A Place to Stand

Following yesterday's article here are figures in billions of $ & kilowatt hours for GDP & electricity consumption of the world, the EU & the top 23 countries.

Note that, as in golf, a high score is bad since it means the economy has an ever more constricting bottleneck in electricity production, at least in countries where subsistence farming is not common:

State -----------GDP-------Electricty--wealth for 1 kwh
1 World--------------$ 65,610--------16,830------$3.90
2 European Union-----$ 14,380---------2,820-----$5.10
3 United States------$ 13,840---------3,816-----$3.62
4 China---------------$ 6,991---------2,859-----$2.45
Note that China is now producing more electricity than the entire EU this is a historic & worldshaking change
5 Japan---------------$ 4,290-----------974-----$4,40
6 India---------------$ 2,989-----------488-----$6.12
7 Germany-------------$ 2,810-----------545-----$5.16
8 United Kingdom -----$ 2,137-----------348-----$6.14
9 Russia--------------$ 2,088-----------985-----$2.12
10 France-------------$ 2,047-----------451-----$4.54
11 Brazil-------------$ 1,836-----------368-----$4.99
12 Italy--------------$ 1,786-----------307-----$5.82
13 Spain--------------$ 1,352-----------243-----$5.56
14 Mexico-------------$ 1,346-----------183-----$7.34
15 Canada-------------$ 1,266-----------540-----$2.34
16 Korea, South-------$ 1,201-----------368-----$3.26
17 Turkey---------------$ 888-----------129-----$6.88
18 Indonesia------------$ 837-----------108-----$7.75
19 Australia------------$ 760-----------219-----$3.47
20 Iran-----------------$ 753-----------136-----$3.84
21 Taiwan---------------$ 695-----------221-----$3.14
22 Netherlands----------$ 639-----------108-----$5.91
23 Poland---------------$ 620-----------120-----$5.17
24 Saudi Arabia---------$ 564-----------147-----$3.83
25 Argentina------------$ 524------------89-----$5.89

and trying a few smaller countries with either high growth or particular power situations:

Ireland------------------$186-------------24----$7.75 Could be trouble
Israel-------------------$186-------------43----$4.33 Difficulty in importing
Singapore----------------$228-------------36----$6.33 Small overcrowded island
Iceland-------------------$12--------------8----$1.50 Hydro & geothermal
Bangladesh---------------$206-------------19---$10.84 Basket case
South Africa-------------$467------------241----$1.94 Use a lot in mining?
Norway-------------------$247------------114----$2.17 Lots of hydro
Afghanistan---------------$35------------0.8---$40.00 Hmmm

So the vast majority of big economies have a productivity within $1.50 per kwh of the world average of $3.90. The Chinese ration is at the very bottom of this distribution & Russia, with plentiful supplies of everything even lower which suggests both have the potential for massive growth, which indeed is what they have been achieving. Brazil, Indonesia & India are high but all are undeveloped. Bangladesh even moreso. Climate seems to have little effect with Singapore on the equator being a low user but nearby Australia being a high one. What is clear is that countries with large resources of power & where it is presumably fairly cheap use a lot of it & countries in the EU where we are all "environmentally conscious" but not conscious of much else, use relatively little.

Because the really poor countries have little electricity the average figure for developed countries may be different. Taking an average of the US, China & Japan (top developed non-EU economies) we get $3.49 productivity per kw which may be a good figure to aim for.

As you will see the UK figure of $6.14 is pretty disastrous, making us 3rd worst among the worlds 23 biggest after Indonesia & Mexico, both undeveloped & not visibly going anywhere & thus worst in the world among large developed economies. If I was running Mexico I would be inviting US companies to build lots of reactors south of the border, which I suspect they would do for free if promised 1/3rd of the power would go north. Note that the top 23 make up over 77% of the world economy). It looks like the constant Green assurances that we can do fine by just conserving won't cut it.

What this means is that if we could produce power at the cost of 1.3p a unit as France does with nuclear we could easily double our electricity usage, I would bet on quadruple & get our economy into the ranks of the world's fastest growing.

To do this we need to do 2 things

1) Build new nuclear - If we were to complete 6 new 1,000 mw reactors a year (which probably means starting 12 a year for 8 years & assuming they will take 4 years to build) we would be increasing our production by 10% a year, which would allow us the potential for comparable growth. This does not mean 12 new sites - you can put as many reactors as we want on current sites - Britain is a geographically small country so transmission losses are not the problem they would be elsewhere.

2) Don't let the "environmentalist" Luddites load these reactors down with immense bureaucratic costs. Professor Bernard Cohen has written on how reactor costs were artificially multiplied perhaps 10 times by regulation in the US & it is quite obvious that the eco-fascists here intend to use prolonging enquiries, violence& regulations to make everything many times more expensive & delayed than need be. We know it is possible to produce power at 1.3p a kilowatt hour because it is being done in France. And to build within 3.5 years because Westinghouse have said they can. Any delay & cost beyond that is going to cost us dearly & probably lead to blackouts. It is the prime duty of government to protect against enemies, domestic & foreign & allow people to carry out their business in freedom. I absolutely defend the eco-fascist's right not to use nuclear electricity themselves, though I know of none who do, but it is government's duty to ensure they do not deprive the rest of us of electricity & prosperity.