by BeAChooser » Tue Mar 05, 2024 5:35 am
Eric Lerner has a new video out, trying to sell his fusion effort …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b5bKxHTnY
First he puts up a chart comparing the rate of mortality decline and the rate of energy increase since 1960, pointing out that the both follow the same general trend, slowing from about 3.5% per year in 1960 to about -0.5% per year in 2020. In other words, he presents a chart showing how much mortality has been declining per year compared to how much available energy has been growing per year over that timeframe.
The chart is basically an S shape tipped over ... with a steep drop from 1960 to 1980, then a leveling off (at between 0.5-1.0% per year) between 1980 and 2010, then another steep drop from 2010 to 2020. As he puts it, both curves have now “collapsed.” Hence, “Humanity Is In Crisis” and must act.
He says to escape the crisis, we need to triple energy growth and return to the growth of the 1960s. But that’s not the only thing we must do, he says. He claims we can’t do that with fossil fuels to which I say GARBAGE in the near term … the next 50 years or so. There is no urgency to go to fusion on this basis. The current, proven, economically viable reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are as follows: Gas - 49 years, Oil - 57 years, Coal - 139 years. Proven reserves are a subset of producible reserves.
And except for coal (because we haven’t been looking for more of it recently) those reserves have been steadily growing larger. In fact, from 1980 to 2015, both oil and gas proven reserves have more than doubled, despite increasing consumption. In fact, from 2020 to 2021, US proven reserves of crude oil climbed about 15% and natural gas reserves climbed 30%. And we’ve barely touched the energy available in methane hydrates, shale oil and tar sands.
Furthermore, understand that the alarmists have been predicting we’d run out of fossil fuels in the next 50 years for over 50 years. As this article (
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen ... 36aed72bbe) points out, “Peak oil, a hypothetical point when global oil production maximizes and enters an irreversible decline, has been the holy grail of resource economics for decades: prized and just as elusive. … snip … When this author was about 10 (more than 50 years ago), his father, an oil and gas Ph.D. geologist, told him that we will run out of oil, as all major fields have been already discovered.”
Yet, we still haven’t yet reached Peak Oil. According to the article, “Norwegian state-owned oil company Equinor and energy researcher Rystad Energy predict a peak around 2028 owing to low investments in oil supply and increasingly efficient competition from renewable energy projects.” But that’s not an oil in ground supply problem … that’s us not spending the money to find and produce it, and the influence of competition with other currently available energy sources. And the article says “A recent OPEC outlook report estimated steadily increasing demand, which would result in peak oil in approximately 2040”, even farther in the future. And “according to BP,” British Petroleum, “peak oil [will] not hit until 2050 based on known oil resources with the application of today’s technology.” But by then known oil reserves will have grown some more and today’s technology will be yesterdays.
So to claim there’s an urgency to shift to fusion based on diminishing fossil fuel reserves is a dishonest argument, no different than claiming there’s an urgency based on CO2 induced global warming. Or an urgency to find out what Dark Matter is given there's not use for DM right now.
Lerner next claims that 7 million people a year are dying from pollution due to fossil fuels. He doesn’t supply a source for this, but claims that global deaths per trillion kWh from Coal, Gas, Oil and Biomass (burning wood) is 164,000 per year. Well, this source (
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-produ ... onsumption) states that the current energy produced from those sources is 145 TWh. Since a trillion is a tera, it seems to me that we have to divide 145 trillion by (164,000 times 1000) to find the total number of deaths from pollution per year. I get about 900,000 a year.
Now, of course, leftist sources like the professors at Harvard recently claimed that 8 million people die a year from fossil fuel pollution (see
https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/d ... ly-thought) but I’m not sure I believe their methodology. For one thing, their goal is not truth but to justify draconian actions to prevent the lie of CO2 induce global warming (aka climate change).
Other mainstream (leftist) sources (
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ple-a-year) claim that 8 million people are dying worldwide from air pollution, about 5 million of which are linked to fossil fuel use. This figure comes from the Cop28 climate summit, making it automatically suspect as well.
But then there’s this study from 2021 (
https://source.wustl.edu/2021/06/new-re ... ombustion/), which concludes that about one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017 worldwide. Half of those deaths were attributed to use of coal.
And this mainstream article from 2022 (
https://fortune.com/2022/10/26/fossil-f ... dy-lancet/) cites a study whose co-author, Dr Renee Salas, is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, that finds the air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas causes about 1.2 million deaths a year worldwide. It says “the 1.2 million figure is based on ‘immense scientific evidence,’ Harvard’s Salas said.” Now isn’t it remarkable that just two years later Harvard is now claiming 8 million deaths a year?
You see why I don’t trust Lerner's number of supposed deaths from fossil fuels?
But ok, say we get fusion and IF it replaces all these fossil fuel sources around the world, it will save a million or more lives a year. BUT … the transition to fusion has to be done carefully (in other words, don’t cut off use of fossil fuels too early … or not just millions may die each year, but far, far more than that. Because the world right now, is still largely dependent on fossil fuels to provide heat, light, transportation, food, etc. And right now the powers that be are unwisely eliminating fossil fuel production of energy long before fusion will be available, replacing it with MUCH, MUCH more expensive energy, which as far as those without means is concerned, is not replacing it at all. Maybe the increases in mortality world wide are largely due to that now?
In any case, Lerner then gets to his third reason we need fusion now. That the cost of fossil fuels is a major drag on the world’s economy …. “$5 trillion per year, equal to half the global manufacturing output.” But this is another bogus claim and excuse. First, in 2024, numerous sources state that global manufacturing output is over $15 trillion per year, not $10 trillion. So it’s only a third of the world’s economy.
Second, the cost of fossil fuel has been artificially raised (more than doubled in the past two decades as a result of bogus AGWalarmist legislation and regulations, whose purpose is to drive people away from fossil fuels to further the AGWalarmist agenda and to increase control over the public. At the same time, the substitute fuels that the AGWalarmists encouraged have all been massively subsidized by the government, thus hiding their true cost. Where those true costs are finally being factored in … as in the EV market, for example … the substitutes are failing to stand on their own, costing companies billions.
Third, this source (
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -this-year) states that in 2022 energy costs are set to reach 13% of Global GDP. Viewed from that perspective (since many of the world’s biggest economies are service, not manufacturing, economies), that doesn’t seem too exorbitant a percent. And that number includes not just fossil fuels but all sources of energy. By considering only manufacturing, Lerner is biasing conclusions.
And then Lerner gets to the biggest bugaboo of all … AGWalarmism. I’m not going to bother countering the simplest and faulty argument he gives since it’s been debunked a thousand ways from Sunday by numerous experts … and because EVERY prediction made by AGWalarmists over the years has failed … as miserably as the predictions of mainstream astrophysicists. It’s sad to see Lerner buy into a lie like that just to help sell his fusion efforts. He’s fear mongering and I don’t like it, even if I do agree with much of what he’s argued about cosmology over the years.
Eric Lerner has a new video out, trying to sell his fusion effort …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b5bKxHTnY
First he puts up a chart comparing the rate of mortality decline and the rate of energy increase since 1960, pointing out that the both follow the same general trend, slowing from about 3.5% per year in 1960 to about -0.5% per year in 2020. In other words, he presents a chart showing how much mortality has been declining per year compared to how much available energy has been growing per year over that timeframe.
The chart is basically an S shape tipped over ... with a steep drop from 1960 to 1980, then a leveling off (at between 0.5-1.0% per year) between 1980 and 2010, then another steep drop from 2010 to 2020. As he puts it, both curves have now “collapsed.” Hence, “Humanity Is In Crisis” and must act.
He says to escape the crisis, we need to triple energy growth and return to the growth of the 1960s. But that’s not the only thing we must do, he says. He claims we can’t do that with fossil fuels to which I say GARBAGE in the near term … the next 50 years or so. There is no urgency to go to fusion on this basis. The current, proven, economically viable reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are as follows: Gas - 49 years, Oil - 57 years, Coal - 139 years. Proven reserves are a subset of producible reserves.
And except for coal (because we haven’t been looking for more of it recently) those reserves have been steadily growing larger. In fact, from 1980 to 2015, both oil and gas proven reserves have more than doubled, despite increasing consumption. In fact, from 2020 to 2021, US proven reserves of crude oil climbed about 15% and natural gas reserves climbed 30%. And we’ve barely touched the energy available in methane hydrates, shale oil and tar sands.
Furthermore, understand that the alarmists have been predicting we’d run out of fossil fuels in the next 50 years for over 50 years. As this article (https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2022/11/30/peak-oil-the-perennial-prophecy-that-went-wrong/?sh=5336aed72bbe) points out, “Peak oil, a hypothetical point when global oil production maximizes and enters an irreversible decline, has been the holy grail of resource economics for decades: prized and just as elusive. … snip … When this author was about 10 (more than 50 years ago), his father, an oil and gas Ph.D. geologist, told him that we will run out of oil, as all major fields have been already discovered.”
Yet, we still haven’t yet reached Peak Oil. According to the article, “Norwegian state-owned oil company Equinor and energy researcher Rystad Energy predict a peak around 2028 owing to low investments in oil supply and increasingly efficient competition from renewable energy projects.” But that’s not an oil in ground supply problem … that’s us not spending the money to find and produce it, and the influence of competition with other currently available energy sources. And the article says “A recent OPEC outlook report estimated steadily increasing demand, which would result in peak oil in approximately 2040”, even farther in the future. And “according to BP,” British Petroleum, “peak oil [will] not hit until 2050 based on known oil resources with the application of today’s technology.” But by then known oil reserves will have grown some more and today’s technology will be yesterdays.
So to claim there’s an urgency to shift to fusion based on diminishing fossil fuel reserves is a dishonest argument, no different than claiming there’s an urgency based on CO2 induced global warming. Or an urgency to find out what Dark Matter is given there's not use for DM right now.
Lerner next claims that 7 million people a year are dying from pollution due to fossil fuels. He doesn’t supply a source for this, but claims that global deaths per trillion kWh from Coal, Gas, Oil and Biomass (burning wood) is 164,000 per year. Well, this source (https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption) states that the current energy produced from those sources is 145 TWh. Since a trillion is a tera, it seems to me that we have to divide 145 trillion by (164,000 times 1000) to find the total number of deaths from pollution per year. I get about 900,000 a year.
Now, of course, leftist sources like the professors at Harvard recently claimed that 8 million people die a year from fossil fuel pollution (see https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/deaths-fossil-fuel-emissions-higher-previously-thought) but I’m not sure I believe their methodology. For one thing, their goal is not truth but to justify draconian actions to prevent the lie of CO2 induce global warming (aka climate change).
Other mainstream (leftist) sources (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/29/air-pollution-from-fossil-fuels-kills-5-million-people-a-year) claim that 8 million people are dying worldwide from air pollution, about 5 million of which are linked to fossil fuel use. This figure comes from the Cop28 climate summit, making it automatically suspect as well.
But then there’s this study from 2021 (https://source.wustl.edu/2021/06/new-research-finds-1m-deaths-in-2017-attributable-to-fossil-fuel-combustion/), which concludes that about one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017 worldwide. Half of those deaths were attributed to use of coal.
And this mainstream article from 2022 (https://fortune.com/2022/10/26/fossil-fuel-addiction-kills-million-people-year-leaves-hungry-doctors-study-lancet/) cites a study whose co-author, Dr Renee Salas, is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, that finds the air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas causes about 1.2 million deaths a year worldwide. It says “the 1.2 million figure is based on ‘immense scientific evidence,’ Harvard’s Salas said.” Now isn’t it remarkable that just two years later Harvard is now claiming 8 million deaths a year?
You see why I don’t trust Lerner's number of supposed deaths from fossil fuels?
But ok, say we get fusion and IF it replaces all these fossil fuel sources around the world, it will save a million or more lives a year. BUT … the transition to fusion has to be done carefully (in other words, don’t cut off use of fossil fuels too early … or not just millions may die each year, but far, far more than that. Because the world right now, is still largely dependent on fossil fuels to provide heat, light, transportation, food, etc. And right now the powers that be are unwisely eliminating fossil fuel production of energy long before fusion will be available, replacing it with MUCH, MUCH more expensive energy, which as far as those without means is concerned, is not replacing it at all. Maybe the increases in mortality world wide are largely due to that now?
In any case, Lerner then gets to his third reason we need fusion now. That the cost of fossil fuels is a major drag on the world’s economy …. “$5 trillion per year, equal to half the global manufacturing output.” But this is another bogus claim and excuse. First, in 2024, numerous sources state that global manufacturing output is over $15 trillion per year, not $10 trillion. So it’s only a third of the world’s economy.
Second, the cost of fossil fuel has been artificially raised (more than doubled in the past two decades as a result of bogus AGWalarmist legislation and regulations, whose purpose is to drive people away from fossil fuels to further the AGWalarmist agenda and to increase control over the public. At the same time, the substitute fuels that the AGWalarmists encouraged have all been massively subsidized by the government, thus hiding their true cost. Where those true costs are finally being factored in … as in the EV market, for example … the substitutes are failing to stand on their own, costing companies billions.
Third, this source (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-16/energy-costs-set-to-reach-record-13-of-global-gdp-this-year) states that in 2022 energy costs are set to reach 13% of Global GDP. Viewed from that perspective (since many of the world’s biggest economies are service, not manufacturing, economies), that doesn’t seem too exorbitant a percent. And that number includes not just fossil fuels but all sources of energy. By considering only manufacturing, Lerner is biasing conclusions.
And then Lerner gets to the biggest bugaboo of all … AGWalarmism. I’m not going to bother countering the simplest and faulty argument he gives since it’s been debunked a thousand ways from Sunday by numerous experts … and because EVERY prediction made by AGWalarmists over the years has failed … as miserably as the predictions of mainstream astrophysicists. It’s sad to see Lerner buy into a lie like that just to help sell his fusion efforts. He’s fear mongering and I don’t like it, even if I do agree with much of what he’s argued about cosmology over the years.