Written by William F. Pickard   

Energy Famine: A Short Rant for Presidential Wannabes



AUDITABLE FACT [#]: The Human Development Index of a nation (a statistic produced by the United Nations) increases slowly but inexorably with the per capita electricity consumption of that nation; the HDI index extends from 0.0 to 1.0 and takes account of stuff like life expectancy, years of education, and cash income. As a practical matter, I’d think thrice before becoming a Joe Average in a country with an HDI of 0.6 or less; and that means I should avoid nations with a per capita electricity consumption less than one thousand kilowatt-hours per person per year. On the other hand, being Joe Average in a country with ten thousand kilowatt-hours per person per year, would put me up to an HDI around 0.85; and I’d be comfortable living at that level. It’s no coincidence that countries like China and India are striving mightily to make electricity-in-abundance available to their citizens.

AUDITABLE FACT [#]: Well run developing economies generally expand faster than mature developed economies. If the developing economies of the World grow just 4½% faster than the developed economies, they’ll have pretty well caught up by 2050. And that would leave Earth with about ten billion electricity consumers, each with a prorated consumption of perhaps ten thousand kilowatt-hours annually of electrical energy. For comparison, a barrel of crude oil contains about 1700 kilowatt-hours of chemical energy. But the overhead on taking the crude oil from well-head to refinery and to generating station is high: with luck, a barrel of crude might yield 500 kilowatt-hours of clean and versatile electricity. The endpoint of this calculation is that Earth’s population in 2050 could be sucking up 200 billion barrels of crude a year, just for electricity. With luck, the World’s dowry of oil might be sucked that hard 15 years. Coal and natural gas suffer from similarly depressing supply limitations. By and large, the presidential wannabes seem unconcerned about this.

AUDITABLE FACT [%]: Roughly 39% of America’s supply of primary energy goes to producing electricity. The rest goes to other things. Given the predicted insatiable demand for electricity, just how those other things will be powered is a mystery. By and large, the presidential wannabes seem unconcerned about this.

AUDITABLE FACT [&]: The Sahara Desert alone could supply mankind’s need for primary energy even discounting photovoltaic and land-use inefficiencies. The world around, governments are looking into this. But, given the short fuse on fossil fuel exhaustion, they aren’t looking hard enough. By and large, the presidential wannabes seem unconcerned about this.

AUDITABLE FACT [#]: The sun sets once a day in all temperate and tropical nations; and some days it’s cloudy to boot. This is the Intermittency Challenge! Its obvious solution is to store the sun’s energy in some form, so as to have it have it available on demand when the sun isn’t out. What are not obvious are viable ways to do so at reasonable cost and without wasting very much energy. By and large, the presidential wannabes seem unconcerned about this.

YOUR CHALLENGE: Discover a way to wake up the presidential wannabes.



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[#] IEEE Access 3, 1392-1407 (2015).

[%] https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/Energy_US_2014.png

[&] http://www.greenrhinoenergy.com/solar/radiation/empiricalevidence.php

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William F. Pickard, older ‘n’ dirt, is a retiree (from Washington University in Saint Louis) who specializes in energy matters. He’s pretty much clueless as to how to how the crises confronting America might be surmounted. But at least he has had the good grace not to stand for public office.