Telling the Truth About Our Future
Best to just read Art’s post, about a 5 minute read, Telling the Truth About Our Future.
To summarize:
Renewable energy is a poor substitute for fossil fuels. That’s because renewables are a diffuse form of energy and produce power only about one-third of the time.
That doesn’t stop renewable energy true-believers from trying to bend the laws of physics to tell a story that’s not true. EROI** (energy returned on energy invested) was used in this way by Murphy et al in 2022 and more recently, by Delannoy et al in late 2023 and twenty-one co-authors who proclaimed the good news that there is now a consensus that renewable (electric) energy is cheaper and more efficient than fossil fuels — it’s not (if you add any storage).
Numerous claims are false and the consensus is imaginary. Electric power represented only 19% of global energy end-use consumption in 2022. Crucially, only 3% of oil was even used for electric power generation. Only 34% of natural gas was used for power generation and only 59% of coal was used for electricity. In other words, Delannoy et al are not telling the truth.
What is the EROI of wind and solar for producing the four pillars of civilization — steel, concrete, plastic and ammonia for fertilizer? The EROI of fossil-fueled electricity at point of end use is barely relevant in the wider view of our energy future.
EROI analysts proclaim with troubling certitude that there is an emerging consensus that fossil fuels have a lower EROI than renewables. Delannoy and his co-authors do not mean to be misleading. They think they are telling the truth and that’s the problem. True believers are willing to go to any length to convince us of their truth. They believe it so strongly that they cannot be objective.
The sad truth is that a renewable energy transition is imaginary.
A renewable world is far in the future based on present growth of fossil fuel consumption (Figure 1). Wind and solar accounted for less than 5% of global energy use in 2022. Wind, solar and nuclear together accounted for less than 9%.
There is no evidence that renewable energy has changed the upward trajectory of carbon emissions despite thirty-six international climate conferences and trillions of dollars of investment over the last forty years.
Society is in a terrible predicament. Papers like Delannoy’s give false hope that there is a renewable pathway that can save us from climate change. But climate change is just the tip of the iceberg.
Over-consumption of all energy is destroying earth’s ecosystem — the true basis of wealth that forms the foundation for human prosperity. This includes the destruction of forests, the genocide of the animal kingdom, the pollution of land, rivers and seas, the acidification of the oceans, and loss of fisheries and coral reefs.
Focusing on climate change alone is a narrow view. Carbon dioxide is just one of the pollutants contaminating the environment. The growth of the human enterprise enabled by excess energy use threatens everything. Substituting renewable for fossil energy will make that problem even worse.
We are well beyond a soft landing for the planet. There are no moderate pathways forward. Pretending that there are is counter-productive. A radical reduction in all energy consumption is the only solution.
The problem is that it’s not the solution that we like but it’s time to start telling the truth about our future.
**EROI is the difference between the total energy output minus the total energy input over the life cycle of an energy source or technology.
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“A radical reduction in all energy consumption is the only solution.” Right, and is the condition that will come anyway. In a managed descent, unless a die off is part of the envisioned future, add a rapid birth off so nobody dies a Malthusian death (e.g. by scarcity induced conflict/starvation). The only sticking point is everyone has to give up their “right” to reproduce at will (initially, about 1:250 women reproduce). Full stop. That modern humans will not, is what locks in a future die-off event — i.e. premature death of their children/grandchildren. That’s all, folks.
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