Error!


Javascript is required for Our World of Energy!

We use Javascript to add unique and interesting functionality to the site including menu navigation and saving your favorite pages!


Please turn Javascript on in order to continue.
Loading, please wait...
X
This is a test message!

This is a test message!
 
OWOE - Our World of Energy
image
 
OWOE Fun Facts Get New Fact
Welcome to Our World of Energy!

Our World of Energy (OWOE) is a multi-media campaign that has been created to provide an unbiased view of energy, including pros and cons of each source, to the American public. It is OWOE's intent to help inform the public on where the energy that drives modern life comes from, why this subject is important, and how technology is changing the industry to address modern problems such as climate change, scarcity of resources, and environmental impact.

Try the new OWOE search feature! Search through all OWOE content for key words or phrases.
Search OWOE
Version 5.2 now available! Latest update include new options for wind farm substation details, including new Custom substation.
Platform Sizing Tool
Looking for great resources and classroom content to teach about energy?
Energy Classroom
Take in the latest content from Our World of Energy!
What's new on OWOE?





February 5, 2025

S. A. Shelley: In a recent article in The Telegraph, Norway is a Cautionary Tale, the author argues that Europe as a whole has made itself energy insecure because of adding renewables to the energy mix. I agree somewhat mostly with that conclusion about energy insecurity, but I do not agree that this is because of renewables. It is true that the wind doesn’t always blow and that the sun doesn’t always shine. But, over time, technologies will arise that can compensate for such variance. Thus, I believe that the energy insecurity in which most Western states find themselves is a result of the mad dash to renewables foisted upon us by somewhat well meaning, but technically and fiscally clueless politicians (a common refrain of OWOE staff). Politicians always promise things faster than can be delivered by reality. Politicians have put us into this precarious position by building wind farms without sufficient energy storage or grid improvements to support such a rapid build out.

One of the things that people overlook about fossil fuels is that they are a transportable, highly dense form of chemical energy storage. Something similar needs to be found for renewables. We need some good, efficient, reliable and cheap technologies that allow us to store and transfer renewable energy across time (day / night, wind blowing / not blowing) and geography (maybe trains?). Until such inherent energy storage technologies are available for renewables, it makes no sense to continue the unabated dash into massive developments while simultaneously de-commissioning legacy, stable power systems. Europe and Canada face significant trouble; America less so.

But, and there’s always a but, America is suddenly planning a rapid expansion into AI technology and associated data centers. In Ireland, data centers are projected to consume about 32% of all power generated in that tiny nation by next year. In America, data centers are already consuming about 2% of all electrical power generated. Some more activist bloggers argue that AI is not the panacea for the modern world, and is instead one of the greatest emerging threats to climate. The explosion of AI and its associated energy demand will result in more frequent rolling brown outs, a reduction of electricity available for other industry or, worse yet, the re-opening of coal fired power plants.

If society had remained at pre-digital technology, we’d have thousands fewer distracted driver deaths , fewer teens with mental health issues and much lower GHG emissions. It is doubtful though that we can now wean anyone off Tik Tok or chat GPT and back to reading a book or having a pleasant vis-a-vis conversation.

In America we are racing to exceed our power capacity without making it robust and plentiful first. America’s power grid is already at capacity with some analysts characterizing it as underbuilt and overburdened. When the TVA system was kicked off last century, it brought an abundant oversupply of energy that allowed industrial expansion in the Midwest and South to follow. This is a lesson that politicians have forgotten. One needs a stable, surplus of energy to feed an industry, physical or digital: it doesn’t work the other way around.

Vive l’Alberta Libre


January 7, 2025

S. A. Shelley: For those of you too young to remember, in the late nineties and early naughts (naughties?), there was a super major company called Enron. Enron was a darling of Wall Street and was hugely profitable in trading energy. It was an inventive company, too, in that it developed things such as weather derivatives and dubious accounting schemes. But it was mostly a scam, a fraud undertaken on a massive scale. The company eventually collapsed, and from time to time in Houston, you can still meet a former Enron employee in a pub who, after a beer or two, will tell you wonderful tales of excess at that company.

(more…)

December 8, 2024

S. A. Shelley: At OWOE, we have repeatedly advocated for a North American Energy Alliance of some kind to ensure cheap and robust energy supplies at reasonable costs and with minimal geopolitical risk. In some forms, it already exists when you consider how the Northeast is supplied by cheap Newfoundland hydropower via Quebec (after a huge markup), or how the overwhelming majority of Alberta Oil is shipped to the Gulf refineries.

(more…)

November 25, 2024

OWOE Staff: This month, the American Petroleum Institute (API) presented its “5 Point Policy Roadmap to Secure American Energy Leadership and Help Reduce Inflation” to President-elect Donald Trump and the 119th US Congress. Given that the API is an organization that was created by the oil industry, is supported by the oil industry, and is funded by the oil industry, it is no surprise that it is a blatantly self-serving plan whose primary purpose is to ensure income and maintain shareholder value for the fossil fuel industry. However, OWOE has reviewed the plan and concluded that it is a not unreasonable plan in many ways. With that in mind, OWOE has done some minor editing to address several serious problems that will negatively impact our planet over the long term and hereby presents its own “5 Point Policy Roadmap to Secure American Energy Leadership and Ensure the Planet is Protected for Future Generations”.

(more…)

August 20, 2024

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: When it comes to energy matters, as in all matters that affect our health or fiscal wellbeing, we tend to be our own worst enemies. There are two components to the global warming surge:  greenhouse gases, which insulate the planet and prevent heat energy from radiating into space, and heat exhaust generated by human activity. The latter is often overlooked and forgotten by most people but is just as critical a factor in global warming. We wrote a blog a few years back highlighting the thermal inefficiency of internal combustion engines (ICEs) which on aggregate pump out a heck of a lot of waste thermal energy compared to their transport energy use (Throwing Away 3 of every 4 Gallons of Gasoline Bought). This is one area in which electric vehicles (EVs) crush ICEs:  EVs use a much greater proportion of their energy to move people and stuff and emit far, far less waste thermal energy. Point to EVs. But there is a myriad of other personal choices that people can make today, without switching to EVs, that will on aggregate reduce the rate of global warming.

(more…)

July 11, 2024

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: As is usual every spring, many large entities ranging from super major oil producers to large Wall Street firms and global organizations release annual energy statistics, reports and forecasts about the world’s energy state. Invariably discussed are subjects like energy mix, demand or supply projections. Often these entities will venture into discussing oil prices and associated forecasts. All those entities have big research budgets and teams of analysts, statisticians and economists pouring over mountains of data. However, even with all those highly paid personnel, and I suspect some added AI, those big entities are at best equal to the analysis undertaken by OWOE staffers, but more often than not, much worse. Apparently, nobody can beat curiosity, whisky and voodoo.

(more…)

June 11, 2024

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: OK, another inciteful blog but that’s the OWOE writing team’s style, gleefully stoking controversy.

The term “fossil fuels” is one of the greatest marketing triumphs that the environmentalists ever adopted. “Fossil” suggests old and outdated, coming from some pre-historic, ancient, way-back, long-ago-dead biologic entities. The uses for fossil fuels also reflect “old” technologies, cooking, training and steam shipping (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Using Fossil Fuels from Ancient (left) to Modern Times (right)

(more…)

June 2, 2024

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: The U.S. Federal Government is a huge organization that is staffed by some very bright people. There are also nearly 1,000 advisory committees in Washington, comprising leaders from industry, science and the arts. For the most part, the advisory committees concern themselves with publicly available information and have public meetings, but there are a few which require security clearance and concern themselves with confidential matters of state. These advisory committees are a valuable resource upon which the Federal Government can call to review policies and assist with formulating strategies.

(more…)

April 1, 2024

Guest blog by Manny Topiques Here are some interesting and somewhat offbeat energy stories that haven’t gotten much media attention over the past year.

Is coal the new future for clean energy? In an amazing new discovery just announced by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the Perseverance Rover discovered an outcropping of high quality space coal not far from the spacecraft’s 2021 landing site. Using its rotary percussive coring drill, the rover was able to penetrate approximate 6 meters below the planet’s surface to confirm that this outcropping was the surface exposure of a large deposit of anthracite space coal. Further exploration on future missions will be required to determine if this deposit is native to Mars or the remains of a meteor that impacted the surface in the distant past.

(more…)

March 19, 2024

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: Change is inevitable unless you’re well established. There is a reason why empires are lost to history, governments are overthrown, businesses collapse, and academia becomes irrelevant. The established organizations or systems could not change fast enough to respond to imminent threats, emerging technologies or changes in consumer habits.  When faced with such challenges established systems, especially governments, harden themselves. In extreme cases you end up with kingdoms such as North Korea. But in most cases, you end up with economically declining and socially irrelevant states like Canada. It is a problem of ossification of thought, of edicts being churned out ever more frequently with worse effects. It applies to everything from healthcare and education to defense and energy policy.

(more…)