, at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% by 2030, and 83% by 2050 through such measures as shifting from coal-based power generation to solar and natural gas production. In cumulative emissions between 1850 and 2007, the US was the worst, responsible for 28.8% of the world's total. China's emissions have outpaced the US in CO 2 from 2006 onward. The US produced 5.8 billion metric tonnes of CO 2 .In 2006, compared to the 6.23 billion coming from China. Per capita emission figures of China are about a quarter of those of the US population. Canada generates less than 2% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but is one of the highest emitters in the world per person, due to the country's size, weather, and resource- based economy, according to Environment Canada. In 2015, the Canadian government said it wanted to reduce carbon emissions to 30% below Canada's 2005 levels – 524 megatonnes by 2030 – and phase out the nation's coal mines by 2030. This is to be largely achieved through the controversial carbon tax. Recently, China announced it would spend 2.5 trillion yuan (US $361 billion) on renewable power generation by 2020, as the world's largest energy market continues to shift away from coal power towards cleaner fuels. The NEA said installed renewable power capacity including wind, hydro, solar and nuclear power will contribute to about half of new electricity generation by 2020. Unfortunately, when a movement is based more on emotion than hard facts, even its evangelists are hard-pressed to come up with the supportive data to make their case. Such is the pitfall awaiting climate change activists. An examination of the hard facts of climate science casts serious doubts on the feasibility of a fossil fuel-free world. Energy consultant, Robert Lyman, said in a May 2016 paper that renewable energy will never replace fossil fuels by 2050 as claimed by Mark Jacobson, Mark Delucci and others espousing the "100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water and Sunlight" (WWS) vision. In fact, Lyman said, the WWS vision is based on "an unrealistic assessment of the market readiness of a wide range of key technologies". Lyman cites the Western Europe experience, where the gen - erating capacity of renewable energy plants was 216gw, 22% of Europe's requirements, but because of its intermittent nature, the actual output was just 3.8%. Further, he notes that the capital costs of renewable energy plants are "almost 30 times higher" than natural gas plants and operational costs are anywhere from 4.6 to 14 times more expensive than natural gas. Plus, the land area needed is daunting. Building the needed photovoltaic solar plants in the US would require a land mass the size of Texas, California, Arizona and Nevada, while just one 100mw wind farm Going Green: a reality check Never mind that aircraft, ships and freight trains need fossil fuel; the dream of going fossil fuel-free is just that: a dream. Let's do the math.

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