He’s Your President – You Tell Him

Just what is it with the President and Math?

Still, I suppose a College Degree in Community Organising doesn’t have to be too big on Math. After all, it’s someone else’s money. All he needs to decide is who to give it to. The Math is someone else’s problem.

However, the position of President means you should have a good choice of Advisers behind him to do the Math, and then advise him of it, so he doesn’t look a bit silly when he makes these grand statements.

Let’s look at this current Climate Change debate, and his Government’s plan to cut right back on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Surely I’m not the only one who can work this out?

President Obama is currently meeting with World Leaders and one of the big picture topics is how he wants to persuade them to follow his plan and cut back on the emissions of this CO2, which we are told is heating all the World to hell in a hand basket. The plan is to cut back on current emission levels by a factor of 80%, and to achieve this by 2050. It’s all part of a hoped for deal to stitch up agreement for the upcoming UN Climate change Meeting to be held later this year in Copenhagen. This Copenhagen meeting is being held to find a replacement for the now patently failed Kyoto Protocol.

I spent nearly 5 months and a series of 50 separate posts explaining in intricate detail just how impossible it was going to be to comply with that Kyoto Protocol, and that only called for a reduction in CO2 emissions to a level 5% lower than what was being emitted in 1990. That called for the effective closing of 30% of all coal fired power plants in the U.S. I explained the possible ways of achieving this, the proposed use of renewable plants, and how they could not replace them in any way, that the cost would be absolutely prohibitive, and would in effect, provide no real result at all. Since then I have further added more detail with a further 100 or so posts, all these over the last 16 months.

Now, not only have they decided that this Kyoto Protocol is totally ineffective, they have come up with an even more difficult thing to achieve.

Let’s look at it, shall we.

The idea is to decrease CO2 emissions by 80% and to achieve this by the year 2050.

Currently, almost 50% of all the electrical power consumed in the U.S. is generated by those coal fired power plants. To do this, they have to burn 1.05 Billion tons of coal. This burning of that amount of coal produces just on 3 Billion tons of CO2, and when combined with the (lesser) emissions of CO2 from other fossil fuel burning power plants, that amount of CO2 emissions rises to 3.5 Billion tons.

Now, here’s the killer in all of this. That amount of CO2, just for the generation of electrical power alone amounts to only 30% of all emissions of CO2 in the U.S.

Did you get that?

30%

The cutback aimed for is 80% by 2050.

So, in effect, that means closing down all the fossil fuel power plants in the U.S. That is 71% of all the electrical power consumed in the U.S.

Did you get that?

Almost three fourths of all the electrical power in the U.S.

Not the overall 15% to comply with Kyoto, in effect 30% of all the coal fired power plants, but now all of them, and all of the others as well.

All this for only 30% of a projected 80% cut in total emissions.

Okay, you say, we have until 2050 to do this, 41 years.

What did the President say during the campaign?

We can do it.

Okay then, let’s do it. or, let’s do the Math anyway.

Wind and Solar currently provide around 1.5% of all the consumed power in the U.S. That has to be increased to 71% by 2050.

As I mentioned, I went to extraordinary detail in those other posts to explain costings for all this, so that’s an exercise I don’t need to go over again, suffice to say the cost will be astronomical, totally out of the question, and for minimal power that won’t go any way towards providing electrical power on a 24/7/365 basis that those coal fired plants do provide.

I want to just concentrate on the simple Math.

If you were to totally get rid of every one of those coal fired plants, all the natural gas plant, all the other fossil fuel based plants, (71% of all electrical power) then all you are saving is 30% of those CO2 emissions. The hoped for target is 80%.

Is that simple, or what?

How can I be the only one to see this?

Someone might read the story a little closer, and see that some concessions might be made for those Developing Countries, and that the full 80% will only be felt by Developed Countries, and that those other Developing Countries, in effect the complete Third World, might only be asked to commit to 50%.

Consider this.

If EVERY coal fired power plant currently in operation on the surface of the Planet, in every Country was switched off right this very minute, then the reduction in total CO2 emissions would only amount to 30%.

Then consider this as well.

If EVERY coal fired plant was turned off, total World Emissions of CO2 would still increase.

Keep in mind just how much CO2 is in the whole of the Planet’s Atmosphere. That total of CO2 amounts to 0.0385%.

Read that again. That’s a little more than one thirtieth of one percent.

If EVERY coal fired power plant was turned off right now, then the amount of CO2 being emitted in total from the surface of the Planet will still be 35 Billion tons.

Got that?

35 Billion tons, for each and every year.

If the amount of CO2 currently being emitted amounts to 50 Billion tons adds 0.0003% then turning off all those plants will still see an addition to the total of 0.0002%.

See now how even though those amounts being emitted seem so huge in the Billions of tons, the actual percentageis so minutely small as to be almost inconsequential.

The main part of the Math however is that one right at the top.

Turn off all power and save 30%

The target is 80%.

You do the Math.

The President can’t, and it would seem, neither can his advisers.

Source for Power figures, coal totals, power generation: U.S. Government Energy Information Administration Database.

Source for Atmospheric total emissions of 50 Billion tons. UNFCCC, UNIPCC, International Energy Agency.