Climate Change

How wind and solar power are reshaping mathematics with a magic wand: a report on the biased communication of intermittent "renewable" energy companies and lobbyists.

When communication takes precedence over technology, or when the intermittent renewable stereotypes are used as a cloak of virtue and an advertising pitch

In May 2022, Madame Agnès Pannier-Runacher was appointed Minister for Energy Transition in Madame Borne's government. For the first time in many years, energy and its long-term challenges were under the responsibility of a full-fledged Ministry, with no direct reporting to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the Ministry of Industry or the Ministry of Economy.

The IPCC has determined that carbon neutrality will have to be reached in the second half of the 21st century if the climate objectives of the Paris Agreement are to be met. A variety of countries, cities, companies... have announced that they are going to achieve carbon neutrality, some of them well before the critical date. But are their "carbon neutrality" and that of the IPCC the same thing? Nothing is less certain.

The European Energy Policy: an Absolute Failure for the Climate

Faced with the massive reduction of Russian gas deliveries, Europe finds itself in a situation of energy insecurity as of now: gas storage facilities must be filled at all costs before November 1. This is a legal obligation, whose purpose is to ensure that winter peak demand can be coped with. In France, these storage facilities represent a little over a fourth of the annual consumption so that even if they are filled, imports will have to continue at a significant rate during next winter and beyond.

The reaction of several European countries has just been released: they are turning to... coal, and are about to reopen electricity production capacities using this fuel, which is by far the biggest CO₂ emitter and the most polluting of all. Such is the case in Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and soon in other countries; Italy too is in a very precarious situation and will have to increase its electricity production from coal and fuel oil. As for France, the likelihood is that its last two coal-fired power plants are not about to shutdown.

Nuclear Power is a Very Good Solution for the Climate

Should France Do Without It for Fear of an Accident?

 Nuclear accidents often appear to the public as equally probable in all reactors, whatever the model, the host country or the operator. Only the terms "nuclear accident" seem to be retained, with no other consideration, as a sort of fatality. However, fortunately this vision does not correspond to reality: the nuclear reactor accidents that have occurred worldwide to date are deeply related to human behavior, at all stages whether it be their design, their construction, their operation, their monitoring by the safety authorities, or the global governance of the industry in the host country.

Indeed, the root causes of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 in the United Sates are human errors. Those of the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine and of the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan are irresponsible major human failings at different stages and different responsibility levels in violation of the basic nuclear safety rules.  In Fukushima, the tsunami was only the trigger, not the root cause.

Massive methane leaks that must be prevented

Crédit photo: Flickr Creative Commons – Ken Doerr

The climate warming that we are experiencing is due to the accumulation in the atmosphere of gases that hinder the escape to space of the heat we receive from the sun. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the main contributor to the additional greenhouse effect caused by man’s action, followed by methane.  Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Although its concentration per unit volume in the atmosphere is over 200 times less than that of CO₂, its contribution to the global warming observed since the beginning of the industrial age is 2/3 that of CO₂. Methane is particularly noxious for the climate in the short term: its residence time in the atmosphere before it is oxidized into CO₂ is about 12 years. Its global warming potential is ≈30 times that of the same mass of CO₂ when considering the impact over a period of 100 years; but, in the shorter term, if we consider a period of 20 years, this warming potential of methane is no longer 30 times but 90 times that of CO₂. Given the climate urgency, it is very important to considerably reduce the emissions of various greenhouse gases without delay, especially those that have a strong short-term effect, such as methane.

 The energy issue will be predominant during this century for all of humanity. Indeed, humanity will have to face an unprecedented revolution which will differ greatly from those of the past.

Why the European "all market" solution for electricity has gone crazy

The French have been worrying for several weeks about the soaring prices of natural gas and electricity. They are right.

France must take action so that the development of nuclear energy is fully supported at both the European and the national levels.