Egypt: What Future for a Country in Distress?

 

Cairo in 2023: crowded, noisy, and polluted. These notes are not supposed to be an exhaustive description of the situation in Egypt, but just an impression from about one week spent there. 

When you arrive in Cairo from Europe, the heat and the humidity are the first surprise. Yes, you know that you are in an African country, and you would expect it to be hotter than Europe. Yet, it is late October; is it possible that it is still so hot? Then, what would August be like here?

It may be just a mistaken impression of someone who has never visited Egypt before, but as you speak with the local people, you discover that it is not just an impression; they share the same sensation. This October is abnormally hot; not the way it used to be. The polls show that Egyptians clearly understand the problem of climate change. Possibly, even better than Europeans, with 92% of Egyptians stating that climate change is already facing their everyday life. The fact that they are used to a hot climate doesn't mean that they don't share the same physical limits of all human being. Life becomes impossible, or at least very hard, once some temperatures are reached. 

So, what are the Egyptians doing? Of course, normal life in the heat of summer is possible only with air conditioning. I haven't been able to find statistics for the diffusion of air conditioning in Egypt, but even buildings that look poor and in bad shape have the external units of AC devices well visible on the outer walls. You see a typical example here, in the island of Zamalek, central Cairo. These are buildings probably built during Nasser's presidency, inspired by Soviet architecture. 

Yet, if you tour Cairo, you won't see a single PV panel roofs. Over several days there, I couldn't detect a single electric car running, and Google Maps tells me that there are only about 20 public recharge stations in Cairo. Not many for a city of more than 20 million inhabitants and some 5 million cars. As you may imagine, in Egypt, everything is based on fossil fuels, and Cairo is one of the most polluted cities in the world. You can hardly find a single tree in the avalanche of concrete that covers everything. 

Clearly, Egypt has serious problems. One is that the population is still exploding and shows little sign of going through the "demographic transition" that will eventually stop its growth. Then, despite its agricultural tradition, Egypt imports about 50% of its grain supply from abroad, mainly from Russia and Ukraine. You see how horrible the situation could easily become in the near future. And the problems are already there. People are not starving in Egypt, but they already have to adapt to a diet that's far from optimal. Because of excess carbohydrates and pollution, Egypt has a serious problem with obesity and with diabetes, that affects nearly 20% of the population. 

So, what can you expect for the future of Egypt, among the problems of mineral depletion and increased warming? Among the positive factors, one is that Egypt does face a problem of water scarcity as most Middle-Eastern countries. Its supply of freshwater does not depend on rain but on the Nile, for its water supply. It is nearly impossible to imagine a climate situation in which the Nile would dry up and, if carefully managed, it can still keep Egypt alive as it has done for thousands of years. 

Then, Egypt is a well-insolated country with excellent possibilities for solar energy production, both on rooftops and in the desertic areas. Up to now, PV plants have been too expensive for Egyptian families, while the government has remained locked to the obsolete fossil fuel paradigm -- just like most governments in the world have been. But things are changing. PV costs are plummeting, while Egypt has a significant fraction of the population that's well educated and sensible to the need for sustainable energy. A good example is the Heliopolis Sustainability University (the "Sekem") where young Egyptians are trained for a sustainable future. During my visit, I noted a remarkable interest in these matters, and it is not too late for Egypt to catch up with the rest of the world and become a renewable energy powerhouse. 

So, the future is uncertain but not necessarily bad for Egypt. It will take courage, good planning, and sacrifices, but, more than all, peace. And there is no doubt that peace is what most Egyptians desire. You have to spend just a few days there to understand that. And we move toward the future, always remembering that God knows best. 

Geoengineering: it is coming!

 

The trend is still weak, but it looks already clear. The interest in geoengineering is growing. The reason is obvious, just take a look at these recent data:

And it really looks like all hell is breaking loose. We can't say, yet, where we are passing one of the deadly climate tipping points that will kill us all, but for sure, climate change is not anymore something that our grandchildren will be concerned about. Not even a problem for our children. It is our problem. It is here and now. 

So, what to do? It is no more the time of talks, and talks, and talks. It is time to recognize that the COP series of conferences has been one of the worst failures in the history of humankind, probably worse than the attempts to mitigate the famine on Eastern Island by building large stone heads. Or to create a proletarian paradise in the Soviet Union. 

One good thing we have is that renewable energy is doing very well. It is growing fast and it gives us a chance to have the means to intervene. But renewables, by themselves, can't turn back the climate clock. They can reduce emissions and bring them to zero in a few decades, but the damage done may already be above the safety limits. We need to think in terms of emergency: we need to cool the planet while we still can do that. 

The idea of "climate engineering" is still in its infancy, and it is much maligned for various reasons. But it is a definite hope we have for the near future. Among many ongoing discussions, you may be interested in a new group called the "Blue Cooling Initiative" (BCI).  It is a sign of the changes to come. 

See also this previous post of mine. 

Electric Cars as a Gift from God

 

An electric car on display at the WDCC (World Design Cities Conference) in Shanghai, Sept 2023. Not the finger of God pointing at it. Such a display is nearly inconceivable in the West, where the fossil lobby is mounting a strong propaganda campaign against everything renewable or "green."

China is different for many reasons, but one is how they see technology. Unlike the Western attitude, which has come to see science and technology as inherently evil, the Chinese have a sane attitude that sees technology as something useful for people. Hence, the emphasis is on renewable energy and electric cars. At the WDCC Conference, my colleagues told me that they are convinced that photovoltaic energy is a gift that China is making to the whole world that will usher a new age of prosperity and a new culture of sustainability for everyone. 

Not everything that China does agrees with this goal, and they still rely on coal for their energy supply. But the idea is there, and you know that when the Chinese decide that they want to do something, they usually succeed. And I think they will with this one!

And, as you can see, the views in the West on electric cars are different.

  

 

Scorched Europe: Can Renewable Energy Save Us?

 

Figure from Ballester et Al. 2023 showing the average summer temperatures in several Western European States. The situation is rapidly becoming dramatic, and renewables will be desperately needed not just as a replacement for fossil fuels but as a tool for adaptation. 

This July has seen the highest temperatures ever recorded in Europe and worldwide. It is not an exceptional event but part of a trend. Take a look at the graph above; there is no other way to define it than scary. If the trend of the past 10 years is maintained, then the average summer temperature in Europe will keep rising by about 0.14 °C every year. It means one more degree by 2030 and three additional degrees by 2050. And it could be much worse: the authors of the paper interpreted the growth as linear, but these complex systems tend to go exponentially. Maybe the temperature increase could start tapering down, too. But it is safe to assume that the trend will continue and Southern Europe will be especially hit. "Scorched Europe"? Yes. 

Plenty of people find these data surprising. Most have in mind the "1.1 °C" increase normally mentioned when dealing with global warming. But that's a global average of land and sea temperatures, and the sea warms less than the land mainly because it has a larger heat capacity. The summer temperatures on land are another story and are what kills people when they appear in the form of heat waves. Last summer, we had 60,000 excess deaths in Southern Europe correlated to the heat waves. This summer, things seem to be a little better, but how about a future with four extra degrees of warming? And it is not just a question of heat waves: the changes in the ecosystems are going to be profound and irreversible. We may expect drought, desertification, land erosion, and extreme meteorological events. 

The standard wisdom is that we can stop climate change by phasing out the consumption of fossil fuels and hence CO2 emissions. It could be obtained by better efficiency, energy saving, and the diffusion of renewable energy (nuclear energy could also be used, although with many additional problems). It is possible, but could it be done fast enough? Let's see a projection from the recent report to the Club of Rome "Earth for All," a global modeling of the world's economic system. 

You see the energy transition in terms of the phasing out of CO2 emissions. In the "Giant Leap" scenario, the transition is completed by 2050. You can see similar scenarios, although more detailed, in the IPCC reports. Even the most optimistic projections do not see the disappearance of fossil fuel use before 2050-2060.

Now, what would be the effects on global temperatures of phasing out fossil fuels by 2050? The "Earth for All" study models that, too. (the IPCC scenarios provide similar results): 

You see that there is not such a big difference between the two scenarios. Even after that fossil fuel consumption has been brought to zero, in 2050, temperatures keep rising for more than 30 years. It is expected. Reducing or even zeroing emissions does not remove CO2 from the atmosphere; it only stops its concentration from increasing. The system has a certain time lag that keeps it warming even though emissions have become zero. For this reason, most of the IPCC scenarios assume the use of carbon sequestration technologies to be deployed after 2050, even though nobody knows for sure how these technologies could work. Note also that these calculations do not take into account the possibility of "tipping points" that could unbalance the system and cause drastic, rapid, and irreversible changes.  

The point is that if the ratio of European temperatures to global temperatures is maintained at the current values, a global increase of more than 2 degrees corresponds to about 4 degrees more on land in Europe. So, even with optimistic assumptions, it seems that a rapid transition away from fossil fuels can't prevent radical changes in the climate system. 

Does that mean renewables are useless? Not at all. Renewables, so far, have been considered mainly as a tool for mitigation of global warming. That is, as tools to reduce and eventually eliminate CO2 emissions. But we'll also need renewables as adaptation tools. At this point, it is clear that we need energy in order to survive. 

In the future, Southern Europe may well become an environment comparable to the present one in places such as Dubai, where the average daily summer temperature is about 34 °C. Residents say that there are only three seasons in Dubai: spring, summer, and hell. In summer, people live in air-conditioned homes and move in air-conditioned vehicles to reach air-conditioned spaces for work or for social activities. They drink desalinated water and consume imported food, or food cultivated in irrigated areas. It is perfectly possible to cultivate the Arabian desert, provided that the land can be irrigated, and that requires energy.

Can Southern Europe adopt similar strategies? Yes, but that needs energy. Dubai has an ample supply of low-cost fossil fuels from the neighboring countries, sufficient to create the artificial environments that keep people alive during the summer. They are moving toward renewables, but they are starting from very low levels. In Europe, instead, the fossil fuel supply is limited and expensive, but renewables are already covering a large fraction of consumption (more than 20%). This supply can be gradually increased to support adaptation. We need air-conditioned spaces for people in summer, we need to manage the land to avoid erosion and desertification, to reforest degraded areas, to create water reservoirs, and more. We may need to use renewable-powered precision fermentation to provide food independently of agriculture. 

The renewable-based mitigation scenario is a likely path that the warming-stricken regions may gradually follow, perhaps unwillingly but forced to by the circumstances. People will desperately want air-conditioning even though they keep screaming that global warming does not exist or that "climate always changes." Of course, there are various forms that this strategy may take, and it may be accompanied by massive migration toward Northern Countries and by attempts to drastically draw down CO2 from the atmosphere. Both would require huge amounts of energy. 

At present, these scenarios are politically taboo in the discussion in Europe. Most people in the region seem to ignore or deny the very existence of global warming or to consider it nothing more than a minor nuisance. That may slow down the efforts to mitigate it or to adapt to it. Eventually, though, change is unavoidable. Obviously, nobody likes the idea of Italy looking like Dubai a few decades from now, but it could be much worse. 

Tomas Pueyo Returns: Energy Lockdowns are Coming?

 

Tomas Pueyo is known for being one of the main supporters of worldwide lockdowns during the pandemic, Now, he is back with an even more ambitious idea; how to solve the global warming problem in a few, easy, and quick steps. Will he be more successful this time? 

You may remember Tomas Pueyo, the man who forced us into lockdowns with his idea that we needed "Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve." His post on this subject is said to have generated some 40 million visualizations! Then, as we know, the two weeks turned into two years, and the curve was not flattened (I describe the story in detail in this post of mine). 

Now, Pueyo is back with another idea, this time about how to "solve" Global Warming. Simple: capture CO2, turn it into methane, burn it as fuel. Problem solved. Maybe not in two weeks, but quickly and easily. And making money on it, too!

I think Pueyo is a well-intentioned person. It is just that he has problems with connecting dreams to reality. His approach is typically "political;" it is the search for simple solutions to complex problems. With the "flattening the curve" idea based on strict lockdowns, Pueyo was proposing a major social disruption on the basis of two hand-drawn curves with scarcely any data supporting it. Incredibly, he succeeded in having his proposal experimented worldwide. The hope that the Covid problem could be solved in two weeks was so fascinating for politicians, and the public as well, that everyone jumped into the barrel heading for the Niagara Falls. 

This time, Pueyo does a little better, and, at least his "solution" for global warming doesn't involve locking us inside our homes again (so far, at least). But his paper is a rambling mix of unoriginal and unproven ideas. At least on one thing, though, Pueyo is right: the dramatic decline of energy prices generated by renewable makes it possible to think of things that were unthinkable just a few years ago. 

As we know, renewable energy is very cheap, but it has a problem: matching demand. That, in principle, requires storage and there are several ideas and possibilities to do that. Several years ago, in the 1990s,  George Olah proposed a "methanol-based economy" (see this article published in 2005).  The idea was to react CO2 and hydrogen with each other to create methanol (methyl alcohol). Since CO2 can be extracted from the atmosphere, and hydrogen can be created from the electrolysis of water, it is possible to run the process by means of renewable energy. The result is a fuel, methanol, that is completely renewable. Methanol is liquid at room temperature, so it is easy to store and transport, and it could work wonders both as fuel and as an energy storage system.

In time, Olah's ideas have been incorporated into the more general idea of "electrofuels." The idea is the same, but arcane catalytic chemistry is used to create, for instance, "renewable gasoline" and "renewable diesel fuel." It is possible, even though, at present, there only exist hopes and a few prototype plants. 

The problems with electrofuels are several. One is simply a question of cost: making renewable hydrogen from electrolysis is already expensive enough that it is not cost-competitive with simpler energy storage solutions, such as batteries. Then, CO2 exists in air as less than one part in a thousand, so it takes a lot of energy and effort to extract and concentrate it. Consider also that conventional engines are hugely inefficient, and running them on electrofuels doesn't improve that. Finally, the problems with the pollution caused by combustion in engines remain unchanged. Right now, electrofuels are neither cost-competitive nor able to reduce pollution. But they might be useful for specific needs; planes, for instance. 

Now, back to Pueyo, he proposes to use renewable energy not to make electrofuels but plain, simple methane (natural gas). The idea is not commonly discussed in the debate mostly because liquid electrofuels are much more valuable than gaseous methane, and so their production is expected to be more cost-effective. Of course, an advantage of renewable methane would be that we could use the already existing pipelines and cryogenic ships to transport it (and no, hydrogen cannot flow through the existing pipelines). But if methane is created from renewable energy, then it can be produced more or less anywhere, and there would be little need for a huge network of pipelines. 

Basically, what Pueyo is doing is making a sales pitch for a company called "Terraform Industries" which has published on the Web some nice-looking sketches of what a renewable methane plant could look like. They also published some back-of-the-envelope calculations of how much this methane could cost (maybe), and claims that production should soon start. 

Alas, dreams tend to shatter into tiny pieces when hitting the ugly reality. Turning CO2 into methane is not impossible, but it is inefficient, expensive, and complicated, even when taking into account the low cost of solar energy. Right now, it is more expensive than just about any other form of renewable energy and would simply keep us stuck to an inefficient and polluting energy system. Then, in itself, making methane from CO2 is not doing much to "solve global warming" (to use Pueyo's wording). True, it does not add CO2 to the existing stock in the atmosphere, but unavoidable methane leaks from the plants could do a lot of damage since methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. 

Unfortunately, Pueyo's post is perpetuating the idea that those who push for renewable energy are just dreamers who have little contact with reality. We have to be open to new technological solutions as they appear, but electrofuels are not a miracle solution for anything. We should always keep in mind that moving to renewable energy is not going to be easy, nor it is going to be cheap. But not impossible, either! 

h/t Olivier Guyot

Renewables: the Reverse French Revolution

 

The French Revolution came when coal replaced agriculture as the main source of wealth in society. Today, we face a repetition of those events with renewable energy replacing fossil fuels. Several details are returning, including the three estates (nobles, clergy, and commoners) who fought for power at the time of the revolution. The modern nobility is the fossil fuel lobby, the bourgeoisie is the growing renewable-based economy, and the clergy is represented by the "catastrophist" movement. 

(Image of Robespierre and wind towers made with Dezgo.com)

The best way to interpret the French Revolution is by using the lens of Biophysical Economics. All systems, including social ones, are dissipative structures that generate complexity by processing energy and creating entropy. No energy, no complex society. Then, when an energy source runs out, it is collapse. When it is replaced by another source, it is a transition to a different structure which may be larger and more complex. 

This is what happened with the French Revolution, which took place when coal replaced agriculture. Coal was extracted and burned in Europe already during the Middle Ages, but production started becoming important only during the 18th century. Up to then, European society relied on agriculture to provide metabolic energy ("food"). Coal couldn't directly provide metabolic energy, but it could be transformed into food by a process that included smelting steel, using it to make weapons, conquering large swats of land overseas, enslaving the local population, and setting them to work in plantations that provided food for Europeans. 

The transition led the landed nobles and the new mercantile bourgeoisie to be set on a collision course for dominance. The fight went on for about two centuries. In some cases, the transition was smooth, as in England; in others, it involved much bloodshed, as in France in 1789, in the US in 1861, and in Russia in 1917. In all cases, the final result was the same. It is not surprising that the term "King Coal" became commonplace. 

The switch from farming to coal deeply changed the structure of European society. The power was not anymore in the hand of regional nobles, but came to be concentrated in the hands of powerful national elites who could control coal production and, with it, everything else. Lenin understood the reasons for the process when he claimed that the Bolshevik revolution was all about the control of the means of production. He didn't say that there could be no production without coal, but it was implicit in the concept. 

The power of the new elites was immense, but they still needed commoners as soldiers and workers. So, the structure of the new national states was managed in such a way as to give the illusion that "the people" were in charge. In practice, the power was in the hand of entrenched lobbies in Western Europe and bureaucratic structures such as the communist party in the Soviet Union. Moving from coal to oil changed little to the power structure; the main difference was that oil could be more easily transformed into food by chemical processes that produce fertilizers. It led to a further step onward in dominance, with the elites becoming global. 

Today, renewables in the form of photovoltaics and wind have the capability of changing everything. Their low cost makes them able to break the grip of the global elites on production and bring back an economy that looks close to the old agricultural world, where land was the main source of wealth. A true "reverse French Revolution," bringing back the means of production into the hands of regional centers instead of global ones. Don't expect Capitalism to vanish in a puff of smoke as the result of renewable energy, but the capability of global elites to control energy production, yes, that will vanish or, at least, it will be much diminished.  

No wonder, then, that the rapid growth of renewable energy production is generating a strong negative backlash from the sections of society that see themselves threatened. Here, we see parallels with the historical French Revolution. You may remember that before the attack on the Bastille in 1789, King Louis XVI convened the three "États Généraux," the general estates, to manage the response to growing financial and political crises in France in the late 1700s. They were formed of the nobles, the clergy, and the commoners. It was a clash from the very beginning between the two entrenched estates; the nobles and clergy representing agriculture, and the third state; the commoners representing coal. The commoners decided to create their own National Assembly, and then, as they say, it was history. 

Today, we don't have a king convening the three estates of society in an assembly, but the presence of similar entities is detectable. The modern nobles are the oil lobbies that control the functioning of the state by means of their financial power. Their adversary is the "renewable-based bourgeoisie" (*), a new social class that derives its wealth from the growing power of renewables. And who are the modern equivalent of the clergy? At the time of the French Revolution, their role was to provide ideological support for the nobles by scaring the commoners into submission. The method used was the threat of eternal punishment if they dared to try to raise their status to something more than mere survival. 

There is now an equivalent of the old religious clergy in the "catastrophist" movement. They share an apocalyptic vision of divine punishment for human sins, and their current role is to keep the fossil economy alive by convincing the commoners that renewables are a pipe dream, that becoming poor and destitute is a virtue, and that they should be happy with "de-growing." That will allow the fossil lobbies to maintain their grip on fossil energy production while they try to switch to nuclear energy, another centralized source that can be controlled at the global level. In the process, commoners will be left in the cold to fend for themselves the best they can. If they can.  

The new clergy of the catastrophist movement is having some success. Western propaganda is a powerful weapon, and the new, Web-based social networks are being used in full to denigrate renewable energy. But renewables are growing fast, they are creating wealth, and they are racing upward at such speed that it is hard to think they can be stopped. The battle for energy is being fought. There will be no need to behead anyone, but the next few years will decide the destiny of humankind. 

(*) I discovered the concept of "renewable-based bourgeoise" in a recent book by Mauro Romanelli, "The Answer." A good book that explains the basics of renewable energy. Alas, it is available only in Italian.   

The Next One Hundred Years: A Story Told in Three Scenarios

 

Looking back at how the future was seen half a century ago, it is amazing to see how things have changed. When the conquest of space seemed to be the obvious way forward, nobody would have imagined that, today, we would be discussing the probability of survival of humankind, and that many of us would judge it as low. 

Yet, even though the future remains obscure, it still follows the laws of the universe. And one of these laws is that civilizations exist because they have a supply of energy. No energy, no civilization. So, the key element of the future is energy; the idea that it would be cheap and abundant gave rise to the dream of the conquest of space in the 1950s. Today, the idea that it will be neither gives rise to the prospects of doom. 

So, let me try a simple "scenario analysis" of what may happen in the future in the next century or so in terms of choices that will determine the energy infrastructure that could support a complex civilization (if any will survive). We are in a moment of transition, and the choices that will be made in the next few years (not decades) will determine the future of humankind. 

_________________________________________________________________

Scenario #0: collapse. I call this a "non-scenario" in the sense that it assumes that nothing is done or, anyway, too little and too late. In this case, people remain stuck in their old paradigms, the resources that kept society alive are not replaced, and it becomes impossible to maintain a degree of complexity comparable to the current one. Within some decades, humans return to an economy that we might describe as "medieval," if we are lucky. But we might also go back to hunting and gathering or even, simply, go extinct. Personally, I see this scenario as the most likely one, but not an obligate outcome of the current situation. 

Scenario #1: Sticking to Fossil Fuels. Here, we see a repetition of the events that led to stemming the decline of oil production during the first two decades of the 20th century. It was done by pouring large amounts of resources into the "fracking" of tight oil deposits. It produced a temporary resurrection of the oil industry in the US, bringing production to levels never seen before, albeit at enormous economic and environmental costs. The same policy could be continued with renewed efforts, for instance, at exploiting tight oil deposits outside the United States, tar sands, or maybe making synthetic fuels out of coal. That could maintain the production of fossil fuels to levels similar to the current ones. It would make it possible to keep alive the military apparatuses of the main states, and at least some of the current organizations and social structures. But the cost would be enormous, and it would imply beggaring most of the world's population, as well as unimaginable damage to the ecosystem. This strategy could keep a semblance of the current civilization going on for a few decades, hardly more than the end of the century. Then, it will be Scenario #0, but the crash will be even worse than if it had arrived by doing nothing.

Scenario #2: Going Nuclear. Supporting a complex society on nuclear energy may be possible, but it is complicated by several factors. Among these are the limited uranium resources, the need for rare mineral resources for the plants, and the strategic problems involved in disseminating nuclear technologies and uranium processing knowledge all over the world. Because of the limited amounts of mineral uranium, it is well known that the existing technology of light water reactors would not be able to supply the current global energy demand for more than a few decades, at best for a century or so. Then the outcome would be again scenario #0. The fuel supply could be greatly increased by moving to the challenging task of "breeding" new fuels from thorium or non-fissile uranium. If that were possible, a complex civilization could continue to exist for several centuries, or even more. In all cases, a major war that would target the nuclear plants would rapidly send a nuclear civilization to scenario #0.

Scenario #3: The Solar Era. In this case, we see the continuation of the current trend that sees renewable energy technologies, mainly solar photovoltaic and wind, rapidly expanding. If this expansion continues, it can make both fossil fuels and nuclear energy obsolete. Renewable technologies have a good energy return on energy investment (EROI) and little need for rare minerals. Renewables are not a strategic problem, have no direct military interest, and can be used everywhere. The plants can be recycled, and they are expected to be able to support a complex society; even though in a form that, today, we can only barely imagine. A solar-based infrastructure is also naturally forced to reach a certain degree of stability because of the limited flux of solar energy available. So, a solar-based civilization could reach a stable state that could last at least as long as agricultural societies did in the past, thousands of years, or even longer.

Combined Scenarios #1, #2, #3: Feudalization. The three scenarios above are based on the idea that human civilization remains reasonably "global." In this case, the competition between different technologies would play out at a global scale and determine a winner that would take over the whole energy market. But that's not necessarily the case if the world's economic systems separate into independent sections, as it appears to be happening right now. In this case, some regions might adopt different strategies, fossils, nuclear, or renewables, while some would simply be shut off from the energy supply system and go directly to "Scenario #0."  With lower demand, the problems of depletion of nuclear and fossils would be greatly eased, although, of course, only for a limited population. Note also that these near-independent regions can be described as "feudal," but need to be much larger and more structured than anything seen during the historical Middle Ages. Keeping alive complex technologies, nuclear in particular, requires maintaining a functioning industrial society, and that may not be obvious in a time of diminishing returns for everything. 

The next few decades will decide which direction humankind will take. No one has the hands on the wheel that moves the giant thing we call "civilization," and we are seeing efforts to push it in one of the three scenarios above (some people even seem to be actively pushing for scenario #0, a civilization-level expression of what Sigmund Freud called the "death instinct"). 

The problem, here, is that the Western governance system has evolved in such a way that no decision can be taken unless some groups or sectors of society are demonized, and then a narrative is created that implies fighting a common enemy. In other words, no decision can be taken on the basis of data and planning for the common good, but only as the result of the confrontation of the lobbies involved in supporting different options. (*)

We have seen the demonization-based decision mechanism operating during the past few decades. It is a well-honed procedure, and we may expect it to be also applied to the allocation of resources for new energy strategies. We have already seen an energy technology being demonized;  it was the case of nuclear energy in the 1970s, the target of a successful propaganda campaign that presented it as an enemy of humankind. Today, renewables and everything "green" may soon be the victims of a new demonization campaign designed to promote nuclear energy. We are seeing it in its early stages, (see this article by George Monbiot), but it is clearly growing and having a certain degree of success.

Nothing is decided yet, but the writing is on the blades of the wind turbines. Propaganda rules the world, and it will continue ruling it as long as people fall for it. 

(*) Simon Sheridan provides an interesting discussion of the inner decisional mechanisms of modern society, defined as "esoteric" in the sense of being hidden, unlike the "exoteric," e.g. public decisional mechanism, which is only a reflection of the esoteric process. 

(**) For much longer-term scenarios, see my post: "The Next Ten Billion Years" 

Data without interpretation are useless, interpretation without data is dangerous. More on "non replaceable" energy

 

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat," Sun Tzu. (Image created with Dezgo.com)

I am always amazed by how people tend to see the world in terms of "self-evident" statements which the don't see as requiring demonstration, quantification, or verification. It is like if they were rewriting the American Declaration of Independence (We hold these truths to be self-evident...). But whereas things such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are hard to quantify, when you deal with physical entities such as renewable energy, then quantification is not only possible, but vital. 

On this point, Sun Tzu would have said that interpretation without quantification is dangerous because by dismissing renewable technologies you are disbanding your best troops without giving them a chance to prove their mettle in a real confrontation. 

Here, as an example, a recent post by Tim Morgan where we read a long discussion, interesting in many respects, but completely disconnected from real-world data. 

This is where the term “renewable” ought to be subjected to far more critical examination than it has tended to receive so far. We can’t source the plastics required for the renewables sector without hydrocarbon feedstocks. Renewables can’t, of themselves, power the extraction, processing and delivery of the vast amounts of concrete, steel, copper, cobalt, lithium and a host of other resources required for the development, maintenance and eventual replacement of wind and solar power.

In short, “renewables” would merit that label only if they were capable of renewing – that is to say, replacing – themselves over time. This isn’t possible now, and there are few reasons to suppose that it will become so in the future.

Morgan is not the only one who keeps repeating the mantra that renewables are unable to replace themselves without worrying too much about justifying his statement, something that would require, at minimum, demonstrating that the energy yield of renewable technology is too low for this purpose. But there is no attempt to do that in the post. 

Eventually, it doesn't matter what intellectuals are saying; the real world is moving along the path created by physics. The lines are drawn for a battle that's going to be fought over the carrion of the fossil fuel industry. Victory will go to those who can follow Sun Tzu's statement that “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” And onward we'll go! 

(For a quantification of the capability of renewables to expand and replace themselves, see these references: 

100% Renewable Energy Transition by Kemfelt, Breyer, and Oei. 2020

On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research, Breyer et al, 2022

Rethinking Energy 2020-2030, Dorr and Seba, 2022

The sower's way: quantifying the narrowing net-energy pathways to a global energy transition, Sgoruirdis, Csala, and Bardi, 2016

Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization, Murphy et al., 2022

And many more....)

But what is this EROI (Energy Return on Energy Invested)? And why is it so Important?

 

If you are a lion, you don't just have to run faster than a gazelle; you have to make sure that the metabolic energy you obtain from eating the gazelle is higher than the energy you used for the chase. If not, you die. It is the harsh law of the EROI. 

The concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI or EROEI) has been around for a long time. It was introduced in its modern form in the 1980s by Charles Hall, but it is steeped in the thermodynamics of non-equilibrium systems. It can be easily understood if you see it as the equivalent of ROI (return on investment). ROI (EROI) is given by the money (energy) returned from a certain investment (energy infrastructure) divided by the monetary (energy) investment. You need a value larger than one in order for your investment to make sense or, if you are a lion, to survive. Large values of this parameter make life easy for investors, energy producers, and lions (although not for gazelles). (*)

Up to recent times, the conventional wisdom was that the EROI of fossil fuels was very high: during the heyday of oil extraction, it was said to be been around 100. Think of an investment that brings back to you back your capital multiplied by one hundred (!!), and you can understand why oil was, and remains, so important for our society. At the same time, the EROI of renewable energy was calculated to be of the order of 5-7, with some studies even placing it under 1. That gave rise to the narrative that only oil and other fossil fuels could sustain an industrial civilization and that renewables were not really so; at best they were "replaceables" as long as there was oil available. The consequence was an emphasis on social and political solutions: degrowth, energy saving, return to a rural economy, or, simply, accepting that we are all going to die soon. 

How fast things change! New studies, including one by Murphy et al., revealed that the EROI of oil may never have been so high. You need to take into account that oil in itself is useless: it needs to be transported, refined, and burned inside inefficient engines to provide energy for society. So, it is correct to calculate the EROI of oil at the "point of use" rather than at the "well mouth." Once that's done, it turns out that oil's EROI may well be (and have been) lower than 10. At the same time, technological progress and scale factors led to an improvement in the EROI of renewables (wind and photovoltaics) well over 10. 

Now, the paradigm is reversed. Renewables are truly renewable, while oil never was. That gives us a chance to revisit the dominant paradigm of how to face the energy crisis. The new paradigm is that we can rebuild a society that works on renewable power. It won't be the same as the one created by oil, and we may have to accept a considerable economic contraction in the process to get there. But it gives us a fighting chance to create a resilient and prosperous society. 

Of course, not everyone agrees on these concepts and there is a lively discussion in which several people are defending the old paradigm. One argument in the discussion says that if you use oil energy to refine oil, that energy should not be  counted in the denominator of the EROI ratio. And, therefore, that the EROI of fossil fuels is much larger than what the recent calculations indicate. This is silly: energy is energy, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Nafeez Ahmed discusses this point in detail in his blog, "The Age of Transformation" saying, among other things, that:

.... petroleum geologist Art Berman published a post also claiming that Murphy et. al’s paper is fundamentally incorrect. He concluded that if Murphy and his co-authors were right, then decades of EROI research showing extremely high values for fossil fuels would be wrong. He repeats the same argument as Hagens, and then uses it to offer a new calculation:

Nearly 9% of the total post-extraction costs for oil are for refining. Yet most of the energy for refining comes from the crude oil and refined products used in the refinery. It is, in effect, co-generated. That doesn’t negate the energy investment needed to operate the refinery but it is not a cost to society as indicated in the table… I divided their 8.9% for refining investment by 3 to account for the co-generation described above (it is probably much lower). The resulting oil EROI is 18. That completely removes the good news from Ahmed’s and Bardi’s proclamations of ‘mission accomplished’ and restores oil EROI to the consensus range for the last two decades.

The key error in this argument is where Berman says: “That doesn’t negate the energy investment needed to operate the refinery but it is not a cost to society as indicated in the table.”

But that is incorrect. The term ‘cost to society’ pertains precisely to energy invested which is not available for use by society. While the energy used to refine the crude oil is co-generated, it is still an input into the refinement process before the oil becomes available for actual work in society at the ‘final energy’ stage. In other words, the energy is being used to refine the oil and is therefore not available for society in any case.

What Berman and Hagens are effectively trying to do is classify the energy used to refine oil as an ‘energy output’ that represents useful work for society outside of the energy system. But this classification doesn’t make sense when we consider that it represents work that is specifically related to making the energy usable for society in the first place - because the oil must be refined and processed before it can actually be converted into usable energy for society.

Berman further questions that if EROI for fossil fuels was much lower, how could it have been so profitable?

As earth system scientist Ugo Bardi has pointed out, the profitability of an industry depends on numerous factors outside the energy system related to credit, markets, economic policy, investment, currency values and beyond. But in addition to that, the bottom line is that Murphy et. al’s research suggests that if oil has been profitable with EROI much lower than previously believed, then previous assumptions about economic prosperity requiring much higher EROI levels are questionable.

Because of the huge efficiency losses of converting energy from oil into useable forms (between 50 and 70% of energy is lost converting primary energy to final energy), as renewables avoid those losses they can produce about 50% less energy to meet demand. This means that the presumed minimum EROI to sustain a viable civilisation derived from fossil fuels could be much lower in a more efficient system.

As Marco Raugei points out, the shift to renewables and electrification “may open the door to achieving the required services with much lower demand for primary energy, which in turn entails that a significantly lower EROI than previously assumed may suffice”.

To learn more about EROI, you can look at these papers

The Role of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) in Complex Adaptive Systems, by Ilaria Perissi, Alessandro Lavacchi, and Ugo Bardi), Energies, 2021

Peaking Dynamics of the Production Cycle of a Nonrenewable Resource, by Ilaria Perissi, Alessandro Lavacchi, and Ugo Bardi, Sustainability 2023

And yet it moves. Why the EROI of renewables may be higher than that of fossils

 

Eppur si move; (yet it moves). Galileo is said to have pronounced these words after having been condemned for supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system. New ideas take time to be accepted, and often the resistance against them is tenacious. This is especially true when the new ideas change an existing paradigm. It was the case for the heliocentric model; it may be the case for renewable energy technologies. So far, they have been considered little more than toys for greens, but now we face a radical change of paradigm: they may be able to do better, -- even much better -- than fossil fuels. That's far from certain, of course, but it is what's emerging from the data and the calculations. And if it will turn out to be true, our future will be completely different from what we thought it would be.   

The idea that renewable energy can provide a better energy return (EROI) than fossils is often met with not just skepticism; as it would be normal for a still unproven hypothesis. It is seen as absurd, impossible, unbelievable, outworldly, and worse. If you mention it in the discussion on social media, you risk being insulted, berated, accused of nefarious intentions, and your mental sanity questioned. It happened to me with the comments on my previous post. 

It is understandable that radical changes in paradigms upset people, making them worried and even angry. It happened with the heliocentric view of the Solar System at the time of Galileo, and if it turns out that renewable energy is a technology superior to fossil fuels, then it is an even larger change of paradigm. You know how deeply fossil fuels changed the world. Renewables may have similar effects, although in different ways. 

Now, please don't make me say that the higher EROI of renewables is an established truth. It is not. But from the data we have, I suspect that it might be. In any case, it is surely an idea well worth exploring. For a long-term view, you can see a paper of mine. Here, I'll try to discuss some available evidence that favors this possibility. 

The central point of this discussion is a paper by Murphy et al., who re-examined the available data about the EROI of energy sources, making sure that the evaluations were carried out in comparable conditions. That is, ensuring that the yield was compared at the "point of use" (POU) rather than at the "well mouth," which would give an unfair advantage to fossil fuels. Renewables directly produce usable energy, unlike fossil fuels which, after being extracted, need to be processed into fuels and turned into useful energy in inefficient thermal engines. 

The data presented by Murphy et al. indicate that the EROI of photovoltaics may be about five times larger than that of crude oil. Of course, all data and their interpretation are affected by uncertainties. So, let me propose some additional evidence that goes in the same direction. 

One obvious consequence of a high EROI for a technology is that you expect it to grow fast. It is the same mechanism of compound interest that generates exponential growth in the yield of a financial investment. This growth is proportional to the return on investment (ROI), the financial equivalent of EROI. Ultimately, in our economic system, energy is worth money, and a technology that has a good energy yield also has a good ROI, so we expect it to grow fast. (*)

On this point, there is no doubt that renewable energies are growing fast; very fast, especially for photovoltaic energy. Here are the current growth curves for photovoltaic energy (from "Our World in Data")

PV energy production is growing at an approximately exponential rate of about 25% yearly, leading to doubling every three years. Actually, the rate has been closer to 35% during the past few years, with a doubling time as low as two years. PV grows faster than any other modern renewable technology; the whole sector is growing at 16% yearly. 

But how fast does PV energy need to grow to prove that it has a higher EROI than fossils? At the very least, it should grow faster, and it does. Let's take a look at the data for global oil production:

During the heyday of the age of oil, in the 1950s and 1960s, production was doubling every 8-10 years, corresponding to a growth rate of 7%-8% yearly. Much slower than PV is doing nowadays. 

We can carry out the same evaluation for other energy technologies. In the 1970s, nuclear energy had a doubling time of a little more than 2 years. Meaning a growth of 25% per year. For coal, during the late 19th century, production doubled in no less than 20 years. Finally, biomass for power production never grew at high rates nor produced amounts of energy comparable to those of renewables. 

Overall, these data indicate a qualitative proportionality of the growth rate of a technology with its EROI. The fastest growth rate is observed for PV, in agreement with the proposals by Murphy et al. for an EROI around 20 on the average. Nuclear also fits this interpretation with a high EROI reported by Murphy et al, but for a plant lifetime larger than that of PV. The POU EROI of oil is reported by Murphy as around 5; and that fits with the slower growth rate. Note that the EROI at the well mouth may have been high in the 1960s -- over 30; but the POU EROI may have been similar to the current one. About the slow growth of biomass power production, it fits with the data indicating a low EROI. Regarding coal, the proportionality seems to be lost, since coal may have had a large EROI. But the data for more than a hundred years ago can't be compared with those of our times. 

In the end, I think the main evidence for the high efficiency of renewable energy is this graph that comes from recent Bloomberg data, (Figure by R. Craig)

You see how, for the same investment, renewable energy is growing fast (16% for the average, 35% for PV), whereas fossil fuel production is growing very slowly, if at all. 

These data strongly support the idea that renewables, and PV in particular, have a larger, actually much larger EROI than fossil fuels. That seems to be true for the present situation, but the question is for how long the growth of renewables can maintain this high EROI and continue growing. At some point, the curve will necessarily start flattening out, as it has already happened for oil and nuclear. The limits of the availability of solar energy are far away, but mineral resource bottlenecks are possible and even probable. These bottlenecks would have the effect of increasing the energy costs of new plant, and cause their EROI to plummet. Also, political factors are not to be discounted. Nuclear energy was rapidly growing in the 1960s, and you might have thought that it would soon replace fossil fuels. Indeed, people were speaking about the upcoming "nuclear age." But the technology was killed mainly by political and strategic factors. Today, if governments want to kill renewable energy, they can do that (and may be preparing to do exactly that). 

How long does the curve need to continue growing? Right now, wind and solar produce about 3500 TWh per year, a little more than 2% of the world's primary energy (about 160,000 TWh/year ). Actually, we don't need to ramp up production to such a level. Taking into account the losses in turning fossil fuels into energy and the various inefficiencies of the current infrastructure, Jacobson estimates that we need no more than half of that to match the current demand. Even with 50,000 TWh, our civilization would survive, although rather battered. Yet, it is a steep climb that we face, from about 5% to 100%. (For a more quantitative estimate, see this paper of mine with Sgouridis and Csala). Can we make it? It is a fighting challenge, but it is not impossible. At the current growth rates, renewables could reach 100% of what we need in one or two decades.  

The future, as usual, is obscure. But we have one of those opportunities that happen once in a lifetime (the lifetime of a civilization!).  

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(*) No energy technology can start its growth by pulling its own strings. In the beginning, it needs the support of energy from an already established technology (it is what we called "the sower's paradigm"). Coal grew on wood and human energy, oil grew on coal, and, at present, renewables are growing using the energy produced by oil and gas. The capability of a technology to grow on itself appears only when it has reached a significant fraction of the total production; it depends on the EROI -- and only technologies with a good EROI can reach this stage. Surely, the EROI of renewables is more than sufficient for them to support themselves. 

Godzilla's Egg: Why Renewables Will Never Replace Fossil Fuels (Or Maybe They Will?)

An early incarnation of the most famous Japanese monster. Source

Being a reptile (maybe), Godzilla is supposed to be born from an egg. But it would be a big mistake to think that the adult beast will be small because the egg is small. Something similar applies to renewable energy, often criticized because it provides only a small fraction of the total energy in the world. In this post, I examine the "Godzilla's Egg Paradox" in view of two recent books, "How the World Really Works" by Vaclav Smil, and "The Economic Superorganism" by Carey King. 

The concept that "renewables will never be able to..." takes many forms, perhaps the most common one being that they provide today just a minor fraction of the energy produced by fossil fuels. And, hence, this fraction is destined to remain small. I often use the joke that it is the same as saying that Godzilla couldn't be but a small beast judging from the size of its egg.

A recent restatement of the Godzilla's egg problem can be found in the book by Vaclav Smil, "How the World Really Works." (Viking, 2022). Honestly, it is a disappointing book, especially comparing its content with the ambitious title. Not that there is anything specifically wrong with it. Smil has excellent capabilities of reporting quantitative data; his approach is simple and direct; a good example is his analysis of the average risks faced by an ordinary person in terms of their probability and frequency. 

But this book? Well, it reports a lot of data, but all in a conversational form, not a single diagram, not even a table. Maybe it is the way a book has to be if it has to become a "New York Times International Bestseller." After all, it is known that most people cannot understand cartesian diagrams. Yet, data are not sufficient if they are not interpreted in a correct time frame, and Smil's analysis is almost always static; it tells you about the current situation but not how we arrived at it nor what we can expect in the future.

The problem is especially visible with Smil's treatment of renewable energy. The whole discussion on energy is weak, to say nothing of the typical mistake of reporting that, during the oil crisis of the 1970s, OPEC (the organization of oil exporting countries) "set the prices" of oil. OPEC does not and cannot do anything like that, although its management of oil production surely affects prices.

About renewables, the main point that Smil makes is that, today, they represent only a small fraction of the world's energy production. Considering the huge task ahead, he concludes that renewables would need a very long time to replace fossil fuels, if they ever will. The main problem in this discussion is that Smil does not use the "EROI" (energy returned for energy invested) parameter. This parameter tells you that, nowadays, renewable energy is more efficient and yields more than fossil fuels and any other energy production technology. Missing this point, the whole discussion is flawed. Renewables can, and will grow rapidly, at least in the short term future. And, in the medium and long run they are destined to replace the inferior technology of fossil fuels. The same is true for many other data reported; they remain scarcely useful if not analyzed in a way that gives some idea of how they are going to evolve and change. Paradoxically, what this book lacks is exactly what the title promises: an explanation of how the world works.

The weakness of Smil's arguments does not mean that renewables will quickly replace fossil fuels. One thing is what is feasible, and another is what can actually be done within the limitations of time and resources. For some dynamic scenarios of their possible growth, you may take a look at a paper that I wrote together with my colleagues Sgouridis and Csala. It is a little old (2016), but its basic methods and conclusions are still valid. And the conclusion is that it is possible to replace fossil fuels with renewables, but not easy. What we can say at present is that renewables are growing fast: will they hatch into a full-size Godzilla, able to overcome the obstacles it faces?  

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If you really want to know how the world works and what role energy has in it, you can learn a lot more from Carey King's book "The Economic Superorganism" (Springer 2021). It is the opposite of Smil's book in terms of methodology. King's approach is based on the fundamental tenets of biophysical economics: it is an attempt to explain how the world's economic metabolism functions and dynamically evolves. Hence the title, "superorganism," a way to define the economic system in terms akin to that of a biological system (I prefer to use the term "holobiont" but it is the same idea.)

The idea that the economy is a superorganism derives from the concept that energy drives the economy, just like it does for living beings. The Economic Superorganism book provides stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide readers through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. Among many other good things, it is remarkable for its honest attempt to present different points of view in a balanced way. It also helps to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction. At global scales, the combination of resource-rich environment, coordination in groups, corporations and nations, and the maximization of financial surplus, tethered to energy and carbon, results in a mindless, energy-hungry, CO2 emitting Superorganism (a concept also examined in depth by Nate Hagens).

Now, the superorganism is in trouble. Just like living beings, it risks dying of starvation. Could it be a good thing, considering how the economic leviathan has damaged more or less everything in the biosphere? Or perhaps it is still possible to tame the big beast and force it to behave a little better. Maybe. Even though we may all be just cells of a huge beast, there is a lot that you can learn from this book. Unfortunately, even though it is clearly written and well argumented, it will never be a New York Times Bestseller. And that may be one of the reasons why the superorganism deserves to collapse.

And how about renewables? King's book doesn't take a yes/no position, and correctly so. It provides instead a complete discussion of the various facets of the issue. Just the description of the value of the EROI concept is worth the whole book. And, eventually, we'll go where the superorganism takes us.

Solving Renewables' Communication Problem. Don't Tell, Show!

 

Renewable Energy has a serious problem of communication: most people don't understand it. Since all communication is based on storytelling, I propose to face it by using the technique used in storytelling called "Don't tell, show." Telling people that renewables can produce energy is not enough; we need to show that they are useful. And that means focusing on "resilience." (image source)

Years ago, a colleague of mine told me a story about the photovoltaic plant he had installed, one of the first in Italy. He said that a high-rank politician came to visit it. To show him that the plant was really working, my colleague connected its output to a small electric heater, showing how the resistive heating elements could be rapidly brought to a nice red glow. The politician refused to believe that the energy came from the PV panels, and he asked, "Where is the trick?" Apparently, he left still unconvinced.  

I have my own stories about this kind of cognitive dissonance, and you probably have yours. Many people don't deny that renewables can produce energy but consider them little more than nice toys for Greens. Come on, to really produce energy, you need to burn something; coal, oil, or gas; you need a big fire and engines turning. Otherwise, it is a joke, no more than that. 

You can see this attitude expressed, over and over, in the comments on social media. In its basic form, it goes as, "Renewable energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels." Similar statements are common, including the idea that renewables are not really renewable but "substitutable" or "replaceable," meaning that fossil fuels will always be needed to replace old plants as they wear out. Normally, these statements are presented as self-evident, and some people seem to be offended and to become aggressive when told that the opposite may be true.  

Contrasting this attitude using data is nearly impossible. The scientific argument in favor of renewables is mostly based on life cycle analysis (LCA) that currently leads to favorable estimates for their EROI (energy return for energy invested). It means that renewables can be recycled and can sustain a circular economy. But most people (including politicians) don't understand EROI. They don't understand that the uncertainty in the EROI estimates is typical of all scientific matters; they want certainties. The attitude of scientists does not help. They tend to avoid public debates and disseminate their results only as papers in scientific journals. Papers that nobody reads and which are ignored when it is time to make policy choices. It is the same problem we have with climate science. 

So, I believe we have to change tack. Since all communication is based on storytelling, we may use a well-known rule in storytelling that says, "Do not tell, show!" That is, it is not enough to tell people about quantitative estimates of this or that. We need to show people how renewable energy can be useful for them here and now, not a hundred years from now,

It is, in the end, a question of positioning: in the current historical phase, renewables can be seen as a tool for resilience, a concept that most people understand and appreciate. Many people interpret this idea in terms of PV panels on their roofs and batteries at home as an emergency supply in case of blackouts. It is not a bad idea in itself, but it is expensive, and many people don't have the kind of space needed to install PV panels. "Resilience" is a wider concept, and, at present, it implies not only a defense against blackouts but a most needed help for people who are facing high energy prices affecting their activities and their personal budgets. 

In Italy, we are experimenting with an interesting initiative called "Energy Communities," legislation that allows citizens to link together their energy production plants, forming a local community that gives advantages to both producers and consumers. These communities are on a small scale, but the same concept can be enlarged as a general barrier against emergencies and supply disruption. It is a question of networking at various scales. It also includes large-scale plants; they are certainly more efficient than home-based ones. But they need to be accepted by the public, otherwise it is hopeless. 

Framing renewables in this way, we see that we are not aiming at "replacing fossil fuels." It is possible, in principle, but it can't be a short-term goal. If we aim at resilience, we don't need a 100% replacement of fossil fuels. A country like Germany already produces about 50% of its electric energy from renewable sources. At this level, the renewable infrastructure may act as a national-level UPS (uninterruptible power supply), keeping the lights on, and the essential services going (food, transportation, health care, and others). These are achievable objectives in the short and medium term. They are also steps forward to creating a truly sustainable, large scale energy system. 

My colleague had chosen the right way to tell the story when he showed a politician how he could operate an electric heater using his PV plant. But that wasn't enough. We need to show that renewables not only produce energy, but produce useful energy for the community. It will also be a concrete set of actions to fight climate change. It is the right path for the future.