Talk:World energy resources and consumption
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
World energy resources and consumption is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article Milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive. | |||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
A fact from World energy resources and consumption (or a previous version of it) was included in the Did you know? section of the Energy Portal. |  |
|
World energy resources and consumption is (or a previous version of it was) a selected article or selected biography on the Energy Portal, which means that it has been identified as being a good quality article by Energy Portal standards. | |
 Archives |
|---|
|
|
--power versus energy-- Good article, very well cited. [User:Dick Mills]
While very many people confuse the terminology for power and energy, it is particularly embarrassing to do it in an article with such a title. The Watt is a unit of power, the rate of consumption. Power can not be consumed. Energy, which can be consumed, is measured in watt-hours or joules.
The openening sentences which say, "In 2004, the worldwide energy consumption of the human race was estimated at 15 TW with 86.3% from burning fossil fuels.[1] This is equivalent to 0.5 ZJ (= 1021 J) per year." should be changed to "In 2004, the worldwide energy consumption of the human race was estimated at 0.5 ZJ (=1021 J) with 86.3% from burning fossil fuels.[1] The average rate of consumption is thus 15 TW."
Similarly, the labels on the the graphs should be changed.
Unfortunately, the association of consumption with power (watts) continues throughout the article. Again, "The energy used to generate 2 TW of electricity is approximately 5 TW, as the efficiency of a typical existing power plant is around 38%." is incorrect. One needs 5 TW of power (not energy) to create 2 TW of power at 38% efficiency.
Even more unfortunate, I worry that some of the numbers are wrong because of the confusion between power and energy. For things like wind, where a 100 MW generator operates at only 11% capacity factor, the difference between installed capacity and average production over a long period of time is 9:1. A dominating factor. I checked a couple of the references cited, and they too use power and energy inconsistently.
It will take a major rewrite to correct this article. Both the nomenclature and the numbers need to be checked.
[edit] Challenges
I removed the following section because it is very unclear. It mentions only some renewables, completely ignoring the other ones, like geothermal, biofuels, and hydro. It isn't clear what the cost refers to. Is it the cost to move to hydrogen, biofuels, electric cars ? It also seems very politically loaded and need to be reworded imo. I'll put it here until someone can suggest a better rewrite.
"The above percentages for solar and wind energy ignore the formidable challenges of energy distribution and storage that need to be solved to overcome the intermittent and seasonal variations of these energy sources. The numbers do, however, illustrate that it is technically possible to move away from fossil fuels, should society decide to make the necessary investment. The required investment to move away from fossil fuel sources is enormous. It is estimated that the cost to replace the global infrastructure for liquid transportation fuels alone is 3�5 trillion US dollars.[1]"
I also wonder why it mentions fossil fuels. A better wording would in my opinion be "it is theoretically possible for renewables to meet the worlds energy demand" or something to that effect. Would put it more in line with the corresponding comment on Nuclear energy. 137.205.236.51 12:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] World energy
Here are a few quick comments.
Regards and good luck, Ben MacDui (Talk) 12:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Lead: This should précis the article and refer to each major heading.
Figure 1: TW=10/12 Watt. Or 10/12 watts?
Consumption: 'the' in first sentence is redundant. 'equaled' is a typo.
You might need to explain the difference between power and energy for the general reader.
There is no source quoted for the information in the table unless it is reference 1.
I don't know what MOS says about this but there are a lot of figures relative to the volume of text.
Fossil Fuels: Check use of superscripts and style for '18th century'.
'Airplanes' looks odd to me but it may be acceptable American English
I'd expect to see links to 'electricity, nuclear, oil shocks,' etc. when they are first introduced.
'Coal and nuclear became the fuels of choice for electricity generation' I am not knowledgeable about this, but there may be a distinction to be made between generating capacity, which skews the conclusions towards western economies, and the consumption of actual individuals. I doubt that nuclear is the choice made by many African countries for example.
Coal - no references quoted at all. This applies elsewhere.
Both the United States and the European Union are supporting a moderate level of fusion-based research. - could do with a link or reference.
'As evident from the first two images of this article; BP and the EIA have a dramatically different view of the global hydroelectricity supply.' Not to me - you need to explain it. 'Is' is missing after 'as' too.
'The use of biomass fires for cooking is excluded.' - why? I can guess, but I think you should tell me.
Solar: 88 GWt - If this is not the same as GW you need to explain why in a footnote.
One metric of efficiency is energy intensity' Not sure what this means.
'Despite several voices predicting the imminent decline of oil, the mainstream view is that there are still significant reserves of all traditional fossil fuels.' These voices are quite loud, and I think you should say more e.g. by suggesting how many years supply the reserves equate to in the table and explaining (briefly) why the differences of view exist.
Solar: Data to produce this graphic was taken from a NASA publication. - which one?
'The best site for capturing tidal energy is the much studied Bay of Fundy on the eastern border of the US and Canada.' Do you mean the best, or the biggest, or perhaps simply the best in North America?
'North America's only tidal power station is a 20 MW demonstration unit at the mouth of the Annapolis river in Nova Scotia'. Irrelevant in a 'world energy' article unless you can justify why it is notable on a world scale.
'our shores' whose shores? If it's 3TW, 20% of the world consumption, is it too dispersed to capture effectively?
Alternative energy paths: 'The other side of the debate believes, equally sincerely' Re, 'equally sincerely' I don't doubt you are right, but how do you know? It may be a redundant remark.
Also, the article is not about climate change per se, but I don't believe there is much doubt amongst climate scientists about what needs to be done, and it is this perspective rather than a pro renewable energy camp per se that is driving the debate.
Links and refs: Exergy is italicized, which is inconsistent. Footnote 8 is confusing. 16 is italicised incorrectly.
[edit] Bias
I find this article biased toward renewable energy instead of being objective to the subject of energy resources and consumption. Encyclopedic entries should not have these biases when they present facts. 192.75.185.254 17:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Yang Pang
- Please make your proposal how to improve the text and correct this problem.Beagel 18:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
