Here’s an excellent article that takes an objective approach to energy policy. It looks at energy sources as an historical phenomenon. One of my favorite quotes is, “We find a useful referee in this war of words with the recently released Eye on the Market 15th Annual Energy Paper by Michael Cembalest, J. P. Morgan’s chairman of market and investment strategy. As this 70-slide, deep-dive report pointedly notes, “after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year [emphasis added].” One does not need a mathematics degree to understand that such anemic growth rates are not the hallmarks of an “unstoppable” juggernaut. Hence, Cembalest’s bottom line: “Growth in fossil fuel consumption is slowing but no clear sign of a peak on a global basis.” That is to say, no “energy transition” is in sight.”
I like a business analyst that has a rye sense of humor; “an unstoppable juggernaut.” The Germans being the hyper-obedient victims of their past behavior have gone down the green road with both feet. They shut down their nuclear power plants and without Russian gas their economy has been crushed. They don’t have enough heating energy for their homes and they can’t run their heavy industries like auto manufacturing and chemical synthesis without fossil fuels. I wonder if they were smart enough to leave the nuke plants intact just in case they came to their senses. Nah, they’re too smart to have left themselves a emergency exit. I’ll bet they knocked them down.
The gist of the essay is that there’s never a transition from one energy source to the next. The old one keeps on at the same lever or even increases. Eventually an even more productive successor just step changes itself into prominence. Human muscle didn’t disappear when animals were domesticated. Wind power didn’t eliminate oxen. Neither did steam. And steam still powers many applications even though fossil fuels became predominant. And one day oil and gas will be overshadowed by nuclear or geothermal or whatever larger source is engineered. We want more power not less. That’s the lesson.