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Page added on June 15, 2020
The Biggest Energy Problem In The World
A recent U.S. Department of Energy headline reminds us of just how lucky we are: “U.S. customers experienced an average of nearly six hours of power interruptions in 2018.”
For perspective, that means we Americans have our electricity interrupted for less than 6 hours of the 8,760 hours in a year.
So my wheels got spinning again.
And I came to thinking about what to me is easily the biggest energy problem in the world.
It is a definition problem from the world’s most vital energy outfit, the International Energy Agency (IEA) – the energy advisor to the now 38 nations that have the richest, healthiest, and longest-living people that utilize coal, oil, and natural gas for over 80% of their energy supply.
And that definition is what gets considered as having “electricity access.”
Consider the following from IEA:
- “In our projections, the average household who has gained access has enough electricity to power four lightbulbs operating at five hours per day, one refrigerator, a fan operating 6 hours per day, a mobile phone charger and a television operating 4 hours per day, which equates to an annual electricity consumption of 1,250 kWh per household with standard appliances,” International Energy Agency, November 13, 2019
So, let us run the numbers.
This means that a home that uses 1,250 kWh per year is deemed as having “access” to electricity.
UN data has the still developing world as having an average of 4-5 people per home.
That means electricity access is “gained” when a per person use rate becomes 280 kWh per year.
Unfortunately, that is a woefully insufficient interpretation.
For example, World Bank data puts U.S. electricity use per person at nearly 13,000 kWh per year.
In other words, we have a global definition of having “gained” access to electricity when a person uses just 2% (1/50th) of the electricity that we Americans use.
Imagine what that means in real terms, in context of your own life.
You, Mr. and Mrs. American, “have electricity” if you have electricity for one week of out of the year – 7 days (2% of 365 days).
Stated in a different way, imagine if you had NO electricity for 358 out of 365 days of the year, yet you were still classified as “having electricity.”
What this really means is that the too easily repeated “1 billion people have no electricity” is way too low.
The true numbers are much higher than that – I mean much worse than that.
The 1.2 billion humans in Sub-Saharan Africa are easily the most impacted, with 1.4 billion India not far behind.
These forgotten souls are not lecturing about climate and eliminating fossil fuel use from the ivory towers of Yale, Penn State, and Stanford, but spend their days collecting fuel and completing the mundane tasks to survive that we conquered well over a century ago.
For example, lacking any real chance for societal upward mobility, “collectively, South African women and children walk a daily distance equivalent to 16 trips to the moon and back to fetch water.”
I’m 15 years into studying this elephant in the room, and estimate that somewhere around 4 billion people lack enough electricity to enjoy a modern life; which I conclude is around an EU-like annual level of 6,000 kWh per person.
Energy poverty is the largest limiting factor to economic growth: some 3 billion humans rely on biomass like wood, dung, and charcoal for cooking and heating.
Electricity is no small thing: it is the sine qua non of modernity, with electrification considered the “Greatest Scientific Achievement of the 20th Century.”
All of our global human development goals have electricity as a core enabling force, an absolutely essential input for a higher Human Development Index.
No kidding: “You can’t fight pandemics without power—electric power.”
Indeed, as the information technology revolution that has become “indispensable to the modern economy, underpinning the economies of the developed world” constantly marches on, the digital divide horrifically continues to widen because around half of the global population lacks adequate access to electricity.
Still easily the most important thing I have ever written: “Lighting Up the World: Why Electricity Is Good – and More is Even Better.”
All of this has been effectively ignored of course, far too often by rich Westerners that have all the energy that they need at their fingertips, yet now seek to block poor people from having access to that same energy supply: oil, coal, gas.
All energy options must remain on the table in our pursuit of human development and reducing emissions, because technological progress is constant and all energy systems are evolving as cleaner and their future is unknowable: “Fossil Fuel’s Answer to Climate Change Just Got Less Expensive.”
Lifting billions of poverty gets ignored because it entails a simple but hard to accept for some undeniable truth.
With six in every seven humans today living in still developing nations, the world of tomorrow will need so much more energy than the world of today.
But this is surely no surprise: by 2050, the world will add over 2 billion people and $85 trillion in GDP.
Just as obviously, this “more and more energy” drumbeat means more fossil fuels, already accounting for over 80% of global supply.
Indeed, the idea of “only wind, only solar” meeting these immense and growing energy needs is as unserious and unfair as it sounds.
The good news is that leaders in poor countries will not stand idle as flourishing outsiders try to limit the critical growth opportunities that their struggling masses necessitate that they pursue.
Even under the best of circumstances, so much more is needed.
IEA, for instance, only has per capita electricity usage under a universal access to electricity scenario reaching 700 kWh in sub-Saharan Africa in 2040, under a quarter of today’s global average and about what we Americans used in the 1930s.
In the end I must give IEA tremendous credit, it seems to be the only one even reporting the gigantic energy poverty problem that does not have its head in the “only renewables” clouds like much of the academia, interest groups, and international organizations demand that we all live in.
We would be even more lost without IEA.
Indeed, the energy virtue signaling and clear hypocrisy of the privileged West must be continually exposed.
Human development literally depends upon it.
24 Comments on "The Biggest Energy Problem In The World"
Hello on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 7:44 am
>>> privileged West
another white-guilter.
Fuck you, negro boot-licker.
Richard Guenette on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:28 am
Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity regardless of who they are (nationality/race/ethnicity, religion, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation etc.). All forms of discrimination should be banned everywhere.
Richard Guenette on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:46 am
The US is already at war with itself.
zero juan on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:53 am
Morning with the lunatic:
Richard Guenette said The US is already at war with itself.
Richard Guenette said Everyone has their own way of thinking (visual lea…
CONVICT-19 WATCH OUT FOR MUZZIE FGM NASTY GOING INNER STRUGGLE said i’m going all caps you guyes people please r…
SocialRevolutionComing said I am going to stop commenting. Do people actually…
CONVICT-19 said i hope this FGM NASTY muzzy not going inner strugg…
CONVICT-19 said muzzie FGM NASTY in congress is saying no police….
Richard Guenette said Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and d…
SocialRevolutionComing said Europe is too closed to African and Middle-East. Y…
CONVICT-19 said this is a waste of money. just use chemical weapo…
CONVICT-19 said grate news two muzzies are roasted. these muzzie…
SocialRevolutionComing said A lot of interesting headlines coming from France…
BIG Troll ZERO Brains
Moderating zero juan on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:56 am
https://peakoil.com/forums/post1451983.html#p1451983
Re: THE Price Of Crude Pt. 15
by REAL Green » Mon 15 Jun 2020, 09:55:04
JuanP wrote:
“US producers set to torpedo OPEC+ oil rally”
https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/us-produc … oil-rally/
REAL Green wrote:
Juan, do you have any content from that naked link showing you have reading compehension of the subject matter?
More Lunatic Davy (Pink Poodle) JuanP Derangement and ID Fraud on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:58 am
zero juan on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:53 am
More Lunatic Davy (Pink Poodle) JuanP Derangement and ID Fraud on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:59 am
Moderating zero juan on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:56 am
Davy on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 11:37 am
The only thing I comprehend is goats. And beer. And being a douche. I knows those REAL GOOD like.
makati1 on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 6:35 pm
“Indeed, the energy virtue signaling and clear hypocrisy of the privileged IEA must be continually exposed.”
There! Fixed it! LOL
Duncan Idaho on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 7:37 pm
1962 — US: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) meeting prepares the “Port Huron Statement,” a manifesto which helps inspire much of the US 1960’s student protest movement.
Duncan Idaho on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 8:01 pm
Surrounded by Liars and Lickspittles, Trump Dares COVID to Kill Him
https://truthout.org/articles/surrounded-by-liars-and-lickspittles-trump-dares-covid-to-kill-him/
JuanP on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 8:03 pm
Wealthy Chinese Rushing To Move Cash Abroad Ahead Of Yuan Weakness
Wealthy Chinese citizens are going to great lengths to move money out of the country amid worries over a weakening Yuan and growing trade tensions with the United States, according to the Nikkei Asian Review. China caps foreign exchange to $50,000 per year, per person. For overseas investments, buyers typically use multi-member families to pool their funds and exceed the limit, or they will bring cash while traveling abroad – a strategy which has been put on hold during the pandemic travel bans. “There is no room for negotiation today,” a black-market currency dealer said when approached on West Nanjing Road, a bustling commercial strip in Shanghai, last week. “It’s going to be 7.2 yuan to the dollar.” The official rate was 7.06 that day, but the man, who was a little past his prime, was defiant. At one point late last month, the yuan had sunk to 7.19 in overseas trading. He was confident in the direction of the weakening currency. “Oh, I can help you send money overseas too. I have a friend who can do that,” he said, before quickly leaving the scene. Police in the area are said to have become a bit stricter of late. -Nikkei Asian Review Not only are affluent Chinese setting up more dollar accounts in Hong Kong to send money overseas, interest in foreign real estate and insurance products are making a resurgence as the coronavirus pandemic has abated – or paused. One investment company is pitching real estate in Ireland – touting it as immune to deteriorating relations with the West. Returns? ” At the end, the executive showed a 1.32 million euro ($1.5 million) home with an expected return of nearly 3%,” according to the report.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wealthy-chinese-rushing-move-cash-abroad-ahead-yuan-weakness
makati1 on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:09 pm
Davy, thousands of Smart Amerikans are already moving, or have moved, their wealth and home to foreign countries, not just a few Chinese. Over 1,000 Amerikans a year for a long time now. 100,000 in the Philippines alone. Millions of Amerikans are scattered around the world. You are stuck in the Amerikan gulag with your goats.
I made the smart move 12 years ago to avoid the rush. ^_^
JuanP on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 9:26 pm
I see Delusional Davy still posts ZH nonsense about China, but he now does it using my name. ROFLMFAO! What a flea brain!
Lunatic Davy (AKA The Pink Poodle) JuanP Derangement and ID Fraud on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 12:37 am
JuanP on Mon, 15th Jun 2020 8:03 pm
Theedrich on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 1:57 am
Who’s behind the riots? The Dems. The organizers and funders are hiding in plain sight. It is obvious to anyone without ideological blinders.
There is one and only one objective of the Coon-Lives-Matter bowel “movement”: that is to take over the Imperium Americanum from Trump and to Stalinize it to the benefit of the oligarchic elites, captained by superYid Sörös. James Kunstler, in his article “Disorders now and to come” of Monday, 2020 Jun 15, accurately characterized their front-line agents as “America’s intellectual class — the news media, the campus faculties, the honchos of bureaucracy, the politicized judiciary, and the performing monkeys of Hollywood.”
Although Trump had long experience in the shadowy world of big real estate, he was still unprepared for the cutthroat savagery of national politics. In that sphere, some people suddenly die with no apparent cause or by what is declared to be “suicide.” They can even be murdered outright and the police turn out to be clueless about what happened.
The vast and demonic “Resistance” organized by the Dems is now approaching a climax. They are attemping to goad the president — or any authority — into reactions which the Fake News puppets can smear as evil (racist/homophobic/islamophobic/anti-immigrant, etc.) so they can shock TV-zombies into empowering the Left in the next election. The criminal seizure of part of Seattle with the encouragement of the Dem politicos is one example of this tactic. The sinister demonization of the police is another.
The extreme Left is also nurtured by the Dem leaders as part of their “openness” to “new” (i.e., oligarcho-Communist) ideas. They support open insurrection as mere “protests.”
In short, the Democrat Party is nothing less than an organization of traitors. Only a true revolution led by a real Leader will give them what they deserve.
Prævaleat Trump!
Anonymouse on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 2:57 am
So Theed, you are saying the amerikan empire is somehow NOT being run for the benefit the Stalin-esque yid Oligarchic class now? When did that happen? SuperYid Soros? Yea, hes annoyed like the rest of the rodents, but they are still basically in charge. Nothing has changed on that front at all. Trumps major ‘crime’ is he makes the empire look bad, as in, everyone can see what what the Jewnited Snakes is really been about all this time. His clumsy, oafish theatrics are undoing the work of generations of PR firms, propaganda and Hollyjewood blockbusters among others. Trump himself, is arguably one of the most jew-friendly presidents to warm the ceremonial WH throne, and his own oligarchic tendencies and leanings are functioning just fine TYVM. IoW, he is in like company. They just hate HIM personally, not his actions, or his politics, such as they are.
Your ‘republicans’ are just as eager as your so-called ‘Stalinist democrats’ to put the PR nightmare known as trump behind them for good, so they can get things back to ‘normal’ again.
But hey, It is good to know that there is one sure fire way to ‘fix’ amerika(tm), and that is for the sheep to vote Republican! next election ROFLMAO.
That’ll teach em wont it Theed?
Davy on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 5:05 am
“So Theed, you are saying the amerikan empire is somehow NOT being run for the benefit the Stalin-esque yid Oligarchic class now? When did that happen? SuperYid Soros? Yea, hes annoyed like the rest of the rodents, but they are still basically in charge. “
Bullshit, annoy, your simple mind that is wrapped up in west coast Kanadian anger drops to the lowest level of intelligence in the binary of the Jewish conspiracy. There is no doubt of their influence but not the “run for the benefit” You are fucking stupid and one must wonder what they are teaching over there in Honcouver. You are right next to Seattle so that is part of the problem.
“Nothing has changed on that front at all. Trumps major ‘crime’ is he makes the empire look bad, as in, everyone can see what what the Jewnited Snakes is really been about all this time. His clumsy, oafish theatrics are undoing the work of generations of PR firms, propaganda and Hollyjewood blockbusters among others. Trump himself, is arguably one of the most jew-friendly presidents to warm the ceremonial WH throne, and his own oligarchic tendencies and leanings are functioning just fine TYVM. IoW, he is in like company.”
The Jew lobby is just another one that must be stroked. You are completely Jew deranged mixed up in anti-American derangement. No wonder you don’t comment much on topic because you don’t have much to say. There is only so much of this derangement that fits current events. Instead you stalk the cloggo some and me daily. You really are a blemish to this forum. I look forward to when you are gone.
“Your ‘republicans’ are just as eager as your so-called ‘Stalinist democrats’ to put the PR nightmare known as trump behind them for good, so they can get things back to ‘normal’ again.”
Bullshit, a significant amount of the silent majority likes what Trump is doing over what is coming out of the extremist left. Many are not thrilled about Trump that are intelligent but when one looks at what is coming out of the left he is much better choice.
“But hey, It is good to know that there is one sure fire way to ‘fix’ amerika(tm), and that is for the sheep to vote Republican! next election ROFLMAO. That’ll teach em wont it Theed?”
The left is going to find itself in a world of hurt around the election once the buzz of virtue seeking with the riots, looting, and defund police wear off. The silent majority surely is going to penalize them at the ballot box. That will likely not teach them because this 10% of the left that makes so much noise is lost and beyond repair.
REAL Green on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 6:01 am
Well annoy. You shore dun hit a sensitive nerve there.
Victory!
Davy on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 6:12 am
JuanP on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 6:01 am
“Well annoy. You shore dun hit a sensitive nerve there. Victory!”
It is a problem for the both of you zero juan. The stalking and the low IQ I mean.
More Lunatic Davy (AKA The Pink Poodle) JuanP Derangement on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 6:18 am
Davy on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 6:12 am
Davy on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 7:32 am
Dont forget everyone.
Trump for President 2020.
Make America Goat again.
CONVICT-19 on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 7:49 am
supertards
please take HCL plus pepsin supplement for digestion. please love supremacist muzzies more and dont’ forget this.
“all our problems can’t be solved by the same mindset that created it” (((supertard))) einstein
so if you try to solve our problems without a new mindset, which is to love supremacist muzzies then we’ll fail. the solution is to have your ash up the air 5x/day so i can deliver a swift kick to it. i’d love that.
SocialRevolutionComing on Tue, 16th Jun 2020 2:17 pm
I will make one comment regarding the situation in France, the COVID hoax failure and globalist mass migration failure. Are you ready for my deep inside.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
The nihilist in me loves every minute of what is happening in the world right now.