PowerSwitch

Energy Trends was published yesterday, I've written a short summary with graphs here. Nothing astounding - the decline continues, and renewables are increasing, albeit slowly compared to the fossil fuel decline.

Useful to an extent, but I don't like the use of shifted zeros. This gives an exaggerated impression and distorts the true position IMO.

It is worryingly reminiscent of that post of predictions "Riches to Rags" on TOD all those years ago. Good job somebody's crunching these numbers and making them easier to understand: the more of the Great British Public who cotton on to this, the better.

Mike, you wrote

Coal mines have been closing - production is down 32% over last year. Imports are up 12%, and mainly come from Russia, Columbia and the USA. Total consumption is actually down 2.8% on a year ago, due to a reduction in the use of coal for generating electricity - coal use in other areas increased significantly.

Do you have any figures for the non electricity generation coal use, and what these uses are?

biffvernon wrote:Mike, you wrote

Coal mines have been closing - production is down 32% over last year. Imports are up 12%, and mainly come from Russia, Columbia and the USA. Total consumption is actually down 2.8% on a year ago, due to a reduction in the use of coal for generating electricity - coal use in other areas increased significantly.

Do you have any figures for the non electricity generation coal use, and what these uses are?

Usage for electricity was down 7.7%, but other industrial use was up 56%, and other final consumers were up 2.2%. Because of the size of the electricity sector, the overall trend was still down - presumably because of power stations closing...

The breakdown within this isn't very detailed, but does show that iron and steel was down slightly (-1.2%), as was domestic (-0.1%), but 'other' industries and users boosted their use. I guess their might be further info in other documents on the DECC website?

mikepepler wrote:Energy Trends was published yesterday, I've written a short summary with graphs here. Nothing astounding - the decline continues, and renewables are increasing, albeit slowly compared to the fossil fuel decline.

I like the graphs. They, and you, make the point very well that the transition continues at a pace that most probably don't even notice.