CAN SOMEONE PLEASE explain how our civilization can switch to renewable energy in time to avert the climate crisis? Influential optimists insist that it can, despite the growing global demand for energy.
I hope I'm wrong, but it seems the purported goal of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 is a pipe dream, or at worst a cruel hoax.
Fossil fuels supply over 80% of global energy. Here’s the approximate breakdown: oil 32%, coal 26%, and natural gas 23%. Meanwhile, hydroelectric accounts for 6%, solar, wind, and other renewables 8%, and nuclear 4%.
To keep global warming below 1.5°C—a threshold set by the Paris Climate Agreement to avoid extreme effects—carbon emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050.
According to the Energy Transitions Commission, oil use would need to drop by 5-15%, coal 15-30%, and gas 15-20% by 2030. The problem is that, just six years out, consumption of all three continues to rise (see graph).
Nonetheless, you’ll find glowing accounts of how renewable energy has come to the rescue, like this one from the International Energy Agency (IEA):
Low-emissions sources are set to cover almost all the growth in global electricity demand by 2025. Renewables and nuclear energy will dominate the growth of global electricity supply over the next three years, together meeting on average more than 90% of the additional demand.
The IEA claims that by 2026, all of the world’s additional electricity demand will be met by “clean” sources of energy.
At first glance, this sounds encouraging but the devil’s in the details: only about a fifth of global energy is consumed as electricity, and even within the electricity sector of the world’s economy, renewable and nuclear energy has yet to match growing demand.
By contrast, consider this statement from the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
Our projections highlight a key global insight—global energy-related CO2 emissions will increase through 2050 in all IEO2023 cases except our Low Economic Growth case. Our projections indicate that resources, demand, and technology costs will drive the shift from fossil to non-fossil energy sources, but current policies are not enough to decrease global energy-sector emissions. This outcome is largely due to population growth, regional economic shifts toward more manufacturing, and increased energy consumption as living standards improve. Globally, we project increases in energy consumption to outpace efficiency improvements.
Likewise, the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2024 finds that:
The new highs for coal and oil use drove global emissions to another record [in 2023], with releases from fossil fuel burning, industrial processes, methane and flaring topping 40bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) for the first time. With global temperatures inching closer to the 1.5C limit, time is running out to peak and then decline emissions in order to avoid dangerous levels of warming. The new figures show the world is still going in the wrong direction, with new records for coal, oil and CO2 emissions.
This is not a pretty picture!
An informed conclusion is that accelerated energy consumption will outrun efforts at atmospheric decarbonization and further destabilize the world’s climate. So, why not reduce energy consumption to help cut greenhouse gas emissions? That’s a question that few policy makers are asking.
However, researchers Patrick Moriarity and Damon Honney at Australia’s Monash University conclude that’s exactly what is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. Renewable energy and geoengineering approaches would be too slow “partly because of limited technical potential or, like wind and solar energy, cannot be introduced fast enough.”
Mark Diesendorf, another researcher from Down Under (what’s with the Aussies?), ran a large-scale simulation model to replicate how energy markets function and deliver energy across the globe. He examined “the effectiveness of different energy scenarios for achieving early reductions in global energy-related CO2 emissions on trajectories to zero or near-zero emissions by 2050.”
Diesendorf found that:
To reduce energy-related emissions to at least half the 2019 level by 2030 en route to zero or near-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, either total primary energy supply must be reduced to at least half its 2019 value by 2050 or impossibly rapid reductions must be made in the fossil fuel fraction of supply, given current technological options. Reduction in energy consumption likely entails economic degrowth in high-income countries, driven by policies that are socioeconomic, cultural and political, in addition to technological. This needs serious consideration and international cooperation.
Right-oh!
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Before posting this essay, I wanted to be confident of my conclusion by examining contrary views that might explain how our fossil fuel driven civilization can quickly switch to renewable energy (especially, with solar, wind, and hydroelectric) and make things right with Mother Earth. There are many proponents of “No Miracles Needed,” chief among them being Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University professor and author of a book by that name. So, let’s see what he has to say.
Jacobson and colleagues tell us that it’s technically and economically doable for major consuming countries to power themselves entirely by wind-water-solar by 2050. Their “roadmaps”envision a whopping 80% conversion by 2030 toward that goal, and 100% renewable energy by 2050. The pathway is illustrated below.
Under this scenario, we’d see a 23% drop in power consumption due to improved energy output from electrification. A typical power plant runs at about 33% efficiency. This means that power plants consume three times as much energy in fuel (like coal) as the amount of energy produced as electricity.
But here’s the catch: wind and solar energy are not 100% efficient. According to Verde Energy USA, “the most efficient solar panels can capture and convert about 23% of sunlight into energy…wind turbines turn roughly 50% of captured wind into energy…[while] wind energy appears to be more than twice as efficient as solar energy…that’s only the case in areas where the wind is abundant and constant.”
Jacobson and colleagues also expect a 13% cut in power demand by eliminating fossil fuel extraction, processing, and distribution. But what about the power needed to build, distribute, and maintain solar panels and wind turbines, and all supportive infrastructure required to transmit the electricity? That is a lot of energy; much of it, at least initially, to be supplied by fossil fuels. It’s no small matter that solar and wind energy is a far less concentrated form of energy than oil or coal, so it requires tremendous infrastructure across large areas to harvest.
Further, “No Miracles Needed” anticipates that end-use energy efficiency will improve by 7%. Yet one would think that efficiency upgrades would also apply to fossil fuel power.
It seems to me that the surge in renewable energy that’s suggested in the above graph would be nothing short of miraculous. In about 7 years, roughly 75% of the energy the world consumes would come from renewable sources! That stretches the imagination, considering what’s physically needed in terms of renewable energy infrastructure, mining, and transport of vast quantities of required raw materials.
As Mark Diesendorf points out:
We have a situation where renewable electricity and total (my emphasis) energy consumption are growing quite rapidly alongside one another. So renewables are chasing a retreating target that keeps getting further away…research shows it is simply impossible for renewable energy to overtake that retreating target. And that's no fault of renewable energy. It's the fault of the growth in consumption and the fact that action has been left too late.
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Here are five big obstacles to “no-miracles-needed” that are neither technological nor economic:
Our “all-of-the-above” addiction. Today’s global energy mix includes just about everything. All major components are rising (see first graph above). Historically, coal didn’t replace wood; oil and gas didn’t replace coal; and nuclear didn’t replace oil and gas. With runaway capitalism and the world’s growth obsession, don’t bet the house that this pattern will dramatically change. Expect no stone unturned in the quest to supply the enormous amount of energy desired for a global civilization of 8-9 billion people: solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal, tidal and wave, hydrogen, nuclear, you name it. By the way, Mark Jacobson considers “all-of-the-above” to be an absolute hindrance and waste of money; the focus should be squarely on solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. His is a minority view, however; barring strict government mandates, all-of-the-above will rule.
Javons paradox. Simply stated, “In the long term, an increase in efficiency in resource use will generate an increase in resource consumption rather than a decrease.” Insofar as renewable energy makes energy cheaper, as Jacobson and colleagues insist, society will use more of it. Given the great push for economic growth, we’ll find ways to use energy that might otherwise be saved, be it for artificial intelligence, electronic gadgetry, or heightened world and space travel.
Politics. There’s growing pushback against renewable energy, and not just from the fossil fuel industry and its allies. Simon Pirani, a professor at the University of Durham (UK) and reviewer of No Miracles Needed, finds that Mark Jacobson’s “recipes are embarrassingly light” for dealing with social and political barriers to 100% renewable energy. To be fair, Jacobson is a physical scientist not a sociologist. Nevertheless, ways to implement solutions remain stubbornly elusive.
War and instability. The renewable energy revolution envisioned by Jacobson and colleagues requires a world that’s more or less politically stable. Yet international conflict is at its highest level since World War II, according to the U.N. This is bad news for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As of last year, the war in Ukraine already released more than 150 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Sixty days of the war in Gaza added at least 281,000 metric tons, while eventual reconstruction efforts could result in tens of millions of tons more. Militaries (as of 2022) account for at least 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the U.S. by far the single largest contributor. Fighting among ourselves takes precedence over fighting climate change.
The war on nature. The rapid rollout of renewable energy is harming wildlife, nature, and indigenous peoples. This isn’t a trivial matter given the vast land and sea areas that are impacted. Single-focus advocates for renewable energy see this as a favorable tradeoff for protecting the climate. By eliminating fossil fuels, the narrative goes, there will be a net benefit to nature rather than a net harm. To put it bluntly, if we ignore the incredibly destructive history of industrial civilization, it’s now okay to harm indigenous life for a “better tomorrow” that may never arrive. What if the miracle transition to renewable energy and climate stability fails, as seems likely? The answer is that we’ll further devastate nature, both in the process of re-industrializing the global energy sector and by failing to prevent the harsh climate consequences we’ve caused.
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Choose Your Miracles
Reading this essay, someone could get the impression that I’m against renewable energy (or cynically, that I’m paid by the oil industry to post this). Nothing could be further from the truth. We need renewables—and we need to get off fossil fuels soon.
However, it will take more than a miracle to re-energize our global civilization with renewable sources while vastly expanding the economy and increasing human numbers. This isn’t a sensible pursuit to avoid climate chaos and further destruction of nature.
You know what I’m going to say next. Cut energy consumption and begin scaling down the human enterprise! This will also require a miracle but—for the wellbeing of life on Earth—it’s the only path forward.
Impossible? Well, if some people can cut their consumption of energy there’s no reason others can’t. It’s basically a mindset thing. As Mark Diesendorf said, We would only need to go to the levels of energy use of a few decades back with the smarter and cleaner technologies of today. It does not mean going back to living in caves. But it does mean abandoning the belief of conventional economics that eternal growth is possible on a planet with finite resources.
Fortunately, there is a growing number of people who challenge “conventional economics.” They understand that less consumption can, and must, occur. The basic approach is to avoid destructive, unnecessary forms of production, focus economic activity on securing human needs and well-being, ensure universal public services and employment without high levels of resource use, and reduce working time. A set of universal basic services would mean less demand for very high-income jobs, which corresponds to high energy consumption.
If this sounds like a good dose of socialism, you’re right. Even if this makes us uncomfortable, let’s choose the better future.
Fortunately, the movement to shrink the economy, under whatever name, is well on its way!
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Thanks for amassing all this information, Tony! Amazing job.
I have a big problem with so-called renewables. First of all, they’re not renewable! In what sense are these things renewable? yes, wind is renewable and so is the sunlight (but ironically, we’re getting less sunlight due to the constant rain that’s coming into my area anyway). So yes, wind and sun are there as potentially renewable resources but the infrastructure and the mechanisms to harness that energy are not renewable! The batteries and the concrete required are not renewable— for example, concrete requires sand. We’re running out of the kind of sand that’s needed to make concrete and these wind towers are enormous structures made of concrete. The lithium and cobalt needed to make these batteries are not renewable! All this drives me absolutely crazy. The name “renewable” is a complete misnomer as is “clean” energy. Oy!
In my humble opinion, science got us into this mess and science will not get us out of it. We have to go back to basics, for example, a plant-based diet, and growing our own food. we have to learn to regulate the interiors of our homes by using less energy. We can do that by building homes in a way that maximizes natural energy sources, and do simple things like use less heat in the winter by wearing layers of clothing; rather than just turning up the thermostat, put on a sweater, as Jimmy Carter suggested.
We also have to renew our spiritual connections to the planet and realize this is our home. This is not just any other spot on the globe that we can move to . In my opinion, the basic move needed is we have to get rid of money, which I have discussed in a previous comment so I won’t go into it here.
One of the primary needs is for education on this issue; instead, we are bombarded with a bunch of BS about renewables and how we’re going to reduce global warming while burning up the planet on a daily basis. Ain’t gonna happen.
Meanwhile, science has given us another little danger to more consumption, namely AI. Science will not save us!!!
I think this may be one of your best, yet. Such an important topic. How do we get there from here without destroying our natural support systems. Thanks for your work, Tony!