Stephen E. Koonin gave a presentation last October, Addressing America’s Energy Challenges. Koonin is Under Secretary for Science of Energy at the US Dept. of Energy, and he pulled together a lot of information and presented it in an excellent, and sometimes quite enlightening way.
The presentation is available here [36 page PDF].
The most interesting slides are:
- 15: Greenhouse gas emissions in 2000 by source, which shows a detailed breakout of worldwide emissions. (The slide doesn’t actually say that it’s worldwide and not US emissions, but it gives a 2000 figure of 42 billion tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases, which is clearly a worldwide figure.)
- 20 and 21: The relationship between yearly emissions and the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere. This graphically depicts one of the nastiest details in our current energy and environmental predicament: The long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- 23: CO2 emissions, OECD and non-OECD, from 1865-2005, which has a couple of call-out boxes that neatly delineate the biggest single point of contention between “developed” and “developing” countires, namely who emitted what when.
- 30: Renewable electricity costs. Let the hair-splitting and food fight begin!
- 31: Cost of CO2 reductions. This could be the best single graph I’ve seen on the topic to date.
Why, you might well ask, don’t I just reproduce these slides here? Because I want you to click through to the presentatoin and look at it all, of course.
The slide on the cost of CO2 reductions is from IEA’s Energy Technology Perspectives report. Unfortunately, it’s fairly expensive, but if you’re serious about understanding energy technology, it is an excellent resource.
I found the slide on per capita emissions changes from 1980 to 2005 to be of greatest interest – and very sobering. Only France seems to have made any significant progress in reducing CO2 emissions per capita, primarily because of the shift to nuclear power.
Why not solve two problems in the same time? Construct wind turbines out of recycled car parts.
A program like this would really help reduce the CO2 emissions.