Untangling the Contradictions that Surround Our Energy Future
Here’s my first and long overdue post on the energy think tank Post Carbon Institute, whose work I think readers will admire. In brief, it’s a group intent on providing an objective analysis on energy resources on this planet, and pointing the way to an optimal energy future.
In their new book, Our Renewable Future, the authors begin by implying that nothing, not even business as usual, could possibly work. Fossil fuels are causing the destruction of our environment, and besides, petroleum is becoming increasingly scarce in terms of oil fields that represent easy and inexpensive extraction sites. Nuclear is too expensive to produce safely. Renewable energy, at least in the forms of solar and wind, are variable resources, the availability of which does not conform to our usage patterns, and the solutions here are expensive: utility-scale energy storage and/or transmission of power over large areas.
The authors are also highly attuned to the political issues that are associated with any changes in the energy industry and thus tend to favor the status quo.
From the introduction:
As just about everyone knows, there are gaping chasms separating the worldviews of fossil fuel promoters, nuclear power advocates, and renewable energy supporters. But crucially, even among those who disdain fossils and nukes, there is a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between those who say that solar and wind power have unstoppable momentum and will eventually bring with them lower energy prices and millions of jobs, and those who say these intermittent energy sources are inherently incapable of sustaining modern industrial societies and can make headway only with massive government subsidies.
Obviously, both propositions cannot be correct, and thus the imperative to distill the truth out of literally thousands of reports, white papers, and news articles on the subject.
At the risk of giving anything away, here’s an excerpt from the book’s conclusion:
One way or another, our descendants a few decades from now will inhabit an all-renewable world (or nearly so), and it will be a world that works differently, in many significant ways, from the world we know today. It could be a better world in which to live, or it could be much worse, depending on the decisions we make in the next decade or two. Right now society is putting off even the most obvious and pressing of those decisions (starting with a mandatory global cap on carbon emissions). Successive waves of problems and requirements for decision will follow. Failing to see those next waves from a distance only makes the worse possibilities for our renewable future more likely. We hope that this exploratory effort shines a light into the future implications of the renewable energy transition, so that we can start now to see and understand the territory, consider our options, and act intelligently.
This is really excellent stuff. I hope you’ll check it out; I’m sure you’ll be impressed.
Thank you Craig I am sure that this book is a very informative one and well done to the authors.
Any quality and well considered commentary encourages people interested in any subject to learn more.
The corollary of course is that ultimately the best commentary on any subject is finally exposed over time and becomes pre-eminent, and the global renewable energy industry is no exception. It is an evolving industry.
So in effect we are all sideliners now in the hands of the world’s best and brightest young physicists, scientists, academics and engineers, and this is a very interesting and optimistic place to be I should add; and the best commentary on the subject will percolate to pre-eminence going forward. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
So I firmly believe that there are no contradictions at all in the global energy debate. There is only super activity and great interest. The discourse and technology developments we see around us everywhere are moving us along the right pathways and importantly according to the rules; conventions and discord experienced by previous global scale human scientific and technology endeavours seen hitherto. And that reflects human nature and is all understandable and manageable.
The renewable energy debate is a precious one that has set the standard for future global technology debates, and it will be those new technologies debates that will really get people excited.
So here is the immutable link Craig – the new age technologies and industries that will bring great benefit and prosperity to all people globally, are all energy intensive ones whose existence is firmly predicated on the global energy imperative being fully met; “low cost and abundant power for all people”.
We live in exciting times Craig. The current global energy debate is merely the means to help service a global focused equalising technologies end. The real debate is about to unfold [and is currently unfolding through innovative R & D going on everywhere] and more specifically new age technologies and industries in artificial agricultural sciences, medical sciences, human services sciences and human mobility sciences.
This is not long term prognostication either Craig – it’s happening now.
That’s enough from me for now.
Lawrence Coomber
I found it interesting that the executive summary of their report notes that – whatever path we choose – the end result will necessarily entail far less use of energy than today, both per capita and in the aggregate.
By their lights, it appears that our estimation is correct that efficiency gains are a matter needing immediate focus, along with the proper pricing of carbon and the funding of the most proven and scalable technologies yielding sustainable energy.
This is much in line with the inside planning estimates by Royal Dutch Shell that were shared by Lawrence Wilkerson some years back. He’s a defense analyst and retired United States Army Colonel, and is former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Wilkerson’s assertion was that Shell concluded there is little political will among the most crucial players to make the necessary changes in a timely fashion, so the road ahead would likely be chaotic and bloody. To me this would indicate a prediction that the resulting rational adaptations of our societies would be too little too late.
Certainly that has long been my fear – that the current elite employ shrewdly servile advisers whose strongest motivation may be to protect the profitable status quo (until change is perceived as more profitable). They will continue to protect the status quo – however toxic, inefficient, and lethally damaging – until what they regard as the approach of the last survivable moment.
Further, that because of that very status quo bias, their judgment will be skewed so as to delay that decision far beyond the actual rational thresholds. Indeed, the gloomiest apprehension is that this fatal delay may already have occurred.
Books and reports such as this – and your several fine works on the subject – give me hope that a significant percentage of the people now living in every society will soon organize around truth and non-violence. These many of us will cooperate to engage in massive and widespread direct action to counter and overwhelm the political and financial elites preventing wise progress.
I’t my hope that this cooperation will persevere to evolve and implement a new and deeply abiding paradigm of operational respect for the concept of sustainability, and a revitalized political structure, as well as a new power generation and distribution infrastructure.
The deepest hope is that the resulting change will endure, for the benefit of all humankind, and for the healing of the broad web of life that will always be necessary for our existence.
We must keep thinking and working, because the alternative is unthinkable and unworkable.
Forward together.