We can make it: the latest results of the analysis of the performance of renewable energy, photovoltaic and wind, show that their efficiency in terms of energy return on investment (EROI) is considerably larger than that of fossil fuels. It is becoming clear, too, that renewables don't need rare and disappearing mineral resources: the infrastructure to build them and maintain them needs only abundant and recyclable minerals: silicon, aluminum, and a few more that can be efficiently recycled (rare earths and lithium).
In other words, renewables can't be considered anymore as an emergency replacement for the depleting and polluting fossil fuels, but as a true step forward. They are the new, "disruptive" technology that people expected nuclear energy to be, but that never was.
Tony Seba -- sharp as always -- has diffused the idea of renewables as the new energy revolution. Seba's ideas have been popularized by Nafeez Ahmed in a two parts series, (Part 1 and Part2). These assessments may be too optimistic in some regards, but they do note how things are changing. We have a chance, a fighting chance, to falsify the scenarios that saw an irreversible decline -- actually a collapse -- of the industrial civilization during the next few decades.
Can we really make it? It is a chance, but not a certainty. The quantitative calculations made by Sgouridis, Csala, and myself indicate that we can only succeed if we invest in renewables much more than what we are investing nowadays. If we maintain the current trends, renewables will be able to slow down the decline, but not avoid a "dip" in the civilization curve. Then, we will re-emerge on the other side in a new and cleaner world. But we might not be able to avoid total collapse if we don't keep investing a significant fraction of the available resources in the transition.
Unfortunately, this idea faces stiff opposition from various industrial lobbies, and especially from a diehard section of environmentalism that remains stuck to ideas that have been shown several times to be ineffective: exhortations for good behavior, individual energy saving, carbon taxes, and the like. All these things have been proposed for decades and failed to make a dent in the predominance of fossil fuels and the emissions of greenhouse gases. In part, the opposition takes the form of wasting resources for technologies that are known to be inefficient (carbon sequestration) or useless (hydrogen), or both things at the same time. We need to do better than that. We need something different.
If we want something to change, we need to change something.
We can make it!!
>an we really make it? It is a chance, but not a certainty
ReplyDeleteI don't agree, because the issue isn't the technology, the issue is humanities greed and stupidity. If we had endless cheap energy from some magical process, we'd exploit it in wasteful ways, perhaps everyone having their own personal submarine for example and the massive resource depletion in doing so, or perhaps even try something really stupid like have everyone own their own e-car :)
While the most immediate issue of our greed and stupidity is climate change, species extinction, over population, pollution, plastics and on and on are all serious issues that are made worse when we dig the planet up to do this transition, let alone the actual materials needed. e.g is their enough mineable Cu ?
"Greed And Stupidity Are What Will End The Human Race - Stephen Hawking"
"I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that." - James Gustave Speth
Don't get me wrong, I ride a bicycle and Vote Green grow some of my own food but then that's not what voters want.
I have a difficult time believing in the 'green/clean' energy mantra of renewables and their ability to stave off the impending energy cliff, to say little about the fact that the energy dilemma is but one of the many biophysical limits we are bumping up against or broached. Limitless energy does zero to address some of these other predicaments; in fact, it could be argued unlimited energy will only exacerbate the other areas of 'difficulty' such as biodiversity loss and degraded soil fertility. Then there's this countervailing analysis that argues the opposite of Ahmed et al. and concludes "This analysis makes clear that the pat notion of “affordable clean energy” views the world through a narrow keyhole that is blind to innumerable economic, ecological, and social costs. These undesirable “externalities” can no longer be ignored. To achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two." ( https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm?fbclid=IwAR2ISt5shfV4wpFEc8jxbQnrrxyllyvZP-xDnoHhWrjGTQRIqUNfk3hOK1g)
ReplyDeleteIf I understand correctly, according to Seba, almost all peer-reviewed papers and reports from IEA, World Bank, DNV and others on resource scarcity and EROI are deeply flawed because they don't understand future, expected and potential technology disruptions.
ReplyDeleteBut big claims require big evidence, and Seba doesn't provide them. He claims to have a systemic, holistic view, but the factors are hand picket to fuel his techno-optimism, as well as studies supporting them.
Just to take an example, already mentioned in comment above, Seba does not mention copper in his document, although more and more studies shows that we have a problem there. He mentions lithium many time, but there no numbers on the reserves and extraction improvement rate. etc.
More generally, he discuss a lot about costs, but avoid talking about reserves and EROI.
I'm disappointed that you and Nafeez consider this wishful thinking as a serious work.
"We can make it!!"
ReplyDeleteoh please... this is more infinite growth on a finite planet, technocornucopian nonsense.