Renewables: How the Numbers Stack Up

By: Gideon Polya Wednesday 8 August 2007¹

In his recently published book, Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy, Australia’s top sustainable energy expert, Dr Mark Diesendorf, argues that science, technology and economics all say that coal and uranium should ultimately remain in the ground and that renewables can meet our energy demands.

Diesendorf argues that the only residual argument is about politics and political support for uranium and fossil fuel miners and coal-based power corporations. Let’s do what mainstream Australian media shy away from and examine Diesendorf’s assertion critically by examining the numbers and asking questions of the kind, ‘who says?’ ‘how many?’ and ‘how much?’

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Using data from the US Energy Information Administration we can calculate that ‘annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO₂ pollution’ in tonnes CO₂ per person is 19.2 for Australia (40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 for the US, 18.4 for Canada, 3.6 for China, 1.0 for India, 0.7 for Pakistan and 0.25 for Bangladesh. The world average is 4.3.

1. New Matilda [↩]