Days

In the energy / climate discourse there is a lot of dumbing down being done and this is either plain dumb or even worse, arrogant. I am an unpaid nuclear energy promoter but it annoys me no end when other promoters label it as a "zero emissions" energy source. It is not. Dumbing down energy / climate conversations is disrespectful for your audience plus, we do NOT want to sound like Greenpeacers (all feelings and no facts). So, even nuclear promoters should probably clearly underline the following: There will be more nuclear power plant accidents. This is inevitable. The airline industry will NEVER state that there will not be more airplane disasters; we shouldn't either. Yes, in spite of past and future nuclear accidents nuclear energy will almost certainly continue to be the safest energy we have; bar none. This is equivalent to air travel: even though airplane accidents are more newsworthy, planes are by far safer than automobiles per mile travelled. Actuall...

Yesterday I was having a polite conversation with a climate alarmist and even though all through the interaction you could sense a feeling of superiority from the "settled science" promoter, at the end she stated this respecting energy: "I don't have a horse in the race." Well, if increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are really an issue, then we most definitely need a horse in the race. CO2 emissions won't go down just by "believing" in human caused global warming. No, where the rubber meets the road we'll have to replace high carbon intensity primary energy with lower carbon alternatives. Since hydro is pretty much maxxed out as a percentage of global primary energy and renewables need pairing power plants that end up producing most of the energy on an annual basis, we essentially have two options to reduce the CO2 intensity of primary energy: 1. Replace coal with natural gas. When used for electricity generation, natura...

Fusion was supposed to be the source of cheap electricity for humanity. Back in 1955, Homi Bhabha said: "I venture to predict that a method will be found for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner within the next two decades. When that happens the energy problems of the world will truly have been solved forever." Well, after more than 60 years and billions upon billions of funds coming from Russia, the US, Europe, Japan and even Argentina, fusion has gone nowhere. Today, fusion doesn't even produce 1% of world's energy. Hey, it doesn't produce even 0.1%. It produces a big fat nothing. The Manhattan Project achieved its objectives in less than four years. The Apollo Program achieved its objectives in less than a decade. Fusion, on the other hand, continues burning billions of dollars (euros) every year and not one lousy power plant is still in operation. Why the fixation with fusion? Some are expecting a breakthrough at any moment, but the ...

There are some applications in which solar PV is the best energy source and, not surprisingly, in those applications it commands almost 100% of the market. One such application is powering satellites in geostationary orbit. At that altitude, on most days the capacity factor of the solar panels is close to 100%. That's right, this is not a mistake: close to 100%. Only near the equinoxes does that capacity factor drop but it still is sustained way above 90% on a daily basis. On the other hand, here on the surface of the Earth we have nights, clouds, and seasons and thus solar energy is intermittent and unreliable. One size does not fit all. For geostationary satellites NOTHING beats solar PV. Here on Earth, we have better options. Feel free to add to the conversation in Twitter: @luisbaram

Before tweeting against fossil fuels, please realize that the whole process is fossil fuel powered. The mining, smelting, refining of the metals and compounds required. The manufactory / assembly of most smartphones has a heavy China component and in that country coal rules in the primary energy supply. Shipping the smartphone to your country is usually done either in petrol powered ships or kerosene powered airplanes. And now, you have to power both your phone as well as the Twitter servers. Globally, coal is the #1 source of electricity and natural gas sits firmly at #2. Finally, the money you (or rather, your parents) needed to pay for your phone was earned with the support of fossil fuels. So, if you are anti-fossil fuels you'll probably be more consistent if you do not tweet at all. Thank you. Please follow us at @luisbaram

In my opinion, the arrogant behavior of many climate alarmists not only repels a lot of people, but may end up destroying the credibility they still have left. What would be a welcome change? Imagine an alarmist that spoke this way: Even though CO2 is a greenhouse gas and in theory higher concentrations of it in the atmosphere would tend to increase global temperatures, in reality climate science is an amazingly complicated subject and thus we cannot reliably make projections of what will happen in the short or long term.  Yes, some of us think things could get really bad, but so far there is no compelling evidence either that the climate is getting more violent or that tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more common globally. Neither is there evidence that agricultural production is suffering worldwide.  The most media hungry among us love to point to anecdotal weather happenings and even try to trigger fear in others but this is obviously n...