Let’s Stop Arguing About An Imaginary Energy Transition

How did adoption of renewable energy become the drug of choice to treat the disease of climate change? No one knows.

Wind and solar energy policies evolved over several decades without planning, leadership, effective communication, or stakeholder engagement. There was not—and is not—any vision, resource allocation, communication strategy, governance structure, or change management plan.

In other words, none of the elements for a successful transition have been considered or implemented. That’s why emissions and temperatures keep rising. We’re on a trip to Abilene led by a clown car of energy-blind politicians.

The oil crises of the 1970s and early 1980s—especially the 1973 oil embargo—provided the wake-up call that ignited a global push towards alternative energy sources. Governments around the world began funneling resources into renewable energy research and development. The motivation for these policies was to reduce dependency on oil by substituting some amount of renewable energy for fossil energy. Climate change and the environment were not part of the plan but were bolted onto the scheme later. Eventually full or nearly full energy substitution became the objective for those who supported an energy transition.

There was never a moment, a discussion or a decision that established renewable energy as the primary solution to climate change. It was an Abilene moment.

The Abilene Paradox describes how a group is swept by momentum into a situation that no member has thoughtfully considered.

“On a hot summer day in a small town in west Texas, a family is sitting on a porch, enjoying some fresh cold tea, when the grandfather suggests they all take a ride to Abilene for dinner. 

“The family’s father feels it’s a bad idea but is afraid to offer his opinion, so he foolishly says, ‘Sounds like a great idea to me.’ Then everyone else chimes in with their enthusiasm for the drive, and before long, they are on the dirt highway headed for supper. 

“When they return after a long, hot ride and some horrible food, the mother-in-law says, ‘That wasn’t a great trip.’ Then her daughter adds, ‘I just went along because I wanted to keep the group happy.’ The husband, who first supported the idea, says he only went because he didn’t want to disappoint anyone.”

The Abilene Paradox

Did any world leader ask if switching to renewable energy was a good idea or whether modern civilization could be sustained by electricity, let alone by intermittent wind and solar power?

Political leaders have largely taken a market approach to climate change. This means that governments have offered economic incentives in the form of tax credits, research grants and direct subsidies to stimulate markets to solve the problem. The resulting firehose of public money favors misallocation of capital for short-term corporate rather than long-term public benefit—privatize the profits and socialize the costs.

In a recent opinion article, Martin Wolf observed that market forces will probably not remedy climate change.

“At the heart of attempts to halt damaging climate change is a pair of ideas: decarbonise electricity and electrify the economy. So, how is it going? Badly, is the answer.

“The atmosphere responds to emissions, not good intentions. In 2023, the production of electricity generated by fossil fuels reached an all-time peak.”

—Martin Wolf, Financial Times

It seems that our flawed proxy for a global energy policy misses a critical point: renewable energy, while beneficial, is predominantly applicable to electric power generation, which accounts for a mere twenty percent of overall energy consumption, and only about thirty-five percent of total carbon emissions. This oversight reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the broader energy needs and consumption patterns that drive modern economies.

Renewable energy advocates routinely highlight a narrow and selective set of information to create the illusion that an energy transition is moving forward with shocking speed and effectiveness. Figure 1 shows an impressive thirty-two percent decrease in U.S. CO₂ emissions from electric power generation since 2006. Unfortunately, power generation is only thirty precent of U.S. emissions. What about the other seventy percent of energy consumption?

Moreover, one-third of lower carbon emissions in the U.S. is because of switching from coal to natural gas. Wind and solar have also contributed to emissions reductions, but to a lesser extent than natural gas. Wind energy accounted for about nineteen percent of the reduction, while solar contributed around four percent.

Rich western countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany have made the most progress on carbon emission reductions. Worldwide, the situation is less encouraging. World CO₂ emissions from electric power generation are increasing at about 1% annually (Figure 2).

But these charts only reflect electric power generation. In April, energy expert Vaclav Smil provided this perspective.

“Contrary to common impressions, there has been no absolute worldwide decarbonization. In fact, the very opposite is the case. The world has become much more reliant on fossil carbon.

“We have not made the slightest progress…We cannot expect the world economy to become carbon-free by 2050. The goal may be desirable, but it remains unrealistic.

Vaclav Smil

In fact, world CO₂ emissions and energy consumption continue to rise. Emissions have increased at twice the rate so far in 2024 as in 2022 or 2023 (Figure 3). May 2024 CO₂ concentration increased to 426.9 ppm from 421.9 in December 2023.

Sadly, the future may be worse than historical data trends suggest.

For wealthy countries like the United States, the trajectory of carbon emission reductions is poised to level off around 2030. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) anticipates that significant cuts in CO₂ emissions from electric power generation will largely cease after 2030 (Figure 4). Moving forward, total U.S. emissions are projected to stabilize, averaging around 4,000 million tons per year through 2050.

The capacity for further reductions is constrained by the finite number of coal-fired power plants that can be decommissioned. Additionally, the EIA has a rather conservative outlook on emissions cuts in the transportation sector and other areas. Despite the extensive publicity surrounding electric vehicles, the EIA forecasts that CO₂ emissions from transportation will decrease only 150 million tons by 2050.

When it comes to global electric power, CO2 emissions are projected to climb by 600 million metric tons, or five percent, by 2050 (Figure 5). Coal, as the primary offender, will contribute an additional 590 million tons. Emissions from natural gas will also see an uptick, adding 450 million tons. On a slightly more optimistic note, emissions from liquid fuels are anticipated to drop by 424 million tons.

This underscores the persistent reliance on fossil fuels despite the push for cleaner energy. The larger problem is that emissions will continue to rise as long as electric power use increases. Despite a four-fold expansion of wind and solar electric power generation by 2050, world carbon emissions are expected to climb because total generation will rise 14 gigawatt hours by then (Figure 6).

The EIA expects world CO₂ levels to increase 5 billion metric tons (fourteen percent) by 2050 (Figure 7). Emissions from electric power will increase 600 mm tons but fall as a percentage of total emissions from thirty-five percent in 2023 to thirty-two percent in 2050.

Promoters of renewable energy rarely mention its cost but never miss an opportunity to state that it’s the cheapest form of energy. It’s not but that misses the larger issue that the approach is simply not working. The energy transition is imaginary.

Energy substitution became the guiding principle of the initial renewable energy push following the oil shocks half a century ago. This approach was validated and reinforced with the advent of Peak Oil concerns in the late 1990s. The paradigm failed to evolve as climate change took center stage in the energy debate, and that is where the problem lies.

Renewables cannot sustain our current civilization. This is not a matter of opinion or preference; it’s what the data consistently shows. While renewables have the potential to supply a significant portion of our electric power and can help displace coal—the worst carbon emitter—that scenario is far from the reality we face. The future, as indicated by the data, is not aligning with the optimistic projections for renewable energy.

An aggressive program to develop a balanced mix of natural gas and nuclear for base load power should have been initiated at least two decades ago. The urgency of climate change has since closed that window of opportunity.

There’s a time for hope, but also a time for honesty. Under the current strategy of international conferences and public spending on wealth transfer schemes disguised as green deals, there is no realistic scenario for successful decarbonization.

What’s truly necessary won’t come to pass—rigorous top-down programs that make the consumer-polluter accountable for their energy consumption. It’s far too late for convoluted carbon-credit systems or tax maneuvers.

The market-based approach is already proving to be a losing strategy. The idea of simultaneously backing multiple solutions is a misallocation of resources at this point—ranging from somewhat plausible ideas like electric vehicles to wildly impractical concepts like carbon capture, hydrogen, or geothermal, which remain unproven on a large scale. In a parallel universe where planetary health was prioritized over GDP, only a direct end-user penalty would be effective.

So what’s the solution?

“We waste so much time when we rush to fixes and answers that do not meet the complexity of what is before us.”

Krista Tippett

Asking for the solution is the wrong question. The right question is, what is the truth about what is happening now? Here is the truth based on the data that I’ve presented in this post.

The current energy substitution approach has failed to achieve meaningful reductions in global emissions, primarily due to an unrealistic overestimation of renewable energy’s potential impact. This failure is compounded by the absence of a contingency plan for when renewables fall short.

The real solution lies in drastically reducing overall energy consumption. However, this won’t materialize, even if global consensus deemed it the right path. The reason is simple: there is no international coordination mechanism to plan and enforce such a sweeping change.

We need to stop wasting our time.

We need to end the futile debates about an energy transition that isn’t grounded in reality.

First, we should stop deluding ourselves with arguments over potential solutions. The only effective course of action is to reduce overall energy consumption.

Second, we must relinquish the misguided hope that governments will step in to fix the problem. Their track record shows they won’t.

Third, it’s time to abandon the fantasy that technology will save us. Technological fixes have consistently failed to deliver on their promises.

Fourth, we must cease debating the existence of climate change or environmental crises. The evidence is clear, and continued debate only delays necessary action.

Fifth, discussions about the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) of various sources are distractions from the real issue.

Lastly, we should stop fixating on which energy sources are the cheapest. This is a narrow view that ignores the broader context of sustainability and environmental impact.

The hard truth is, the path forward requires a radical shift in our consumption habits, not more debates or wishful thinking about quick fixes.