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Projected Renewables Contribution to World Electricity Generation

 

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) is the acknowledged statistical authority on world energy. The EIA estimates that renewables presently provide about 20% of world electricity consumption and projects a very significant 66% growth in renewables over the next 20 years.

At the same time rapidly rising electricity demand in the developing world (particularly China and India) is expected to require continuing growth across all energy sectors. Because of the expected rise in total electricity consumption, this translates to a relatively small increase in renewable energy’s global share. The renewables proportion of the total is expected to rise by just 1% to around 21% by 2030.

 

Hydro-electricity presently contributes the vast proportion (88%) of renewable energy worldwide. In the non-OECD countries, hydroelectric power is expected to be the predominant source of renewable energy growth. Strong growth in hydroelectric generation, primarily from mid to large-scale power plants, is expected in China, India, Brazil, and a number of nations in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Laos.

 

Wind the next greatest contributor, currently contributes less than 8% of the world’s renewable energy budget. But the unexploited wind resource worldwide is still vast. As a result wind generation is growing at rate in excess of 25% pa worldwide. The most substantial additions of electricity supply generated from wind power are projected in China.

 

The limitations on the greater utilisation of wind are economic (cost) and technical (particularly intermittency and distance to market). These limit the exploitable resource to a fraction of the total and are expected to gradually slow annual growth in wind to around 10% pa by 2030. Nevertheless this represents a tripling of wind generation over the next 20 years. On balance, wind is expected to contribute about 4% of the world’s total electricity in 20 years.

 

The contribution of gas is projected to grow by 63% and coal by 57% over the next 20 years. Hydro-generation is expected to grow by 41% and nuclear power is expected to grow by 39%. The only decline is expected to be small drop in the relative contribution made by liquid hydrocarbons (typically dieseline) due to expected increases in relative price.

 

 

ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION – SELECTED COUNTRIES

Country

Electricity Consumption TWh

Fossil

%

Nuclear

%

Wind

%

Hydro

%

Biofuels Other

%

Cost‡

US$/kWh

Australia

227 [2006/7]

96.4

0

0.9

2.3

0.5

0.06 i

NSW

76.5[2007/8]

94.8

0

0.2

4.7

0.3

0.06 i

Denmark [12]

39.3 [2007]

82

0

18

0.1

0.1

0.38 r

France [13]

443.3 [2003]

9.2

74.5

0.05

16.2

0.05

0.06 i

Sweden

139 [2003]

0

46.4

0.7

43.6

9.3

n/a

Switzerland

58.2 [2005]

5

39

0.1

56

0.1

0.09 i

‡Source: International Energy Agency, Energy prices and taxes 2008[14]. i = industrial r = residential)

 

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Travel

Canada and the United States - Part2

 

 

In Part1, in July 2023, Wendy and I travelled north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then Vancouver, in Canada, from where we made our way east to Montreal.

In Part2, in August 2023, we flew from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, down to Miami, Florida, then Ubered to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise.

At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York.

After New York we flew to Salt Lake City, Nevada, then on to Los Angeles, California, before returning to Sydney.

Read more: Canada and the United States - Part2

Fiction, Recollections & News

Reminiscing about the 50’s

 

This article was written in 2012 and already some of the changes noted have changed.
For example, in the decade that followed, 'same sex' marriage became legal. And sadly, several of those friends and relations I've mentioned, including my brother, died. 
No doubt, in another decade, there will be yet more change.

 

 

Elsewhere on this site, in the article Cars, Radios, TV and other Pastimes,   I've talked about aspects of my childhood in semi-rural Thornleigh on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. I've mentioned various aspects of school and things we did as kids.

A great many things have changed.  I’ve already described how the population grew exponentially. Motor vehicles finally replaced the horse in everyday life.  We moved from imperial measurements and currency to decimal currency and metric measures.  The nation gained its self-confidence particularly in the arts and culture.  I’ve talked about the later war in Vietnam and Australia embracing of Asia in place of Europe.

Here are some more reminiscences about that world that has gone forever.

Read more: Reminiscing about the 50’s

Opinions and Philosophy

Jihad

  

 

In my novella The Cloud I have given one of the characters an opinion about 'goodness' in which he dismisses 'original sin' as a cause of evil and suffering and proposes instead 'original goodness'.

Most sane people want to 'do good', in other words to follow that ethical system they were taught at their proverbial 'mother's knee' (all those family and extended influences that form our childhood world view).

That's the reason we now have jihadists raging, seemingly out of control, across areas of Syria and Iraq and threatening the entire Middle East with their version of 'goodness'. 

Read more: Jihad

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