with Peter Sinclair
Animation: The countries with the largest cumulative CO2 emissions since 1750
— Carbon Brief (@CarbonBrief) April 23, 2019
Ranking as of the start of 2019:
1) US – 397GtCO2
2) CN – 214Gt
3) fmr USSR – 180
4) DE – 90
5) UK – 77
6) JP – 58
7) IN – 51
8) FR – 37
9) CA – 32
10) PL – 27 pic.twitter.com/cKRNKO4O0b
"The sharpest climate denier debunker on YouTube."
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September 30, 2021 at 3:44 am
France completed (almost) its fleet of nuclear power plants about 1985. From then till 2018, the United Kingdom, despite having only 6% larger GDP and 3% larger population than France, has produced 41% more CO2.
September 30, 2021 at 9:18 am
An interesting statistic. One would think that such success would lead to the building of more nuclear plants in spite of cost and slow construction times. I guess the fossil fuel interests were successful in poisoning everyone’s minds about nuclear power.
BTW, the API (American Petroleum Institute) is still flooding TV in the DC area with ads touting an AMERICAN SOLUTION to our energy needs—-buy American gas and oil, stop importing foreign.
September 30, 2021 at 9:09 pm
The API is also allying with the likes of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council in opposing state subsidies for nuclear plants. It’s perfectly clear that gas is the big winner when legacy nuclear plants are closed – it happened with Vermont Yankee, with San Onofre in California, and is happening with Indian Point in New York. The API has also been active against plants in Pennsylvania and Illinois. If they can contrive to shut these massive sources of carbon free power before the next big upswing in gas prices, they’ll make a killing, both financially, and environmentally.
October 1, 2021 at 8:55 am
True for the Sierra club, not so much for the NRDC, which does support nuclear power in principle.
October 1, 2021 at 7:44 pm
Not really – ‘..NRDC asserts that reliance on non-light-water nuclear energy technologies is not a viable strategy for addressing the climate crisis. The closing of currently operating reactors can be managed for a smooth transition to renewable energy with vast energy efficiency gains, and models of economy-wide decarbonization provide low-nuclear roadmaps for achieving climate change solutions through renewable energy, electrification of buildings and transportation, and improved transmission.’
So far their ‘models’ are not translating into significant CO2 reductions, and closures of reactors have been managed for a smooth transition to gas-as-usual.
September 30, 2021 at 8:43 pm
Of course I think it’s less about sustainability virtue than about access to coal and the relative power of coal companies.
As for emissions from coal power plants, the US outsourced a lot of theirs to China when it offshored all those manufacturing jobs.