Power and Climate

There was nothing he could do to help her . . . Regret was illogical . . . but the empty ship still lived for a little while with the presence of the girl who had not known about the forces that killed with neither hatred nor malice. It seemed, almost, that she still sat small and bewildered and frightened on the metal box beside him, her words echoing . . . in the void she had left behind her: I didn’t do anything to die for—I didn’t do anything—

Tom Godwin, “The Cold Equations,” 1954

In and of themselves, power plant emissions were not so bad, given other abuses of the atmosphere. Consider Canada. In 2008, that nation released 603,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide into the all-accepting azure, of which only 130,000 (not quite 22%) came from “electricity and heat generation”*—for as we have seen, transportation and manufacturing must do their respective parts: 30-odd percent apiece. Then came the gracious contributions of commercial and residential energy use. That was only the beginning of my inventory, so I stopped looking around me.

POWER GENERATION’S SHARE OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FOR SELECTED COUNTRIES, 2007–14,

in multiples of the 2012 European Union value

Rounded to the nearest 2 digits right of decimal point.

1

European Union, 2012: 25% (for “public electricity and heat production” of EU-15).

1.20–1.56

U.S.A., 2014: 30–39%, “the largest portion” (“heat production” not necessarily included.)

1.36

Germany, 2007: 33.89% (for “public electricity and heat production”).

1.61

Japan, 2013: 40.3% (for “public electricity and heat production”).

Sources: EU greenhouse report, 2014; U.S. EPA, 2016; Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 2007; Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015; with calculations by WTV.

These figures were problematic enough . . . but had you lived when I was alive, I fancy my tables and numbers would have been as drearily remote to you as they were to me while I patiently, uselessly marshalled them. Even I in my deluded toil can barely imagine that you will trouble to turn over these data, even with your boot, since you are busy enough scouring dead beaches for food. So let me cut to the chase: Throughout the world, power grids grew and grew. They simply had to.

Between 1980 and 2013 American winter peak load capacity increased by 63%, from 572,195,000 to 921,966,000 kilowatt-hours—3.146 trillion BTUs, most of which came from fossil fuels. We lived up to the highest ideals of the Rankine Cycle: To generate our 3 trillion BTUs we wasted 6 trillion more. Burning 674,286,420 pounds of pure carbon* (which is moderately more energy-rich than West Virginia coal) would have produced enough electric current—and offered up 500 million pounds of carbon dioxide . . .

PRIMARY GREENHOUSE GAS AND PRECURSOR EMISSIONS FROM AMERICAN POWER GENERATION, 2014,

in multiples of the value for nitrous oxide

All figures in thousand metric tons [KMT]. 1 metric ton = 1.1023 U.S. tons.

All figures over 10 rounded up to nearest whole digit.

<1

Methane: [?] This must ignore natural gas leaks.

1

Nitrous oxide: 2,178 [KMT]

1.6

Sulfur dioxide: 3,485

992

Carbon dioxide: 2,160,342

Source: Energy Information Administration, 2016, with calculations by WTV.

If you are wondering why this had to be, let the “Public Information Specialist” solve the question:

Q. For what purpose is electricity most essential?

A. Electricity is a basic component of advanced civilization.