Dr. Conca states that if you think we have been doing a reasonable job of curbing fossil fuel use in our electricity production, you are sadly mistaken. While coal use in America and Europe has leveled, growth in coal use worldwide is increasing dramatically. And, natural gas has kicked into high gear most everywhere.
Renewables have grown rapidly, relative to themselves, but are still extremely small with respect to fossil fuel growth. In fact, just the growth in fossil fuel over the last five years has dwarfed the growth in renewables over the same time period. Nuclear and hydroelectric are level but predicted by government sources to grow only moderately in the next few decades. While the developed world is switching from coal to natural gas, the developing world sees coal as their answer.
In the developing world, there are 1.6 billion people that have no access to electricity, whatsoever. 2.4 billion people still burn wood and manure as their main source of energy (for cooking and heating). And 3 billion more people will be born in the next 30 years. This is a lot of people that will require a lot of energy, just to survive. To have a reasonable life, they will need at least 3,000 kWhs per person per year. That is about 20 trillion kWhs per year, a lot more than all the electricity produced in the world today.
This need represents the output of 2,000 GenIII nuclear power plants. Or 5,000 coal-fired power plants. Or 20,000 gas-fired power plants. Or 20,000,000 large wind turbines. The answer should be clear.
For additional information regarding coal use, see:
https://i2mconsultants.com/downloads/corp/campbelljustnotforburning-july19-2014col.pdf
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