Climate change: The Critical Decade

Yes, it does - that's exactly what it means. Otherwise NZ's level of urbanization wouldn't be a factor relevant to comparison between the countries' respective energy sectors - there'd be no "coupling."

And then there is, of course, the other various direct comparisons of urbanization you have offered up ("suburban boom," etc.).

Ah, I see that on edit you've reproduced the material I directly quoted, which is explicitly about energy consumption comparisons. Why you seem to think that you are doing something other than shooting yourself in the foot there, is something of a curiosity.

Meanwhile: do you have any actual point in this whole hissy-fit? It's looking like some combination of pathology or cheap tactic.

 

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I haven't denied ANYTHING.

You simply can't read.

I don't think there are any prizes but understanding.
Jumping into a thread and taking it on BS tangents doesn't help either of us.

Arthur

 

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No it doesn't.
It means because they are already urbanized their isn't room for us to catch up.

 

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Ummm.... wow.

That's what I've been telling you - now how about you deal with the energy consumption numbers that I so thoughtfully provided in response to your speculations about such?

Do you genuinely not get that that sentence there is exactly a comparison of the level of urbanization in NZ and the USA?

 

And when you thought that's what I was implying I immediately told you that's NOT what I was implying.

I know what I was trying to say and had that been what I was trying to say I would have reaffirmed it.

I immediately told you that's NOT what I meant.

End of Story.

Arthur

 

Nothing you've noticed, apparently. Maybe if you reread the thread?

Trolling your standard misrepresentations again, as described above - your mode here and everywhere. Motive?

There is no fusion available to invest in, despite decades of intensive and expensive large scale research. Nuclear fission is not renewable, and exactly what I was pointing to above as the likely consequences of the small and slow and piecemeal US investment in renewable power sources. Coal is fossil fuel, not renewable (although in large supply), and not part of any tally of investment in renewables.

And of course you have to know that - which brings up the question of the motives behind your posting what looks like deliberate deception and deflection from the issue at hand.

Meanwhile, we see from your dragging in the huge irrelevancies to conceal the issue that you recognize the physical situation - US investment in renewable power sources is and has been small, slow, piecemeal, and inadequate.

Regarding the fossil fuel cost of ethanol, here's some backing for your assertion that ethanol is a net benefit and worthwhile replacement http://www.everythingbiomass.org/Portals/EB/Publications/Net Energy Basics.pdf
And here's some backing for the position that there is little or no net benefit in corn ethanol, especially from the climate change pov: http://www.abelard.org/briefings/biofuels.php

 

I've read the thread and the report it was based on.
No CRISIS is mentioned in it.

Nope.
Clearly not misrepresenting that energy generation on commercial scale is indeed done by large corporations.

Note I said renewables/CO2 neutral because the issue in the OP was about reducing CO2 and the solution is NOT limited to renewables and thus Nuclear and Clean Coal/CSS are means to reducing the CO2 emission levels, which is why we are investing part of our R&D funds in these along with Fusion research.

The data clearly shows that our investments in these technologies is HUGE and growing and not at all as you describe.

Arthur

 

Which is why I CLARIFIED it, since you got the wrong implication.

Yes I did. This is where I restated it so there wouldn't be this confusion:

Do you really need me to explain the reasoning behind my speculation that we might not be able to keep up even more?

Remember this is the original statement:

we won't be able to keep up with NZ in the percent of renewables, because we don't have your huge abundance of Hydro and Geothermal energy coupled with a small highly urban country

So clearly I laid out the fact that you have so much more Hydro and Geothermal energy than we do, and plenty more available and as you pointed out, you are in the "roaring 40s" and you are just getting started in the wind energy game.

The "coupled with" clause that seems to be the point of contention, is the minor point and was simply pointing out that you are a small country, thus things like your miles driven per driver per year will not suddenly go up and you are already an Urban based culture and thus efficient, and thus one would expect, as efficiencies increase, that your per capita energy demands will go down, not up. Not a big point, just making the point that there wasn't something about your country that would LIKELY cause your non-renewable energy demands (primarily oil) to jump.

What that means is simply that your future will likely be a slow decline in energy use per capita and your growth needs (due to population growth) will likely (as you pointed out) be based more on renewables than on Coal and NG and I anticipate that both countries will continue to rely on oil for most of our transportation for some time (but with our much greater intercity distances our transportation oil use will probably always exceed yours).

The KEY point I was making was that because of your huge Hydro/Geothermal resources, you are already at 26% of your primary energy as renewable compared to only 7% in the US (74% of the electricity generated in NZ comes from renewable sources while presently the US is only at 11%), thus there is not likely going to be a way for the US to catch up with you (anytime soon at least).

The existing gap is just too large.

Consider that in NZ, hydro already accounts for 11% of your primary energy, but only 2% in the US and that Geothermal accounts for 11% of your primary energy, but only .3% in the US, and you can see how far ahead you are, and when you look at your planned new plants, plus what you wrote about the expansion plans for wind, it's pretty clear you plan on further exploiting these renewable resources and increasing your percent of primary energy beyond 26% and so that the statement I made, that with the US at 7% renewable energy, it's unlikely we will be able to catch up with NZ, already at 26%, should be a no-brainer. (if over the next decade we increased our RE by 400% and NZ increased theirs by just 3%, NZ would still be ahead)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_New_Zealand#Proposed
http://mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/enz07-dec07/chapter-5.pdf

Arthur

 

No, you didn't.

Nowhere in this thread do you suggest any plausible alternative reading of your (clear-cut, unmistakeable) statements. You just do a lot of shouting and beating your chest, and then repeat yourself exactly.

And since this is submitted as relevant to the relative renewable energy sourcing between NZ and the USA, it begs the question of what differences you are asserting exist with respect to the USA, there. That the USA is not already an "Urban based culture?" That our miles driver per driver per year will "suddenly go up?" That our per-capita energy demands will go up, not down?

Why do you need to make the point that NZ's non-renewable energy demands are unlikely to jump, when comparing renewable energy sourcing to the USA? Did someone suggest that such jumps are relevant to or expected in either country? Or is this simply a distracting irrelevancy - and if so, why did you spend so much page space picking inane fights over it, instead of just dropping it forthwith?

So you agree that NZ leads the USA, by leaps and bounds, in the most salient, comparatively-valid measure of investment in renewable energy (percentage of primary energy sourced from renewables)?

Great - only took, what, five pages of screaming and feet-stamping to establish that obvious fact.

 

Ah, but that was in regard to THIS statement I made:

Note Hydro wasn't listed.

And then you claimed that NZ led in Wind based on per capita, and I showed that you were wrong.
We also have the most Geothermal installed (by far) and we are clearly are one of the two leaders in biofuels and one of the three leaders in Solar.

The later question that we have been discussing for pages was not so phrased, and just referred to percent of Renewable energy, and in that regard we can't catch up because we have no large hydro areas we are planning on building out and not many Geo sites planned and you have plenty of both planned. Our expansion will be primarily in Solar, Wind and Biofuels and those were the ones I graphed earlier and was discussing.

Arthur

 

Yes.
I never said they didn't.

BS, I never said anything different.
You simply can't read.

I said we lead in WIND, BIOFUELS, GEOTHERMAL and we're a leader in Solar.

We DO lead in WIND, BIOFUELS, GEOTHERMAL and we're a leader (#3) in Solar.

Arthur

 

Nope.

When you compare country's resource usage proportionately, that implies per capita and the US generates MORE Wind power per Capita than NZ does.

I didn't argue with your other comparisons, for instance about market share, as they are not particularly relevant to the discussion.

Arthur

 

What does that statement have to do with my point?

No one cares about market share.

East switlin-switch, with a population of 2,000, could put up one small turbine as their only source of power and they would lead in market share of renewables.

It's a meaningless statistic.

 

I don't see how - the obvious implication of "proportionately" to me is "as a proportion of total energy generation." Why would it mean "divided by the number of people?" Why not per-dollar-of-GDP, or per-manufactured-output, if we're going to pull implied divisors out of thin air?

Meanwhile, this tack is a bit rich given the recent context.

And US wind generation is a smaller proportion of total power generation, than in NZ.

You mean, they don't support any point you want to make right now. That being a different thing from "the discussion."

You mean you don't care about market share - apparently because it doesn't provide an easy pretext to bully the discussion in the direction you want.

Meanwhile, the only "point" you seem to be making is that you are much more interested in such than in having any sort of useful policy discussion. To which the market share stuff is directly relevant, as it turns out.

Nothing "meaningless" visible there - a town that gets all of its electricity from wind power, should indeed count as a leader in reliance on wind power. That you'd suggest otherwise, with a straight face, is a pretty compelling demonstration that you aren't looking to have an honest discussion of such matters.

And anyway that pathology only applies on very small scales of comparison, which are not at issue here. We're talking national-level comparisons, between big enough countries to avoid that problem. You are advancing an irrelevant distraction to avoid the most salient, telling statistic available: the percentage of total power generation coming from renewables. Instead, you want to traffic in misleading statistics to disguise the (non-renewable) energy profligacy of the USA relative to New Zealand, and so misrepresent the USA as stronger in renewables than New Zealand. It isn't going to work, and I'm baffled at why you think you'll get away with it.