America, with 4.1 percent of the world’s population (330 million vs 8 billion) professes to be the leader of everything but tightening the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for particulate matter is ludicrous when China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam are sending their existing PM2.5 across the Pacific Ocean to America, particularly California, and building new coal power plants that will emit even more PM2.5.
China (1.4 billion), India (1.36 billion), Indonesia (270 million), Japan (126 million) and Vietnam (80 million) plan to build more than 600 coal power units, and African countries (1.2 billion) are planning to build more than 1,250 new coal and gas-fired power plants by 2030.
The healthier and wealthier countries fail to recognize that at least 80 percent of humanity, or more than 6 billion in this world are living on less than $10 a day, and billions living with little to no access to electricity, These poor folks need abundant, affordable, reliable, scalable, and flexible electricity while The healthier and wealthier are pursuing the most expensive ways to generate intermittent electricity from breezes and sunshine.
While developing countries are ramping up their arsenals of air polluting coal fired power plants, California continues to shutter natural gas and nuclear power generating plants that have provided continuous uninterruptable electricity. Through California’s dysfunctional energy policies the state imports more electricity than any other state– currently at 32 percent from the Northwest and Southwest and dysfunctional HOPES that other states will be able to generate enough power to meet the demands of the state.
With no known replacement for crude oil in the foreseeable future, civilization has benefited from more than 6,000 products made from the oil derivatives manufactured out of raw crude oil at refineries. None of these products were available to society before 1900. Today, billions of people each year travel to various destinations around the world via more than 50,000 commercial, private, and military jets.
Virtually all the components of wind turbines, solar panels, and all forms of transportation are assembled with products made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. Ridding the world of crude oil would eliminate most forms of transportation and electricity generation from wind and solar.
Read the rest at CA Political Review.
Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.
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