The World’s Growing Energy Consumption

No one who understands the subject doubts that the growth of renewables is a good thing.  Yet the eight billion people on this planet right now are increasingly hungry for energy, and most of them live in areas where their electricity comes almost exclusively from fossil fuels.

India is the best example.  Above we see how its 1.41 billion people, especially those in the northeastern part of the country, have ramped up their energy use in the last nine years alone, most of this increase coming from new coal-fired power plants.

It is for this reason that we are forced into a single imperative here is the technologically advanced world: we either create a solution to decarbonizing our energy and export to the developing world, or we are all doomed to suffer the ravages of climate change.

This, by the way, is why nuclear energy must be an important part of the global grid-mix; there is no way to ramp solar and wind in time to avert catastrophe. Unfortunately, too many people who self-identify as environmentalists don’t get this.