The Whole World Is Going To Use a Lot More Electricity, IEA Says (bloomberg.com) 85
Electricity demand is set to increase sharply in the coming years as people around the world use more power to run air conditioners, industry and a growing fleet of data centers. From a report: Over the next three years, global electricity consumption is set to rise by an "unprecedented" 3,500 terawatt hours, according to a report by the International Energy Agency. That's an addition each year of more than Japan's annual electricity consumption.
The roughly 4% annual growth in that period is the fastest such rate in years, underscoring the growing importance of electricity to the world's overall energy needs. "The acceleration of global electricity demand highlights the significant changes taking place in energy systems around the world and the approach of a new Age of Electricity," Keisuke Sadamori, IEA's director of energy markets and security, said in a statement. "But it also presents evolving challenges for governments in ensuring secure, affordable and sustainable electricity supply."
The roughly 4% annual growth in that period is the fastest such rate in years, underscoring the growing importance of electricity to the world's overall energy needs. "The acceleration of global electricity demand highlights the significant changes taking place in energy systems around the world and the approach of a new Age of Electricity," Keisuke Sadamori, IEA's director of energy markets and security, said in a statement. "But it also presents evolving challenges for governments in ensuring secure, affordable and sustainable electricity supply."
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the US has lost all its knowledge and talent needed to build new nuke plants.
It's ok, they can take over Canada which has vast reserves of hydro potential.
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It's ok, they can take over Canada which has vast reserves of hydro potential.
yeah and start World War 3 as you do so. Canada is not some pushover and will have endless allies (To start the UK, France and Germany) backing them up. If anything the US is on a path to isolating itself from the rest of the world and in doing so, will fade into irrelevance.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
First, polling out of Canada shows young adults show 40% support for joining the USA.
Ah, the classic dishonesty of a Lying Conservative telling fibs about polls.
The age category was "18 to 34."
The exact question included "IF the United States offered Canadians full US Citizenship, AND a full conversion of the Canadian Dollar and all assets into U.S. currency."
The sample was... a mere 1000 respondents from ages "18+" and then arbitrarily binned into 18-34, 35-54, and 55+, only checked online, not vetted otherwise.
"I'll take Absolute Shit Survey Methodology for $5,000, Trebeck..."
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The sample was... a mere 1000 respondents
1000 respondents is enough, assuming good random sampling.
from ages "18+" and then arbitrarily binned into 18-34, 35-54, and 55+, only checked online, not vetted otherwise.
Even after binning the 1000 respondents, the results within a bin can still be perfectly valid, though the margin of error will be wider and some corrections may need to be applied.
"I'll take Absolute Shit Survey Methodology for $5,000, Trebeck..."
It could be that the methodology was crap. I'm not sure what you meant by "only checked online, not vetted otherwise", but it sounds like it could be bad. But the sample size is not problematic, nor the binning.
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It's closer to 10-15% of the general population
But not evenly geographically distributed.
We'll take Alberta (oil) and Quebec (hydro).
Canada can keep the rest. Or maybe they can rejoin Britain.
The polling in Greenland is much better. 60% favor joining America.
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Reuters: Greenlanders overwhelmingly oppose becoming part of the United States, poll shows
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Re: Too bad (Score:2)
We'll take Alberta (oil) and Quebec (hydro).
Canada can keep the rest. Or maybe they can rejoin Britain.
How would you justify that, ethically speaking?
The polling in Greenland is much better. 60% favor joining America.
Can you provide a source for that information?
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Since we're in fantasyland already with the notion of US merging with Canada (because the GOP wouldn't want a 40 million, Democratic-leaning voter base), I'll pretend to play along with the details.
> We'll take Alberta (oil) and Quebec (hydro). Canada can keep the rest.
Look at the map, there's also Alaska. There's no universe in which the USA would take Alberta, but wouldn't take at least British Columbia, and likely, Yukon, lest Alaska is connected via a thin strip only. Should this happen in this fanta
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Once Alberta realized that as an American Territory they'd lose their control of their natural resources, I doubt that they'd be eager to join.
This talk of us being a 51st State is BS as no way would America give us Statehood due to our politics. Now I'm sure many an American would like us as a Territory like Porto Rico or perhaps Samoa.
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Once Alberta realized that as an American Territory they'd lose their control of their natural resources
In America, resources belong to the property owner. My parents receive a monthly check for the gas well on their farm.
Albertans would do well under the American system of strong property rights.
no way would America give us Statehood due to our politics.
Alberta is as right-wing as Montana.
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Doesn't the American Federal government own a lot of land? Looking at the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] it seems to own an insane amount of land for a federation of States. In Canada, public land is Crown land. While the Territories are Federal Crown land, the Provinces own their Crown land, 60% of Alberta is Crown land managed by the Province. Ignoring the Territories, the Federal government owns very little, some parks, military bases, native reserves totalling 4% of Provincial land according t
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The exact question included "IF the United States offered Canadians full US Citizenship, AND a full conversion of the Canadian Dollar and all assets into U.S. currency."
Demonstrating how you can get any answer you want just by phrasing the question very carefully. I did my own poll of 1000 Canadians, "would you want to live in a country run by President Musk?". The result was 130% "no", even people who weren't polled called in to say no.
If you like I can provide a full breakdown into "no", "hell no", "fuck no", and "fucking hello no, eh?".
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Second, I don't know why people are taking annexation of Canada so seriously since I thought it obvious that the comment from Trump was a joke than any threat of forceful annexation.
"Obvious joke", or merely wishful / apologist rhetoric on your part?
When we Canadians listen to the Fascistic ravings of a madman like Trump who is disassembling his own country and pissing repeatedly on its constitution, we're very much aware that NOTHING he says may safely be taken as a joke. The fact of his grotesque existence, on the other hand...
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I'm still pretty sure Trump just forgot that Canada is a country and after he publicly referred to it as a state he had to either a) admit his mistake or b) go all in. Shockingly, he chose not to admit he made a mistake.
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No he remembers things, how Margaret Sinclair (Justin Trudeau's Mom) wouldn't fuck him and more recently how we rejected 2 Trump towers, one in Vancouver and one in Toronto. And we routinely make fun of him.
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And yet our own mini-Trump has been doing pretty good in the polls. Of course he is smart enough to not answer questions and have a simple message but now and again he slips like saying how he'd deal with Musk, invite him in.
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Now explain to them that Statehood is out of the question and being an American Territory means little political rights and perhaps not even citizenship.
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on the polling issue...
when the poll is done in an echo chamber of like minded idiots, in a right wing publication... and not asking "are you even a Canadian" before taking the poll... yes.. you get to 40%... CANADIANS DO NOT SUPPORT JOINING THE USA, why in the fuck would we?... you'd have to be a drunken, deluded idiot to think that poll is anywhere close to representing the true sentiment of Canadians.. and weirdly the talking heads on tv and online twats playing journalist keep repeating baseless lies a
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
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I know little of American history, but didn't the Canadians end up burning down the White House the last time the US tried to invade?
They blame the Brits for that, but, yes.
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To be fair, we burned Ottowa first, so we kind of had it coming.
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At the time Toronto, or as it was called, York was the capital.
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More recently, during WWII, we had a million people in our army, out of a population of 18 million, the 3rd largest navy in the world and the 4th largest air force. Unlike the Americans, we pulled our weight against fascism and entered the war at the beginning.
Back to the War of 1812, Jefferson famously said that it would be a cake walk to invade Canada, they had the same success as Washington did when he tried. Our French haven't surrendered since 1763.
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Uh no. We don't have* the capital investment it requires.
*People willing to put the capital. We have the people. There are hundreds of nuclear engineering graduates every year. The USA built about 100 nuclear energy reactors from 1965 to 1975 with less nuclear engineers. That's one decade 100 reactors. Even China can't match that pace today (though I suppose they could if they wanted to and went all in).
We need renewables (Score:2)
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Re:We need renewables (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't have enough fossil fuel capacity (nor capacity for co2 in to be absorbed in the atmosphere) to move to the next level of electricity use, if we want the entire world population to be electrified and using communications networks, we need to harvest the power of natural renewables. Since we can't build Dyson spheres yet, its time to harvest the sun's energy that we get for free using our existing technology and then invest in new tech.
Couple of thoughts.
Not enough fossil fuels? I don't know. We been increasing our proven reserves of natural gas for decades now. I don't know there's any reason to expect that to change assuming technology keeps getting better and new areas for drilling keep opening up.
Atmospheric CO2? Probably right. We could do a lot about that if we aggressively converted coal plants to natural gas but for various reasons, we (as a planet) don't focus on that. But point taken, that's a big issue.
Free solar energy? Only if you ignore the costs of manufacturing panels and batteries, building a vastly expanded distribution grid, and ongoing maintenance. None of those are cheap.
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assuming technology keeps getting better and new areas for drilling keep opening up.
Isn't that assumption too big to make, though? The largest, easy to access reserves have already been located and dug up, so there only remain small pockets or hard-to-reach places. It doesn't look promising for the mid-to-long term, as there's no guarantee that this can provide a sustainable business.
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It doesn't look promising for the mid-to-long term
50 years ago we had 50 years of proven reserves. Today we still have 50 years of proven reserves (and a further 100 years of "unproven" reserves). 50 years from now we will likely still have 50 years of proven reserves and some number of unproven reserves that may or may not be the same as today.
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
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Propaganda much? The oil being there in a known location of the underground does not warrant calling it a 'reserve' if it's at an unreachable location.
And even if it's reachable or becomes reachable with future magic technology yet to be researched, that doesn't answer the question of whether it will be economically or environmentally viable to extract it.
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Propaganda much? The oil being there in a known location of the underground does not warrant calling it a 'reserve' if it's at an unreachable location. And even if it's reachable or becomes reachable with future magic technology yet to be researched, that doesn't answer the question of whether it will be economically or environmentally viable to extract it.
Maybe look up what proven reserves [google.com] means first.
Because that's exactly what it means.
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Propaganda much?
Wishful thinking much? There is no impending shortage of fossil fuels.
Provable reserves are "ready to go". Unprovable reserves may or may not be ready to go, they simply have not checked yet. No need to get more than 50 years ahead, but they do keep that consistent buffer on an ongoing basis. Even economical development can take decades so they need to know where the next projects are going to be well ahead of time.
Sometimes new plays get jumped on much faster if the economics are right. Guyana is
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> Not enough fossil fuels? I don't know. We been increasing our proven reserves of natural gas for decades now. I don't know there's any reason to expect that to change assuming technology keeps getting better and new areas for drilling keep opening up.
This is a physically finite planet. There is no known mechanism that generates fossil fuels anywhere near the rate we are using them. The ecological toll for more advanced extraction is severe and long lasting. It is very clearly not sustainable.
> We co
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None of those are cheap.
They are cheaper than fossil fuels, and nuclear.
Which is good news because developing nations where most of the new demand will come from are going to adopt the cheapest option. They may well not bother with a well connected grid like we have, instead just deploying generation and storage to mini/micro grids. Aside from being cheaper, it is also more resilient when infrastructure quality and maintenance isn't great.
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They are cheaper than fossil fuels, and nuclear.
Which is good news because developing nations where most of the new demand will come from are going to adopt the cheapest option.
No doubt. So why are India and China building new coal power plants at a frantic pace? My assumption would be because that's the cheapest power available. And you'd think if solar was inexpensive, China of all places would be installing it in favor of coal.
(Yes, I can imagine the counterargument: even though solar is cheaper they can't make panels fast enough so they are compelled to build the second best system.)
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China isn't. They had a bit of a building speed years ago for political reasons, but many of them were mothballed and never used, and many have already become unviable.
We need nuclear fission (Re:We need renewables) (Score:1)
I don't understand how anyone can seriously call solar power "free", it's just as "free" as mining for coal or uranium. Sure, there's no real restriction on sunlight since it shines everywhere on Earth, but to collect that sunlight into something useful requires mining the Earth for the materials to build mechanisms for collection, conversion, and perhaps also storage, of that energy. Those mechanisms aren't "free", at least not any more free than the mechanisms needed to collect and convert energy from u
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it's free fuel, unlike coal or uranium where as is likely to happen soon, the supply can be cut of. Most of America's uranium comes from Canada and Trump is trying to break that supply chain, though I guess Trump figures Russia will step up and he obviously considers Russia more reliable then Canada.
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Yeah that's realistic
does it though? (Score:2)
"The acceleration of global electricity demand highlights the significant changes taking place in energy systems around the world and the approach of a new Age of Electricity..."
It does? Acceleration of electricity consumption is only that, no "significant changes" other than demand are needed. What it really highlights is that the world is not taking climate change seriously.
Re:does it though? (Score:5, Insightful)
So the world taking climate change seriously will increase electricity demand.
Re: does it though? (Score:2)
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Heat pumps replace natural gas consumption with electricity consumption.
So the world taking climate change seriously will increase electricity demand.
If the demand for electricity was driven by adoption of heat pumps over fossil fuel heat then we could conclude that the rise in electricity demand was driven by concern over global warming. Another conclusion we could draw is concern of future supplies of fuel from Ukraine and Russia, or shipment of fuel through the Panama Canal, Suez Canal, and other choke points in international shipping that are experiencing issues right now.
What's driving much of this demand, according to the fine article, is increasi
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What is usually missed in these articles is that demand will shift as well. Overnight is current a period of low demand, but as people get things like heat pumps and EVs that will change. Both of those things can store energy, so it makes sense to consume electricity when it is cheapest, be that overnight, when wind is high, or during the way when a lot of solar is available.
ummm duh. (Score:2)
Re: ummm duh. (Score:2)
Sex ratio (Re: ummm duh.) (Score:2)
An odd detail I noticed from those statistics though, since 1970 a lot more men have been born than women. Strange shift.
In humans, the natural sex ratio at birth (males:females) is typically 1.05 - 1.06, so no, these numbers aren't unusual.
Re: Sex ratio (Re: ummm duh.) (Score:2)
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Correct, it is not a rounding error. It is the human sex ratio.
Re: Sex ratio (Re: ummm duh.) (Score:2)
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We've become very good at figuring out the sex of fetishes before birth.
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There's cultures that really prefer male children. China during the one child thing was likely the most extreme but quite a few cultures consider female children a negative.
Going to need renewables (Score:2)
It’s a good thing the cost of solar and batteries has come down dramatically and seems to drop more every year. The only way the planet will survive is if the additional energy generation is all renewable. I think the most recent bid for a major Chinese utility company’s battery storage system came in at $68/kWh, which is just crazy low compared to 10 years ago when it was $300+. Even in the rest of the world utilities are seeing $125/kWh.
And outside the US where tariffs aren’t a thing,
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50 MW for a typical data center times 15 hours for a winter night is 750 MW-hr.
A Tesla Maxpower holds 3.9 MW-hr, so that data center needs 192 of them. They weigh 42 tons each, so about 8080 tons, roughly the same as an Arleigh Burke class destroyer.
Now you have nine hours to recharge the battery bank for the next night and supply the 50 MW the data center needs. How many solar panels that takes depends on whether they are fixed mounts or on trackers, and most importantly, how cloudy is it? Heavy cloud cove
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Depending on how hot your area gets in the summer, solar panels lose efficiency when it gets too hot. I want to say the ideal conditions are clear skies and 65F or so. Which isn't far off from where the Southwest USA daytime temps are in winter.
Otherwise, 100% agree with where you are going with your post. Solar has it's place but it will never do everything. Add in some wind, hydro and nuclear and maybe even an emergency oil plant (I'm not a power plant person, but don't things spin up pretty fast compared
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Natural gas plant, and yes many designs allow fast spin up.
No paywall link (Score:2)
This appears to be the same article without a paywall:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone... [msn.com]
A couple interesting points I found in the article. First point:
The IEA said 85 percent of the global increase in power demand will come from the developing economies of the world where the biggest single driver of new demand will be the rapid spread of air conditioning.
This is interesting because so far I've been seeing much written on how heat pumps, electric vehicles, and data centers (specifically those geared towards AI and crypto-currencies) driving demand for more electrical production. This is instead saying it is people seeking air conditioning, and I'd interpret that as in indication of people gaining in wealth t
No Shit! (Score:2)
And that's the fly in the ointment (Score:2)
I've made this point before and I'll make it again.
Green energy people really focus on replacing our existing power and transportation energy needs. This makes perfect sense as just converting our existing fossil fuel infrastructure to green energy is an enormous project. What I and others think they miss is we don't want to just maintain parity, we want to dramatically increase the amount of energy available to humanity.
Just ask the millions suffering from lung disease because they cook and heat their home
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Just ask the millions suffering from lung disease because they cook and heat their homes with indoor charcoal stoves.
Some outfit designed, built and distributed much cleaner stoves to Africa (I think). The result was that households just used both old and new stoves.
And when some jihadists attack a village, it's all the people can do to pick up a few pots and pans, maybe a grate and run. When they get to a new location, they start over piling up stones and building a new open cooking fire. They need stability first. Electricity is a long way down the wish list.
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Some outfit designed, built and distributed much cleaner stoves to Africa (I think). The result was that households just used both old and new stoves.
I recall the same. It makes sense to continue to use what works even if something better comes along, there's all kinds of examples of this elsewhere.
And when some jihadists attack a village, it's all the people can do to pick up a few pots and pans, maybe a grate and run. When they get to a new location, they start over piling up stones and building a new open cooking fire. They need stability first. Electricity is a long way down the wish list.
Even if there is stability and electricity there will likely be people using their old stoves that burn wood, coal, kerosene, or whatever until they gain trust in the electricity being there. I've talked to people from India, and seen some news and documentaries on energy in India, and it's common to see kerosene stoves in use even in large cities. Kerosene
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Honestly, the people you describe would be well served with a few KwH battery and a handful of solar panels to top them off every day. That would be plenty for cooking and LED lighting. Obviously gonna need a lot more if you want to do laundry or cooling/heating.
But as you point out, there would be immediate benefits with just a 3 KwH battery and enough panels to top it off if used to power indoor electric stoves.
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Honestly, the people you describe would be well served with a few KwH battery and a handful of solar panels to top them off every day. That would be plenty for cooking and LED lighting. Obviously gonna need a lot more if you want to do laundry or cooling/heating.
But as you point out, there would be immediate benefits with just a 3 KwH battery and enough panels to top it off if used to power indoor electric stoves.
Absolutely true. But why stop there? Why would we not want them to have all the energy available to first world humans (all other things being equal)?
Check... (Score:5, Insightful)
... as people around the world use more power to run air conditioners, industry and a growing fleet of data centers
Air conditioners? Check.
Industry? Check.
A growing fleet of data centers? Why?
Yes, I know we need data centres. But I'd really like somebody to explain to me in simple terms how vastly increasing their number is going to make any significant contribution to the happiness, health, comfort, or prosperity of the average citizen of Earth.
Even ignoring their Global Warming aspect, I consider these energy-wasters to be dystopian because their primary "contributions" are AI, crypto mining, social media addiction, increased propaganda delivery, high-speed trading, and expanded surveillance capitalism.
In short, we use them primarily to help us entertain ourselves to death and make ourselves stupider. So why do we want MORE of them?
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Says the guy posting on Slashdot.
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Yes, I know we need data centres. But I'd really like somebody to explain to me in simple terms how vastly increasing their number is going to make any significant contribution to the happiness, health, comfort, or prosperity of the average citizen of Earth.
The data is necessary for government uses. You REALLY don't want to know how that data will be used against you. It will never be used to help you.
Ban advertising and marketing (Score:3)
That will make 99.9938% of all datacenters useless.
Why is this utterly obvious reality "news"? (Score:2)
SSL
I've seen it happen (Score:2)
Prior to 2018 I drove a petrol car, used a heating oil (kerosene) powered boiler to heat my house and butane to power my stove top.
Including electricity and converting all the energy sources to kWh, I used between 50-60 kWh annually. Of that, 5-6 MWh was electricity.
Starting in 2018 and finishing in 2021 I changed to an EV, a heat pump, an induction stove top, added solar PV and boosted insulation. Now I only use electricity to power my home and transport.
I now use 16-18 MWh annually and generate between 5-