Energy Reality: What Can’t (and Won’t) Happen
A French court found TotalEnergies guilty last week of misleading investors about renewable energy. The oil and gas company was fined for “misleading commercial practices” — basically for telling the public it was on track for carbon neutrality by 2050 and calling itself “a major actor in the energy transition.” The court disagreed.
Here’s the takeaway: this isn’t “good guys (renewables) vs bad guys (fossil fuels).” It’s often the same guys. And even when it’s not, the companies selling renewables are trying to get just as much money out of you as the companies selling oil and gas.
The reason so many people think renewables are automatically “good” is simple: most of us know almost nothing about how energy actually works — and most of what we’ve been told is wrong.
A recent New York Times column argues that regulatory costs are why nuclear energy isn’t feasible in the U.S. But even if nuclear were free, it still wouldn’t make a difference, because it can’t scale fast enough to matter.
The chart below puts that in painful perspective. Nuclear energy accounted for 2% of global energy consumption in 2024. Recent projections by ExxonMobil and OPEC expect that to rise by less than 2% by 2050. Those are zero-rounding factors.
My friend Nate Hagens likes to start by asking whether something can happen, can’t happen, or won’t happen before we spend time debating if it’s part of the future. When it comes to nuclear making a material difference in global energy supply, it’s pretty clearly in the “can’t happen” or “won’t happen fast enough to matter” category for the climate and ecological timeline we’re actually on.
The data in Figure 1 says solar, wind, and hydro are basically in the same position. And yet most people still believe there’s a renewable energy transition, despite evidence to the contrary. That’s because we’ve been told a story—not only can it happen, but it inevitably will happen. Why? Because that’s the story. Most of us understand so little about energy that we wouldn’t even know where to find the data in Figure 1. Now that you’ve seen it, many of you will still say it can’t be true.
We keep talking about an “energy transition,” but the world still runs on oil, gas, and coal, and most of the things that actually keep civilization standing — steel, plastic, concrete, shipping, fertilizer, aviation, heat — don’t work without them. Vaclav Smil’s main message in his 2021 book Numbers Don’t Lie is: stop selling fairy-tales; do the work, and admit fossil fuels are going to be with us for a long time.
The numbers in Figure 1 don’t lie. Let’s stop arguing, and start being honest about our predicament. We can’t take meaningful action until we admit we’re in trouble, and that there are no easy solutions like renewable energy. Let’s quit wasting time on things that can’t or won’t happen.
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Art, I can tell you how the “renewable”-delusional crowd props up their delusions. Take only the wind-solar curve on your Figure 1, modify the horizontal and vertical scales to amplify the last decade or two, and the wind-solar curve looks exponential. Extrapolate the exponentiation without limit, and it looks “obvious” that it will completely take over within a couple more doublings.
Of course this is highly biased, as the curve is more likely to be the bottom of either an S or a bell curve. I would bet on a bell curve, that would descend once FFs are either too expensive or too scarce to spend on replacing the wind turbines, PV panels, and grid upgrades required by so much intermittency. (I’d add utility-scale batteries to that list, but they haven’t even made the scene yet.)
Robin,
That only works if you’re already part of the consensus trance. All reasonable observers of history understand how “S” curves work.
All the best,
Art
You write that oil won’t become more expensive just less Affordable. I agree somewhat and I have heard Gail TVerberg argue that as well. I do think that it can and will get more expensive. It will be inflation driven and it will be less affordable to the midddle to lower classes. Look at Airlines they are tearing out regular seats and putting in 1st class seats. Think Hunger games.
Daniel,
Speculation and impressions are not very useful. Anything is possible but some someone asked me for what I thought, I told them. It’s a guess. All I’m saying is that the Peak Oil dogma from 20 years ago isn’t a good default.
All the best,
Art
Art, do you understand why Bill Gates supports so many “renewable” energy projects, while at the same time claiming to be a huge Vaclav Smil fan?
I’ve been scratching my head about that apparent mismatch for years.
https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/portfolio
(this is an offshoot of the Gates Foundation)
Greg,
Bill Gates is a psychopath. I don’t mean that as a pejorative but in a clinical context. That means that he’s an alpha predator who will use and exploit information from someone like Vaclav Smil while ignoring the part of his story that doesn’t further Gates’ perpetual quest for power.
His recent manifesto demonstrates his massive ego inflation–he alone understands our energy future & only he can lead us forward. If that sounds Trumpy it’s because they’re both psychopaths.
All the best,
Art
This is the best, most accurate, and most honest response which could be made to the above question. Thank you.
Thanks, Jeff.
All the best,
Art
I have a polite request: when you recommend a book, can you please not link it to Amazon? Bezos doesn’t need our money! And he forced his Washington Post to revoke their endorsement of the non-tRUMP candidate, and he limits their editorial activity to “business and growth” issues.
I suggest sending people to the author’s site for information on their book. Or perhaps The Wayback Machine (archive.org), which will often allow reading the book online for free. Or perhaps a small, independent book store.
If people want to support Amazon, they know how. They don’t need your help, but authors, non-profits (like archive.org), and smaller, independent booksellers do!
Thanks for considering!
I was just listening to the lead author of the response to the DOE report on global warming. The scientist was extremely careful to make sure everything he said regarding climate change was accurate. He even admitted to not knowing the answers to some questions. However, when it came to “the energy transition”, he was sure it was happening and well underway. He repeated the mantra spouted by most climate scientists that “we have all the technology we need to stop burning fossil fuels”. He even added that we could affect this energy transition for free. I am starting to feel like these people are trying to gaslight me. How is it possible that they have never seen the graph presented in this essay. How do they remain ignorant of all the thousands of other products made from fossil fuels like plastics, asphalt, tires, and pesticides. I am inclined to believe the DOE report was full of half-truths, cherry picked data, and misinterpretations. I do believe climate scientists when it comes to climate change. I think we are going to suffer massive losses due to the speed of the warming. I don’t believe the current high energy industrial society can currently survive without fossil fuels. I think we are in a bit of a trap. Those who minimize the threat posed by global warming and those who minimize the role fossil fuels play in the modern world both drive me even crazier than I already am.
Scott,
Steve Koonin is a very bright grifter. He’s following his bias instead of his bliss and making a lot of money at it because people prefer his version of reality to the truth.
I wrote a post about the DOE report recently: https://www.artberman.com/blog/politics-disguised-as-climate-science/
All the best,
Art
Art, my question has nothing to do with our predicament but rather why is it still being referred to as renewable energy, when it’s the opposite? What happens to all those wind farm blades that meet a relatively short life? I doubt they are repurposed to another energy source. All of this so-called renewable energy still starts with fossil fuels.
Rodney,
Renewable energy is pure marketing hype. Most people who have thought about it for a few seconds understand that.
All the best,
Art
I tell people that the reason I know that neither wind nor solar power is renewable is that I’ve never heard of a wind turbine sprouting from a seed, nor have I ever heard of a solar PV panel bursting forth from a leaf bud.
That’s a good way to explain it, Robin.
The energy source may be continuous–sun and wind–but not renewable. The machine that converts the energy source into electric power is no more renewable than an oil drilling rig.
All the best,
Art
I believe it was Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in the mid-1950s, who wrote or said that electricity generated with nuclear fission would be so cheap there would be no point in metering it at the point of consumption.
Advocates of nuclear power have been overpromising and under-delivering for decades.
And this applies to nuclear fusion as well (the energy source of the future and always will be).
Ed,
Nuclear power is part of the landscape. It’s not going away nor is it going to increase very much for the reasons I have explained in so many posts.
It’s part of the childish fantasy that there is a deus ex machina that will make the story less complex and end the way we prefer.
All the best,
Art
The data doesn’t lie, and it’s good to recognize the challenges, but pointing this out without also offering a solution doesn’t help anyone. Whether we are talking about the next two or three generations of humans, something has to change. And I’m not talking about global warming, I’m talking about pollution.
Tim,
As long as I’m the author, I’ll write what I want and think is right.
I have written so many times that there are no solutions—only honesty and adaptation. Why do you insist on ignoring that–it’s really the core of my work.
The obsession with solutions reflects the reductionism that has led to our present predicament.
Asking for solutions reminds me of when my children were very young and while in the car, would incessantly ask, “When are we going to be there?”
They grew up. Maybe there’s a lesson there for you.
All the best,
Art
I have followed you for years because of your honesty in describing the energy predicament. I believe that the Energy Transition away from Fossil Fuels, while maintaining modern civilisation is impossible. “Can’t Happen”. “Won’t Happenç You say above that Fossil Fuels will be with us for a long time….. But will they? When oil runs out or more accurately, becomes too expensive to extract or use, the rest of the Fossil fuel economy like coal & natural gas, will also collapse. What’s a “long time”?….. 50 years?
Entropy,
The idea that fossil fuels will become too expensive is a fallacy from the Peak Oil movement—of which I was a leader. Fossil fuels are becoming increasingly less affordable but they will always be more affordable than other forms of energy. Life cannot abandon energy or it ends.
All the best,
Art
Art,
Another simple and accurate comment on global energy use and non-transitions. Even when I do talks in academic and technical circles I surprise people when I use your global energy use plots. That’s surprising the so-called experts! Even advanced energy students say they have never seen historic non-transition energy trends highlighted this way. I wonder if the message will ever get through.
You certainly need to keep the reality coming.
cheers
phil
Phil,
Thanks for those comments. Thinley Norbu was right when he wrote, “We are only interested in our own version of reality.”
All the best,
Art
Do you think there is a solution or only consequences for our predicament? That means we’re going extinct way before the next century. How can it be different when the scientific community foresee 3,0°C by 2100 and many more alarmists forsee 4,5°C by 2100 ? With all the feedback loop, everything is getting worse than what was anticipated
Alain,
Solutions are a waste of time unless we first are able to understand the problems and agree to be honest about what can and cannot in fact be done. That was the entire premise of the post and the reason for its title and featured image.
Your deterministic view of extinction is a classic example of reductive thinking. Reality isn’t an on-off switch. Read “A Bolt From the Blue” about the “thingification” of the universe as a massive fallacy: https://www.artberman.com/blog/a-bolt-from-the-blue/
All the best,
Art