Global electricity, carbon efficiency, and per capita website

Rather than pollute nearby "EV pollution" thread I begin another.

My goal here is to kick around ideas for a website that goes deep into data on these factors, but is visually appealing on the outside. I really don't see anything like this at present. If someone else does, you could save me a lot of trouble

Some initial work. In that other thread, fuzzy1 said "At least U.S. 'fossil' is more natural gas than coal" @10. This was not (yet) the case in 2018. Coal was ~12 thousand trillion Btu and nat gas was ~11 thousand. One would expect crossover to occur within a few years.

Also there also fuzzy@19 posted Euro carbon efficiency to have fallen from >500 to ~300 grams CO2 per kwh. Such analyses would be central but perhaps it should be called carbon inefficiency?

Stimulated by JimboPalmer@14, I worked through US EIA data and found US carbon inefficiency to have ranged from ~215 to ~180 grams CO2 per kwh since 1975.

In separate data mining I found India's recent carbon inefficiency to have varied little around 280 grams CO2 per kwh..

Those last three taken together suggest to me that data 'in the wild' need heavy curation for purpose I propose.

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But more broadly, what might readers hope to see in such a website?

 

It's getting complicated...

Derivation from US EIA about coal is thus through time and I have no idea why:



Their data tables include energy and CO2 produced. There is no reason to doubt the former. Later must be based on some conversion factor.

 

"I'll bet you are right" @3 The heck of it is that we are both citing US EIA sources that are themselves inconsistent.

Here's another odd-looking analysis based on US EIA 2019 March monthly report:



Only a few days ago this seemed to be a dandy project. Now I'm bogged down in data and analyses from what should be (probably is) the best data compilation for any country.

 

Yes. Each country as a black bubble is a good first step. Resolving CO2 to electrical production, transportation and 'other' is another. CO2 per kwh (call it intensity or inefficiency) is another.

Later steps would improve spatial resolution. This was anticipated in their 2014 presentation at European Geophysical Union but not yet implemented. I've not asked them what barriers they face. Possibly entirely different from what I encounter with US EIA data.

Then move on to per capita mapping. Country level would just be 'divide by a number'. Global population density map at 10(?) km resolution exists.

 

Yes again@7. Clearly they had these ideas earlier and are en route to implementation.

One ought not re-invent the wheel, but making it roll better seems OK.

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Deriving local CO2 sources from atmospheric inversions is a bit of a black art, so we'd better set that aside for now.

 

Fine-grained data would be excellent. At state scale we need to know if a one is a net exporter (as I assume Washington is). For importing states, inflowing electrons would need to be known as to source.

It will not be simple.

 

No that's not the reason. Both link@3

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

and what I used, Monthly energy report 2019 March are US EIA data for electricity generation (not thermal output) for year 2018. In terms of kwh these two data sources disagree violently.

I may rattle some cages in EIA about this, and they may reply to an email from Asia

The energy -> CO2 conversions varying through time are a whole 'nother problem.

 

Related work that could be consolidated:

WattTime - Rocky Mountain Institute

and background information:

Air pollution from every single power plant in the world, tracked - Vox

 

As CO2 molecules are (almost entirely) indifferent to their sources, one would want to have geospatial data layers related to wildfire. Those have actually existed for quite some time, as fire has an obvious infrared signature:

Global Fire Monitoring

There are many such data products available. For the effort being considered here, they should be merged. To my knowledge no one has ever done such a thing.

 

Predicting rapid growth of photovoltaics:

Terawatt-scale photovoltaics: Transform global energy | Science