Blows to the Body Electric: AI meets Renewables–Renewables Lose
The energy transition took some body blows in 2024. If you still believe decarbonization is inevitable and just a matter of time, read on.
The surge in power demand from data centers and AI is the biggest energy story of the year—maybe the decade. After twenty years of flat U.S. electricity demand, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects an 0.8% annual increase through 2050, driven largely by these energy-intensive technologies (Figure 1).
Source: EIA & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
Renewables aren’t part of the plan. Data centers and AI require uninterrupted, high-quality energy 24/7, something renewables can’t provide. Downtime is unacceptable, and the variability of wind and solar makes them impractical.
Meanwhile, natural gas and nuclear can deliver the dependable power needed without the massive additional costs required to stabilize renewable grids. Natural gas, with its flexibility, and nuclear, for its steady, carbon-free baseload power, are the preferred options.
That’s the good news. The bad news? Coal is back on the table.
“It just comes out to math. If these data center demand figures are anywhere near realistic, you don’t have the ability to retire coal plants.”
Intermittent renewables, coupled with costly battery storage and grid stabilization needs, are simply unfit for purpose.
Despite this, IEA director Fatih Birol recently declared, “We’re now moving at speed into the Age of Electricity.” That claim doesn’t hold up. By 2030, only 12% of total energy use will come from renewable electricity, rising to just 19% by 2040 under the IEA’s own Stated Policies projection (Figure 2).
Source: IEA & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
Some will argue that renewable energy’s failure proves nuclear is the solution we’ve been ignoring. But no one is proposing new nuclear plants to power AI. The discussion is about restarting shuttered facilities. Nuclear is a stopgap at best—expanding capacity takes too long and costs too much.
The reality is sobering. The International Atomic Energy Commission projects nuclear will account for only 10% of global electricity in 2050 and just 3% of total energy use (Figure 3). It’s not the silver bullet some hope for—it’s a band-aid on an energy system struggling to meet demand.
according to the International Atomic Energy Commission.
Source: IAEC & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
Climate change is winning. New energy sources aren’t replacing fossil fuels; they’re being stacked on top of them. Since 2020, CO2 emissions have climbed by 2 billion tons (Figure 4). Fossil fuel consumption is up 38 EJ, while wind and solar added just 14 EJ. Nuclear and hydro together contributed another 8 EJ.
The math is clear: renewables haven’t displaced fossil fuels—they’re barely making a dent.
Source: EI, NOAA & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
After two decades and trillions of dollars spent, renewables remain a rounding error in global energy consumption. Fossil fuel use and carbon emissions continue to rise. There is no energy transition, no paradigm shift, no green revolution. These aren’t opinions—they’re facts.
The rise of AI is a harsh wake-up call that the energy transition is more illusion than reality. The real world demands reliability, scale, and infrastructure—things wind and solar cannot deliver.When economic growth and the environment collide, growth always wins.
“The net-zero targets get sacrificed on the altar of economic growth. If a utility has a corporate net-zero target, and it’s not tied to some state law, it’s really not worth the paper it’s written on.”
Ryan Sweezey, director of power and renewables for Wood Mackenzie
Smart people change course when their plans fail. Clinging to something that isn’t working isn’t hope—it’s madness. Hoping for the best while ignoring reality is a recipe for disaster. Renewables have a role in the energy mix, but they’re not the solution. It’s time to face the facts and adjust.
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Can’t dispute anything in the article. I think the answer though is just stupid easy. Tax oil. Tax gasoline. I see a half mile long line of commuters in the morning – one person per vehicle – eight out of 10 of them driving big trucks or SUVs. Put a 10% tax on all oil and its byproducts. One year later, jack it another 10%. Year three? Another 10%. If consumption isn’t going down by year four, hit it another 10% and keep on doing that until demand recedes dramatically.
With a known schedule of gasoline price increases, Americans could make their plans accordingly. Move closer to work. Carpool. Dump the gas guzzlers. Switch to hybrids or EV’s. Make commuting by other means easy and free. Buses? Free. Subways? Free. Build communities for walking, biking, and public transit. Incentivize EV’s, home and community Solar. There would be gobs of money for doing this from the tax on oil.
Residential and commercial structures? Same story. The tax on oil should make wasteful HEATING a thing of the past. Incentivize energy conservation through various means of smart building practices like insulation, solar capture, photovoltaic windows, and PV panels on every possible structure along with windmills at the higher building elevations. Use community solar to assist those that don’t have rooftops to put PV on. Go reflective white on every conceivable surface that collects the sun’s heat – white rooftops, white sidewalks, white roadways, white building tops, white car tops…. Use the tax code to incentivize conservation and penalize profligate use.
Donald Trump claims maga was some nebulous Shangri-La sometime in America’s past. In 1944 – the top tax rate was 94% on income over $200,000. America was indeed great in the 50s 60s and 70s when the taxes on the upper incomes were over 70%. It made no sense to pay some CEO $20 million because any money made over a $200,000 was taxed at 70% to 90%. That was when America had money – money to build interstate freeways and water treatment plants, and schools, and so much more. That ‘maga’ was from very high income tax rates. That’s worth saying again – “very high income tax rates”. Every president after Harry Truman dropped the income tax rates. Now, the nominal taxing of wealth is a teeny fraction of what it used to be when America was great. No wonder American can’t afford anything anymore.
All of this is just stupid easy and it’s near criminal why it hasn’t been tackled before. It hasn’t been done because all we’ve got are a bunch of energy-stupid, bribable, weak-moraled politicians. We’ve become a country completely runn by bribery. Politicians can call their glad-handing for dollars lobbying, or campaign contributions or whatever… it’s pure bribery. Look up the definition of bribery in the dictionary. Make bribery illegal – highly illegal. Another answer to a government run by bribery is Term Llmits on every local, city, county, state, and federal elected position. With no pressure to get reelected, no politician should be afraid of standing up for tough climate, military, and other budgetary positions.
This is all off-the-shelf stuff that America could implement tomorrow – best not all at once, but this could begin tomorrow.
Dave,
Perhaps you should read my post “Solutions Without Understanding: Why We’re Asking the Wrong Questions.” I am very skeptical about solutions that don’t address the underlying problem. Most things that seem “stupid easy” are just closer to stupid than to easy.
All the best,
Art
The issue with a tax is taxes only make money not exist anymore in the debt-based system we live under. All it would do is remove money from the system so making people poorer overall in one country could make extra supply available cheaper in another.
Tax being high means a lot of debt is being entered into our system, tax doesn’t pay for any current govt spending, it is the relief valve to current money printing, but it pays for no current activities and is only there to suck as much out of the system as is going in, unless we look at that spending, taxes are only a repayment of the loan.
” Blows to the Body Electric: ”
What a perfect title and hint at where the source of the Green Energy transition actually lies.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359691796_The_Internet_of_Bodies_The_Human_Body_as_an_Efficient_and_Secure_Wireless_Channel
https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_december_2020/the_body_is_the_network.html?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWldNNFlUUTVNemd4WVRFeiIsInQiOiJidlZLeGtURWdLajF4bFwvelNpK1psQ1dYazVTVXVJcnVQYWZmd3FcLzJWRWdtMlhzTDNUNjVmOVZ6KzlqcEZ6OUhvVllFaWlYV3RsU3VwWkFLTjFFNzk3a2VzWFdVMGlmeERpdWZmeHkwbVBsVVZ1Z2d2RjhOYWk2NytLa1daUk9jIn0%3D
https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2020/02/11/exploring-biodigital-convergence/index.shtml
https://pervasivecomputinginfo.blogspot.com/2018/10/ieee-802156-standard.html?m=1
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/5/2291
Angie,
The title is from a poem by Walt Whitman–“I sing the body electric.” It is meant as an ironic double entendre. Electricity is the main focus of renewable energy but ignores the other 80% of energy; and Whitman’s reference to the community of others as enough.
“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”
All the best,
Art
Art,
Your statement in no way an exaggeration in my view. For over a 100 years the presumption of cheap, limitless electrical energy was at the heart of our social, commercial, industrial world…no more. As CLEAN, reliable power is that the heart of our business I can but will refrain from saying more.
I will say, I believe in your last article, you RIGHTLY disparaged AI. I can support from a ‘real life’ and life and death example from my software career (now long over). I was privy to an interaction by a Director of Avionics for a front line fighter of ours…years ago now. Progress payments on the program had been suspended pending a delay…all hands on deck to get back on track in what came down to a daunting engineering problem THAT HAD TO BE SOLVED. At the end of a key meeting with no resolution and as the director got up from the table of engineers one said, ‘may be what we need is artificial intelligence’ (AI has been around for decades). The Director stopped, turned around, and stated very clearly….’what we need is REAL intelligence!’ Nuff said.
John,
I am an avid, daily user of AI. Like thought, it is a marvelous power in service to human perception.
All the best,
Art
Art,
Thank you and for the power of our marvelous analysis. I tried to find your previous framing of AI, just right in my view.
Finally, again to your also often repeated view, we will in fact have a paradigm shift, it is now locked in its expression accelerating. The question is only the form and ‘level set’ for years after the shift.
If anyone doubts what you write here or the admonition I’ve made in this comment they may reference, for example, among your analysis, Kevin Anderson and others, like you, formerly working in the oil industry (off shore). For example, recently and re: the latest COP… https://youtu.be/yULdkWpjmM0?si=lDGzUuZ853MeTUu6
Thank you for your comments, John.
Unlike Kevin Anderson, I don’t blame the rich for over-consuming. They do but so do we all. It’s a collective problem.
All the best,
Art
hello Art
If we follow Galileo and subscribe to rationality in lieu of irrational doctrine imposed by authority then should we now contemplate extending the prosperity of our soceity by developing AI to allow us to produce half the oil which so fortuitously remains in place in our abandoned (depleted ?) reservoirs which literally produced that prosperity? I know the location of some extensive undeveloped coal accumulations also.
Jim,
Rationality is a limited aspect of thought that falsely assumes a relatively simple level of order that leads directly to causality and predictability. This is the problem of the fragmentation of consciousness that is at the foundation of many of humanity’s problems.
Prosperity is not a thing and AI is not intelligent. Technology is an emissary in service to integrated human awareness. This should be our principal focus.
All the best,
Art
You can recover some of the melted butter from your toast more easily than you can recover some of the remining oil and natural gas from depleted reservoirs and that oil and gas that was not expelled from the source rock. You can only do this at costs that will remain prohibitive. AI will not change physical and compositional parameters of the fluids in the pore space which control the distribution of remaining oil and gas in abandoned reservoirs and source rock.
great article
Thanks, Bruce.
All the best,
Art
I read where “solar is fastest growing (electric) energy source “.. something like that !
I know these numbers and headlines are manipulated .. how does this fit to article above
Thanks for decades of insightful commentary .. worked as Gelogist at southwestern as we developed shale and you signaled a reality check.. later at Tellurian .. continue to follow your thoughts
Matt,
Growth from zero is very great but solar remains a zero-rounding error for total energy consumption.
Nor is it cheap.
All the best,
Art