JIMIQ: Dik, to je dobry :) Mimochodem jako sarlatana ho ten clanek neodhaluje, jenom rika, ze par veci tam ma dost blbe. On Smil ma obrovskej zaber a obcas klouze po povrhcu. Treba pri odhadovani miry skod opira o prace Williama Nordhause, ktera je vicemene pavedeckej bullshit (aneb jeho damage function je zalozena na uplny bizarnosti - korelaci mezi prumernou teplotou a GDP, no kidding)... Nordhaus je jinak obecne celkem cenenej, takze chudak Smil si mysli, ze je to kredibilni zdroj.
Jinak v tom clanku je celkem zasadni tohle:
See that huge gray box on the upper right, the biggest box on this chart? That’s all the primary energy that gets thrown away due to losses in conversion to useful forms of energy, in distribution or in use. The vast majority of that is waste heat from burning fossil fuels.
Why is this important? Well, it’s important because we don’t have to replace all of the primary energy we use today, we have to replace the energy used productively in energy services as efficiently as possible.
Smil seems to ignore the electrification of everything which is running in lockstep with the growth of renewables. Electric buses are already cutting into oil demand to the tune of 300,000 barrels of oil a day. Heat pumps are a massive growth market displacing gas furnaces and less efficient air conditions globally, with one of the world leaders, Daikin, building a megafactory for them in Texas.
Primary energy demand is going to shrink, not grow. Electricity is vastly more efficient to distribute and is vastly more efficient to transform into useful electricity services. That’s why everything is already trending there. And solid state electronics are making formerly energy gulping electrical appliances and making them vastly more efficient as well, with LED lights being only the most obvious example.