How Significant Is Renewable Energy Today

Every so often, I feel compelled to lecture on energy and the environment. After all, I once taught those courses in the College of Engineering at the University of Hawaii. After a string of postings on aliens, optimal governments, the gold tree, suicide and the Flat Universe, here is an article that is impossibly pedantic, but is provided to insert the fear factor into decision-making on sustainable resources and climate change. Scientific logic is failing, so what about The Venus Syndrome?

Global renewable energy investments amounted to 257 billion in 2011, six times higher than in 2004. A little more than half went towards solar photovoltaics. Renewable energy sources were responsible for nearly half the total new electrical capacity. Sounds terrific....but...a sum of of 302 billion went towards new fossil-fuel capacity, and the growth from the previous year of of more than 25% exceeded the 17% of the green option.

Yet, solar companies are doing dismally, and the death spiral of bankruptcies is growing. The combination of poor economy, overcapacity and uncertainty about continued federal support is taking a heavy toll. On the other hand, maybe this could be just normal attrition, for there were over 500 car companies in 1903. But electricity is only about a third of total energy usage. Glance at the right column and note that the wind/biofuls/solar/geothermal percentage stands today at around 2%.

Here are the comparative statistics for petroleum:

" - The value of oil consumed in 2011 was around 3 trillion (or 3000 billion")

- Over the next decade, oil/gas companies will spend 3 trillion for exploration and drilling, or 300 billion/year.

" - During the past decade, BP, Chevon, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell made about 1 trillion in profits. More specifically, they had profits of 137 billion in 2011. They spent 66 million on lobbying in 2011 and received nearly 2 billion worth of tax breaks. Wouldn't it be an ultimately magnanimous gesture for them to show up at the next G8 gathering and donate this sum to global climate change remediation? Of course, I suggested in my original Huffington Post article that President Obama go to his first summit and say, the U.S. will reduce our defense budget by 10%, and will cut it again by another 10% next year, if all of you (and China") do the same. In a few short years, if the major countries comply, serious wars should end. Crazy? Sure, but click on "Well, Barack, We Have a Problem..."

Pardon me for that diversion, but to summarize, while the renewables remain marginally small, there has been spectacular growth since the turn of the millennium. Part of the problem, though, is that, even with the sluggish economy, energy use continues to climb, especially in countries like China and India. Further, they appear not to mind adding more coal to the mix. For at least a decade now, THE SOURCE THAT HAS GROWN THE MOST IN TERMS OF TOTAL ENERGY IS COAL. Have they heard of global warming?

I particularly worry about The Venus Syndrome:

The above graphs are from Encyclopedia of Earth. Thus, is there sufficient time for the renewables to make an impact to prevent The Venus Syndrome? There is a theory called the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis:

Each peak indicates major extinction events for life on Planet Earth, caused by a jump in methane into the atmosphere. However, those numbers stand for millions of years. Thus they only occur every 100 million years or so. So, we probably have time on our side, except for the nagging reality that what took millions of years to build each spike is now being reached in a century.

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There are two major ocean storms, and one of them will intersect with me in a week or so. First Tropical Storm Carlotta, which will become a hurricane and make landfall in the vicinity of Acapulco in a few days:

But the one that worries me is Typhoon Guchol, already at 95 MPH and scheduled to roar through Japan, if not South Korea, and I'll be in both countries from Saturday:

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