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Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 2

January 25, 2025 / 1 Comment on Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 2

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 2

In Part 1 of this now three-part Contemplation (see Website, Medium, Substack) I introduced some of the claims made by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders. These include the two I attempted to unmask as false in the initial post: wars are not created as a result of them, and they do not pollute.

As I read the evidence, these assertions not only hide/ignore/rationalise away some uncomfortable negative consequences of our pursuit of ‘renewables’ but state the exact opposite of reality. The increasing and monumental ‘investments’ called for by ‘renewables’ supporters actually result in greater geopolitical competition (including war) over finite resources (including hydrocarbons) and significantly increases pollution of our planet–particularly due to the extractive and industrial processes required for their production.

Two additional assertions made by ‘renewables’ advocates need to be addressed: through their use security is improved; and, jobs are created through their production and thereby greater wealth is generated.

In this post I will deconstruct the claim that security is improved through the use of ‘renewables’.

Security is improved
The claim that security is improved with the use of ‘renewables’ hinges on several arguments. Among them is that energy sources are diversified (thereby making the power grid more resilient) and dependence upon imports is reduced.

I will first focus upon the claim that “import dependence is reduced” and thus improves national ‘security’ through increased independence.

Again, as with all the other claims, this one depends mostly upon one’s perspective and could be argued to be accurate (if you can ignore some inconvenient facts) but only after the first generation of ‘renewables’ have been produced and distributed–leaving unsaid, of course, what occurs after the limited lifespan of this first generation of ‘renewables’ reaches its end.

Our globalised markets are greatly intertwined and co-dependent. While there has been a great clamour by some politicians to bring all industry back to their own nations–and some limited amount of this has occurred–this not only can take years/decades to accomplish but the more daunting reality is that many nations do not have the local/domestic materials/minerals to be able to carry this relocalisation dream out completely independent of others. A reindustrialisation of nations would still depend very significantly upon the importation of materials/minerals not present or economically-feasible to extract and/or refine within a country’s own borders.

There are few widely-scaled and industrial-based products that draw their materials and/or component parts from solely national, let alone local, sources. They depend upon sourcing such materials and parts from across the globe, some within their own national borders but very many not and must be imported (see graphic below that shows the growth rate in exports/imports–all have grown and are expected to continue to grow).

One cannot wave a magic wand and make rare minerals or other required resources appear in one’s backyard, or make the refining of such minerals/material economically-viable within their nation. For example, almost all US oil refining is geared towards heavy, sour crude oil that it mostly imports from Canada, Mexico, and the Persian Gulf region; and the light, sweet oil that is increasingly dominating US extraction must be shipped elsewhere to be refined–primarily to Canada, Mexico, and Europe.

Focussing for the moment just upon solar photovoltaic energy, close to 95% of the world’s panels are manufactured by China (78%) and a number of nearby Asia-Pacific nations (15.3%). There are a number of reasons for this but it primarily rests upon the economic aspects that make it far more profitable to produce panels in China and nearby regions. For example, China has far more lax environmental protection laws so that the ecologically-destructive industrial processes necessary to produce panels are less expensive, and remuneration for workers is far less than that in so-called ‘advanced’ economies.

Looking at the materials/minerals required for solar panels, China also significantly dominates the source locations for the extraction and the refining of these, including: silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium, copper, and zinc. This is not to suggest other nations do not extract and refine these, but not to the extent China currently does. And without decimating environmental regulations, greatly reducing remuneration, and/or investing significantly in necessary infrastructure in those other nations that may hold some significant quantities of reserves, the far less expensive Chinese sources will continue to dominate the global market–at least for the foreseeable future; this may change down the road but it is not what currently takes place.

And then there are the hydrocarbon inputs that are required to extract, refine, and distribute the necessary minerals and materials–to say little about such inputs into the manufacturing of the panels (see Part 1). Hydrocarbon imports are important for almost all nations, either because they have no domestic resources and/or no refining capacity. Even some of the largest oil ‘producers’ still require imports if their resources (e.g., light shale oil) do not match their needs (e.g., fuel oil, diesel) as highlighted above.

To claim that the use of ‘renewables’ decreases dependency upon imports is completely inconsistent with reality. (NOTE: the off-shoring of the ecologically-destructive and polluting processes to produce panels also contributes to the mythos in most (all?) so-called ‘advanced’ economies that ‘renewables’ are ‘clean/green’.)

Now, one could argue that once the initial importing of panels via the global market is accomplished the goal of independence is achieved. Perhaps. What happens, however, when the first generation of these products reaches the end of their lifespan?

Recycling the products in some form of a ‘regenerative/circular’ cycle is put forward as the ‘solution’ to this. What is left out of this suggestion are two major roadblocks. First, some components are extremely difficult if not impossible to recycle due to their manufacturing processes–for example, in solar panels: silicon wafers, polymer layers, thin-film materials; in wind turbines: the massive blades composed of fiberglass or carbon fiber reinforced with resin. Second, recycling is extremely energy-intensive, results in significant pollutants/toxins, and the thermodynamic law of entropy assures loss of material/minerals with each and every generation of recycling. Recycling is no ‘solution’.

So, there is not only a need to scale-up significantly the production of ‘renewables’ to achieve the ‘clean’ energy utopia, but to scale-up massively the recycling and, in fact, to figure out how to recycle all the components–as most components have yet to be recyclable (or economically so). Unfortunately, the majority of ‘renewables’ end up in landfills. This is the reality of ‘clean/green renewables’.

It is nonsensical to argue at this time that the adoption of ‘renewables’ decreases greatly/eliminates dependence upon imports. In fact, the opposite is quite true given the scaling up being discussed by ‘renewables’ advocates. Massive hydrocarbon and mineral inputs are required and mostly come from other nations via imports.

That energy sources are diversified by their use seems undebatable. The greater the number of energy sources employed, the greater the diversification. Yes, adding ‘renewables’ to the world’s other energy sources has created an increasing variety of sources, but not in the replacement fashion many hope for–’renewables’ have been additive to the globe’s energy consumption.

But does having diversified energy sources feeding into a society’s power grid improve security of the system in terms of resilience?

As with most things there are pros and cons to such diversification. Let me focus on the cons as they tend to be left unsaid by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders.

First, adding these additional technologies increases the system’s complexity along with its fragility. Systems that become more complex also become more fragile due to introduced vulnerabilities that include the need for increased maintenance and management, increased reliance upon computer systems, increased ‘costs’, and increased integration of various subsystems that can lead to cascading failures when a problem occurs–the blackout of 2003 that impacted more than 55 million users in northeast North America is a prime example, where it was determined a software ‘bug’ failed to alert operators of a need to redistribute power load when lines in Ohio came into contact with nearby foliage; the resulting power surge spread and caused the shutdown of 508 generating units at 265 power plants, and a subsequent loss of power load of about 80% that took several days to rectify1.

Second, the issue of intermittency is significant to any discussion of grid resilience since it is vital that the power load on any electrical network must be balanced immediately with the supply being generated–damage to systems can occur (and lead to cascading failure) if load and supply are not matched precisely.

Wind and solar photovoltaic in particular are intermittent in their harvesting of energy. This intermittency requires a back-up system to provide a constant flow of energy as demanded by our various electrical energy-dependent complexities. The alternative, on-demand systems are mostly hydrocarbon-based, with a handful of massive energy-storage systems (usually battery), that can be called upon at a moment’s notice.

It should be noted that these back-up systems also carry with them further ecological destruction due to the extractive nature of their production. But such systems are integral to ‘renewables’; you cannot have one without the other. And the integration of these subsystems increase the complexity and fragility of the larger electrical power system as discussed above.

Adding complexity to a system, particularly one that is electronic in nature, introduces more and more vulnerabilities and a risk of cascading failures. So, rather than increasing security it would seem that security is decreased with the introduction of diversified energy sources that require complex interconnectivity and management.

And then there’s the level of national/state security and the whole conundrum of resource scarcity, competition over these, and the wars that can and often do result (see Part 1). Such competition over finite resources does the opposite of ensuring security and exposes entire nations to increased insecurity–with the political responses to such issues being to ramp up ‘investments’ in national militaries and associated armament stockpiles furthering resource scarcity due to their monumental ‘costs’ in terms of mineral/material needs (including many that are also necessary for ‘renewables’).

Once again, the reality seems to be the opposite of the supposed beneficial claim: security is not increased due to the pursuit of ‘renewables’ but is actually decreased.

In Part 3 I will discuss the final claim made by ‘renewables’ advocates: jobs are created through their production and thereby greater wealth is generated.

What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:

“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.

Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.

If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
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Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.

AND

Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.

The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

I recall with precision the moment the power grid went down at our home. I was working on a table saw in our garage when it suddenly stopped. Having borrowed my brother-in-law’s saw (as mine had ‘died’ the day before while I was working on a home project), I feared I had just done something to cause the borrowed saw to cease operation. I checked the cord of the saw and then our house fuse box. For a few moments I believed that I had caused the outage for our home. It wasn’t for some time that it became apparent that there was something broader afoot…I still tell people the blackout was all my fault.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCV–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1

January 12, 2025 / 1 Comment on Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCV–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCV–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1

A recent post on environmentalism as a meme states that ‘renewable’ energy supporters hold that these technologies solve some significant problems that humanity faces.

‘Renewable’ energy enthusiasts claim the following: wars are not created as a result of them; they fight pollution; and through their use security is improved, jobs are created, and wealth is generated.

Each of these beliefs about ‘renewables’ could be argued to hold some ‘truth’ and be construed as positive, depending entirely upon one’s perspective. I would argue, however, that this perspective is relatively narrow and ignores much of the complexity surrounding our energy production, use, and especially the negative consequences that arise from such production and use.

I believe that these perceptions about renewables and the amplification of them by their cheerleaders feed into the monster that is the mythos (and false hope) around modern complex society ‘sustainability’ and a pending energy ‘transition’.

Let me deconstruct each of these ideas on our ‘renewable energy transition’ and its associated industrial technologies over this and my next Contemplation.

Claim #1: Wars are not created as a result of them
Implicit in this first view is that wars have and are arising from societal competition over the energy source that ‘renewables’ are seeking to ‘replace’: hydrocarbons. I cannot disagree whatsoever with this implication: wars have and are occuring as a result of attempts to gain control over hydrocarbon resources.

Although not typically admitted by governments and/or a region’s ruling elite, there is plenty of evidence to support the argument that resources in general are a significant contributing factor to kinetic wars; they rarely, if ever, arise due to the reasons typically promoted by nations as they seek to garner the support of their citizens for military engagements. Our elite wish the masses to buy into the belief that wars are fought almost exclusively over moral issues–to simplify: good versus evil. It is just coincidental that those evil ‘others’ tend to be in possession of lands that hold lots of natural resources, such as: water, timber, fishing grounds, arable farmland, precious metals and gemstones, rare-earth minerals, hydrocarbons, and/or uranium.

Brave AI-generated summary

It can be stated with fair certainty that for the past 50+ years many wars have been fought over our industrial societies’ master resource: hydrocarbons. This appears particularly obvious when one considers the geopolitical gamesmanship surrounding the Middle East over this time, including a number of hot wars and the petrodollar deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia struck in 1974. And it is probably not coincidental that the increase in such wars and machinations occurred not long after the U.S. Empire passed its peak in cheap, conventional crude oil in 1970 (just as predicted by petroleum geologist Marion King Hubbert in 1956).

For a current example, one need look no further than the decade-old U.S. invasion and occupation of hydrocarbon-rich regions of Syria. (Interesting, isn’t it, how the sovereignty and border integrity of some nation states is unimportant or simply ignored, while for others it’s worth ‘investing’–with probably a lot of money laundering–billions/trillions of dollars and risking many lives. Can you say double standard? Perhaps it’s because that ‘evil’ Syrian government happened to be controlling an area with ‘our’ oil.)

Regardless, it seems obvious that competition over hydrocarbon reserves results in war.

But the production and use of ‘renewables’ won’t result in wars? Let’s glance behind the curtain for a moment to unpack this initial claim.

First of all–and although die-hard techno-optimists/ecomodernists may deny/ignore/dispute the following–’renewables’ depend upon significant inputs of hydrocarbons for their production, distribution, maintenance, and reclamation/disposal. Despite extremely small-scale examples of power derived via ‘renewables’ to carry out these processes (but greatly amplified by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders), huge amounts of hydrocarbons are indispensable to the supposed energy ‘transition’. Almost all the important industrial processes required to produce ‘renewables’ need hydrocarbons to power them.

And if we are to attempt what some are calling for–a ‘war-footing’ investment in a massive rollout of ‘renewables’–then one hell of a lot of hydrocarbons are required; probably more than can be garnered from existing global reserves for the scale of such a feat. And remember scale is significantly important to any energy ‘transition’ that depends upon ‘renewables’ since the electricity generated by these technologies accounts for only a smallish amount of the current power needs of modern, industrial societies–to say little about growing energy demands due to the ongoing pursuit of the perpetual growth chalice and the globe’s increasing population.

A very significant portion of humanity’s primary energy needs is still met by way of hydrocarbons–more than 80%. To replace our current demands (ignore for the moment that these demands keep growing–just think about the energy needs being bandied about for Artificial Intelligence and data centres) would require gargantuan numbers of solar panels, and/or wind turbines, and/or nuclear power plants.

For example, to replace the electricity portion of our energy demands (remember that hydrocarbons are used for much more than just electricity production) via ‘renewables’ would require tens of millions of solar panels, and/or many millions of wind turbines to be produced, and/or thousands of nuclear power plants to be constructed.

So the initial glitch in the ‘wars are not created as a result of them’ claim is that if wars are created as a result of competition over hydrocarbon resources and hydrocarbon resources are necessary for the creation (and re-creation) of ‘renewables’, then wars are indeed created as a result of them–their production necessitates that the competition/wars over hydrocarbons continue. And such competition would need to ramp up very significantly given the scale of ‘renewables’ being clamoured for and the hydrocarbons that would be needed.

The second major glitch for this ‘no war’ claim is stumbled upon once one is aware that ‘renewables’ also require a number of other finite and rare-earth mineral resources for their production. And the concentrated deposits of these minerals do not occur in equitable distributions across the planet. Some of those evil ‘others’ happen to be sitting on the lands that hold the minerals we need for our ‘renewables’. Oops…talk about bad planning.

And then there’s the ‘warfare’ being waged upon the peoples of some of the mineral-rich regions (particularly nations with emerging or developing economies) who are stripped of rights, forcibly removed/relocated, required to work under less-than-ideal circumstances, increasingly exposed to pollutants/toxins, etc.. To say little about the ‘war’ waged against our ecosystems by the pursuit of ‘renewables’ (see below for more on this aspect).

Our species has been carrying out the brutal phenomenon of war for millennia prior to the use of hydrocarbons and I have little doubt that this is not going to halt, dissipate, or even be reduced through the adoption of ‘renewables’ as the notion implies. In fact, quite the opposite may be true if ruling elites across the globe believe that their wealth, control, and prestige are in jeopardy because somewhere and someone else has the resources required to ‘power’ via ‘renewables’ their lifestyles and fiefdoms (or at least line their pockets with the wealth being funnelled into the ‘electrify everything’ racket).

In fact, societal competition over regions of the planet that hold some of the mineral resources listed above as needed for ‘renewables’ started decades ago and can only get worse as we have already draw down a lot of the lowest-hanging fruit (i.e., best deposits) of these finite materials.

So, sorry, not sorry; if wars are fought over resources that are perceived as being necessary for a society’s energy needs, then the claim that wars are not fought as a result of ‘renewables’ is completely and utterly erroneous. To argue that wars are not created as a result of ‘renewables’ being produced and used completely ignores reality through some significantly darkly-shaded blinders.

Claim #2: They fight pollution
This is perhaps the most obviously misinformed assertion made by ‘renewables’ promoters. While within a narrow, keyhole perspective–focussed upon the lack of carbon emissions produced once the technologies have been manufactured and distributed–this may be accurate, such a statement completely ignores the massive ecologically-destructive mining required for the extraction and refinement of the minerals that help to create these technologies. It also overlooks the significant hydrocarbon inputs and their contribution to pollution of our ecosystems.

Mining is amongst the most polluting and destructive endeavours that humans engage in. To ignore this required activity in the production of ‘renewables’ technologies and then maintain that ‘renewables’ do not pollute is completely outlandish (bullshit, actually). But this fantastical belief is held tightly by many (most?) who assert that ‘renewables’ are and the energy ‘transition’ will be ‘clean/green’. This doesn’t just ignore reality, it distorts it beyond belief.

Some attempt to rationalise such destructive activities suggesting they are a one-off and everything is ‘clean/green’ once the products are manufactured. But this too ignores a lot. It ignores two very important facts: ‘renewables’ have a limited lifespan and/or can malfunction needing replacement; and, ‘recycling’ does not and cannot reclaim all the materials in them to ‘recreate’ them without more mining, to say little about the tremendous energy costs of recycling and pollutants/toxins that arise from the process.

This rationalisation also ignores the already overloaded planetary sinks and their increasing inability to absorb more pollutants/toxins. And the pollution and toxins that would be released into our ecosystems by the scale of ‘renewables’ production some are calling for would be monumental. Absolutely monumental.

Also keep in mind that the estimates provided above for how many solar panels and/or wind turbines would be required to replace the hydrocarbon-produced electricity that our complex societies demand do not take into account the number of additional panels or turbines that would be required to make up for the intermittency of these technologies. The sun only shines for a limited number of hours per day, and/or can encounter very cloudy or snowy conditions for many locations, and sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.

Then there are the massive and unprecedented battery storage facilities that would be required to store harvested energy for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. The negative impact upon our ecosystems from the production (that also require massive finite and rare-earth minerals via mining), use of, and reclamation/disposal of batteries would also be tremendously monumental.

Add on top of these ‘roadblocks’ to some ‘green/clean’ utopian future the infrastructure build-out that would be required to support all this ‘electrification of everything’ and the replacement of all those hydrocarbon-dependent technologies and the impact on our ecosystems is beyond comprehension.

Just as they do not reduce the drawdown of hydrocarbons and their use but add to them, ‘renewables’ do not ‘fight’ pollution–they exacerbate it, significantly. To maintain that ‘renewables’ fight pollution is probably even more outrageously egregious than holding that they don’t result in war.

I close Part 1 of this Contemplation with a section of Charles Hugh Smith’s latest book–The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century–that highlights the lore surrounding ‘clean’ technology:

The Mythology of ‘Clean Technology’
“The disconnect between the inspirational, make-believe story of Progress and the real world reaches its most jarring extreme in the mythology of clean technology, which imagines a wondrous utopia of clean skies and clean air delivered by clean technology.

The mythology neatly ignores the polluted air, ravaged landscape and exploited workers of the developing world nations that are being torn apart for the minerals needed to build the supposedly clean technologies for the wealthy developed nations.

This is mythology at its most appalling, a bizarre myopia to the dreadful environmental destruction and human suffering caused by wealthy nations’ stripmining developed nations for the resources needed for hundreds of millions of batteries, copper for expanding the electrical grid and all the other ‘clean technologies’ that are only ‘clean’ because wealthy nations have offloaded all the poisoned air and water, environmental damage and poor health onto the developing nations–the penultimate expression of the asymmetry of the global power structure created by the mythology of Progress.

‘Clean technology’ is nothing more than the distorted, self-serving fantasy of the wealthy exploiting the powerless for their own pleasures and profits. The clean skies and electric bikes of Amsterdam and dozens of other developed-world capitals come not from clean technology but from the exploitation of the planet and the powerless in distant lands, far from the clean skies and profits of the powerful and wealthy.” (pp. 168-169)

See also this recent article in The Tyee by Andrew Nikiforuk on the ‘energy transition’ arguing that there is no energy ‘revolution’, only addition to our growing energy use.

What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.

AND

Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCII–Sorry, folks, but ‘renewables’ are NOT going to save humanity or the planet.

December 1, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCII–Sorry, folks, but ‘renewables’ are NOT going to save humanity or the planet.

Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.

In a truly stereotypical Canadian way, I begin with an apology to those who might disagree with or be affronted by what I am about to argue…

I’m sorry, but non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) are NOT going to save humanity’s modern complex societies from impending ‘collapse’ or the planet’s fragile ecosystems from continuing breakdown.

I could back this up with the increasingly evidence-based assertion that we are so far into the predicament of ecological overshoot (and the vast array of negative consequences that will flow, or should I say are already flowing from this) that there is nothing we can do to avoid the impending ‘population collapse’ that accompanies a species when a finite, primary resource (in our case, hydrocarbons) can no longer support the growth of, or even sustain at its present size, the population–and for humans, this also includes the complexities that support our various societal institutions and modern living standards.

I could also add the burgeoning empirical observations and data that demonstrate the ecosystem destruction being wrought by our attempts to ‘power’ our energy-intensive complex societies and maintain much of our food production.

Yes, hydrocarbons have contributed to and caused the vast majority of this but the industrial processes necessary for ‘renewables’ are only adding to it and not improving things as most believe thanks to massive marketing propaganda–especially the ideas that they are ‘green/clean’ and can be an adequate substitute for hydrocarbons.

But I won’t say much about these things because, for the most part, you either accept what I am arguing or you don’t–evidence be damned. So, the following will either support your confirmation biases or it will challenge them. In fact, chances are that ecomodernists and technocornucopians that hold onto the idea that ‘renewables’ are some sort of technological saviour for our species haven’t even read this far; instead, they probably stopped after the second paragraph.

Regardless, I believe it’s past time for all of us to move beyond the initial grieving stages of denial, anger, and bargaining, and to accept that we are in a self-made predicament that has no ‘solution’ and recognise that it’s all over but the crying. Perhaps, as a result, we should do as Erik Michaels advises: Live Now! Or, as John Michael Greer has argued: Collapse now, and avoid the rush.

Of course, being who and what we are (along with increasing avenues for disseminating our beliefs and defending them), we find ourselves increasingly enmeshed in ‘narrative wars’ about what our issues are and how we might ‘solve’ or ‘mitigate’ them. One of those narrative battles we are caught up in concerns the role of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies and the industrial products that they would power.

I offer a brief introduction and then comment I posted on a Facebook post in a group I help to administer regarding this conundrum.

The post in question is the sharing of a clip making the social media rounds for those engaged in our energy dilemma from the new television series Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton and as imdb.com states about the show, it is “A modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of West Texas oil rigs.”

Here is a link to the youtube video clip that was shared as well as a transcript of the dialogue in the clip. It gets right to the point of what some of the critics of ‘renewables’ have been arguing for the past number of years. And, of course, raises the hackles of those that support these technologies.

“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this shit out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.

And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.

Hell, it’s in everything… that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators, antihistamines, anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it… every fucking thing. And you know what the kicker is… we’re gonna run out before we find a replacement.

And believe me, if Exxon thought them fucking things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”

As is typical when ‘renewables’ are criticised, a response to the post stating that all of the above was completely untrue and oil industry propaganda was made.

Now, I understand this ‘instinctual’ response to a firmly held belief. It’s so easy and natural to dismiss/deny the criticisms made about ‘renewables’ as simply oil industry propaganda–especially given the rising awareness that all monied interests engage in such marketing propaganda to sell their products: they highlight and repeat the supposed benefits of their product and/or the drawbacks of any competition (this holds true for ideas and narratives as well).

Only it doesn’t make much sense for this issue since the large hydrocarbon-extraction companies are heavily invested in ‘renewables’…but that’s a whole other kettle of fish that gets overlooked by many/most.

Anyways, humans tend to be loathe to hold conflicting thoughts, almost as much as anxiety-provoking ones. The internal stress due to the cognitive dissonance created ‘motivates’ us to reject ideas that challenge our beliefs/preconceived notions. It doesn’t matter how ‘true’ or reflective of ‘objective’ reality the challenging beliefs/notions are. We deny/ignore them. We then tend to double down on our own beliefs to reduce the stress/anxiety that arises and protect them, sometimes quite vociferously (oftentimes simply internally), against the ‘offending’ opinion/idea/argument.

But the assertions made in the show’s dialogue are not untrue. In fact, virtually every statement is true once one moves aside the opaque curtains that have been drawn around the ‘renewables’ industry by its marketers and supposedly well-meaning, environmentally-supportive advocates of them.

These items are not ‘green/clean’ but finite resource-dependent, industrial products requiring massive energy and material inputs, and creating significant ecosystem destruction and gargantuan waste streams (and again, sorry, but recycling doesn’t eliminate these).

In particular, these ‘renewables’ require significant quantities of hydrocarbons up and down their production chains, meaning the carbon footprint is huge, as is the ecosystem destruction beyond carbon emissions–especially if one considers the massive mining and material refinement necessary (and, no, you can’t electrify most of the equipment or processes required–to say little about the scale of such an undertaking that would be needed, sorry).

In addition, there do not exist the mineral resources to scale these ‘clean’ technologies up and build out the infrastructure to supply the electricity they would produce to the extent being suggested by their advocates (and yes, sorry, but attempting this would create massive ecological-systems destruction–massive).

The reality is that hydrocarbons, and especially oil, are the master resource for the vast array of complexities our modern world has developed over the past 125+ years. They are indeed in almost everything and help to ensure most food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs–the truly fundamental things we need.

Without hydrocarbons our modern, industrialised world and its many complexities are fully and completely fubar. And given it is a finite resource that has encountered significant diminishing returns on our investments in its extraction, the writing is on the wall for what lies ahead…and it’s not pretty, not at all. Sorry.

This is in no way to suggest that we need to or should encourage ‘drill, baby, drill’ for more hydrocarbons. I am not a ‘fossil fuel shill’ as I have been repeatedly accused of when I criticise ‘renewables’.

What I believe we should be doing (but won’t except for some small pockets here and there) is using our knowledge about ecological overshoot and pre/historical episodes of societal collapse to inform our path going forward. For me that means encouraging purposeful ‘simplification’ so that we have some kind of say in our inevitable contraction–as minimal as this input may be.

We should not be (as we seem to be) doubling/tripling down on our standard problem-solving strategy of attempting greater complexity, especially via increased growth and technological innovation. I say this because this approach results in an exacerbation of our drawing down of finite resources and overloading of compensatory sinks that are contributing to an even more precipitous ‘collapse’ when it inevitably appears at our doorstep.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, I would encourage everyone to be making one’s local community as self-sufficient/-reliant as possible.

Finally, sorry if this argument challenges your beliefs, but that is what the overwhelming evidence shows–not that I need to stress that here at the end of my thoughts given that if you’ve read this far, you probably agreed with most I’ve what I’ve had to say here and already know this.

I close with my comment on that post discussed above:

The ‘electrify everything’ via an ‘energy transition’ narrative is a ruse. It is designed to market industrial products and the idea that we can and will replace hydrocarbons with ‘clean/green’ energy then carry on with our business-as-usual trajectory…growing, expanding, improving, etc., etc..

It is making a shitload of money for those that already sit atop our wealth and power structures while exacerbating our finite resource drawdown and ecological systems destruction. It is not doing any of the beneficial things its marketers claim.

Just as we have been repeatedly lied into wars through massive propaganda, we are being led astray about the efficacy and ‘sustainability’ of ‘renewables’ so that a few can benefit from what is for all intents and purposes just another profiteering racket.

It also attempts to create an Overton Window where the necessary but neglected concept of degrowth with its economic contraction aspect is overlooked/dismissed/ignored.

The ‘renewables’ industry is NOT a friend of the planet nor any kind of saviour. It is a big industrial business selling products.

See: https://stevebull.substack.com/p/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-16f

If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

The Bulletin: August 23-29, 2024

August 30, 2024

The Bulletin: August 23-29, 2024

Global Food Production Is Being Limited by a Lack of Pollinators | Technology Networks

There’s No Good News In The Unfolding Of Armageddon

You Don’t Get To Vote On Any Of Your Government’s Most Consequential Actions

Russia warns the United States of the risks of World War Three | Reuters

Common Threads In Societies That Collapse

COUNTDOWN TO CRISIS, CATASTROPHE AND COLLAPSE – The Burning Platform

Inflation is Forever – by David Haggith – The Daily Doom

The Hidden Agenda: How Governments Use Inflation To Redistribute Wealth

MM #16: Recap and Mythology | Do the Math

50 Things That Everyone Should Be Stockpiling To Prepare For Election Chaos, World War III, Cataclysmic Natural Disasters And The Next Global Pandemic

The Coming of the Roman Tax Collectors – Doug Casey’s International Man

Must Go Faster. Must Have More. – by Guy R McPherson

Climate Change Is Making the Middle East Uninhabitable

A Tour of the Jevons Paradox: How Energy Efficiency Backfires

60,000 tons of treated water from nuclear site discharged so far | The Asahi Shimbun

The Permanent Temptation of All Governments | AIER

The future is community – by Patrick Mazza – The Raven

The Lines Between Fact and Fiction Are Blurred… Here’s Why You Should Question the Narrative

Disposable Power Plants: Wind and Solar are the Single-Use Plastic of the Power Plant World

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXIV– ‘Renewables’: The Great ‘Solution’ (NOT)

August 20, 2024

Knossos, Crete (1988). Photo by author.

‘Renewables’: The Great ‘Solution’ (NOT)

I’ve been very, very slowly reading a paper by archaeologist Joseph Tainter (Problem Solving: Complexity, History, Sustainability Population and Environment, Sep., 2000, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 3-41) that I will comment upon and summarise in a few weeks. In the meantime, I thought I would share a fresh experience.

A recent issue within a Facebook Group (Peak Oil: Twilight of the Oil Age) I am a member of has prompted me to throw together some thoughts, once again, regarding the push by many well-meaning individuals/groups to increase massively the production and distribution of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) and associated industrial products (e.g, electric vehicles, ‘renewables’-powered manufacturing).

The primary reason given this time is perhaps the most common used to rationalise/justify this push and move quickly towards a ‘clean/green’ energy transition: reduce significantly our extraction/use of hydrocarbons, thereby eliminating the greenhouse gases that are released in the process, and put a halt to rising global temperatures.

While all well and good, this calling for trying to reduce our species’ impact upon the planet, I continue to fear we are doing the exact opposite via a massive expansion of complex industrial products to provide electrical power to our ubiquitous energy-intensive technologies.

These technologies are contributing not only to our increased extraction and burning of hydrocarbons (they are, after all, a highly energy-intensive industrial product requiring massive amounts of hydrocarbons to produce, distribute, maintain, and dispose of/recycle), but to the overshoot of the various planetary boundaries that have been found to be significant to the stability and resilience of the Earth system (i.e., land system changes, novel entity distribution, climate change, biosphere integrity, freshwater change–see here).

Among a handful of arguments by ‘renewables’ advocates are some of the following:

their production is replacing/supplanting hydrocarbon extraction/production/use;
they have become less expensive than hydrocarbons;
they reduce greenhouse gases;
they are capable of replacing hydrocarbons.

Evidence, however, brings all of these assertions (or ‘hopes’) into question.

I’ve posted quite a number of Contemplations upon ‘renewables’ and attempted to demonstrate that they are not the ‘saviour’ for sustaining our society’s complexities as they are, for the most part, being marketed as.

See some of my more recent Contemplation on ‘renewables’:
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXX-She Blinded Me With Science, and More On The ‘Clean’ Energy Debate…. June 2, 2024. Blog Medium Substack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXVIII-Magic Permeates Our Thinking About ‘Solutions’. February 27, 2024. Blog   Medium Substack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXVI–Confessions Of A Fossil Fuel Shill. February 11, 2024. Blog     Medium   Substack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXI–A ‘Solution’ to Our Predicaments: More Mass-Produced, Industrial Technologies. December 21, 2023. Blog     Medium Substack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXX–To EV Or Not To EV? One Of Many Questions Regarding Our ‘Clean/Green’ Utopian Future, Part 1. December 18, 2023. Blog     Medium Substack Part 2. January 14, 2024. Blog Medium Substack

Rather than repeat some of the arguments I have made previously, I thought it would be instructive to provide the recent thoughts of two others: Chris Smaje and Dr. Tom Murphy.

Below you will find summations of two recent posts by these two.

Basically, they both challenge the common/mainstream assertions about ‘renewables’ and the associated ‘clean/green’ energy transition. Two additional voices to consider…

Off-grid: further thoughts on the failing renewables transition

Chris Smaje; August 12, 2024

-Chris has argued for some years that he believes “…the future is likely to devolve into low energy-input local societies based around widespread agrarianism…”
-the movement to this may occur in an unmanaged form (societal collapse from pursuing a business-as-usual path) or managed one (purposeful degrowth)
-critics have raised a third option: maintain current high-energy societies via rollout of ‘renewables’

-Chris admits that “A renewables-based transition to a lower-energy, more equitable, local and agrarian economy could be a wonderful thing.”
-his skepticism towards this third pathway, however, is primarily towards the notion that we can quickly transition to from high-carbon to low-carbon energy sources that can sustain our high-energy, growth-oriented global economy
-this perspective, labelled ecomodernism, focuses upon technological innovations and products to address environmental issues

Energy transition–the current state of play
-while the transition literature makes it appear that hydrocarbon use is quickly diminishing and ‘renewables’ is taking its place, the data shows this is not occurring
-the percentage of primary energy used has dipped slightly, but the quantity of hydrocarbon use has continued to increase without much if any of a pause
-looking at electricity generation, ‘renewable’ production has increased significantly from a very low point; but hydrocarbons still account for generating about 60% and in absolute terms has increased more than any other source

2024 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy

-in other words, there is no ‘transition’ out of hydrocarbons despite the rapid growth of ‘renewables’; if there were, we’d be using less of them, not more
{NOTE: keep in mind, also, that the vast majority of ‘renewables’ are manufactured in China, where the primary energy source is coal and which has reached record extraction/use rates]
-despite these data, many continue to argue (based upon questionable assumptions, see next point) that hydrocarbon use will peak soon and then begin its inevitable decline, being replaced by ‘renewables’
-the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests in a recent report (New Zero By 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector) that not only must electricity generation increase significantly, but that to reach Net Zero, hundreds of gas/coal plants (particularly in emerging and developing countries) need to be equipped with unproven technologies (carbon capture and storage), and electrical networks everywhere need to be expanded greatly

S-curves
-data, naturally, reflects the past and ‘renewables’ advocates often proffer their arguments with dependence upon impending exponential growth and technological breakthroughs
-appealling to future innovations creates a situation that can neither be proven nor unproven
-and Smaje admits ‘renewables’ are environmentally preferable [NOTE: I do not agree here mostly because there exist many aspects of ‘renewables’ production/distribution/maintenance/disposal/reclamation that are discounted in such a perspective; particularly the hydrocarbon inputs and ecological systems destructiveness of mining for needed components, both the ‘renewables’ and necessary storage products]

The real cost of renewables
-the electricity supply chain consists of several unbundled aspects (generation, transportation, buy/sell wholesalers, and consumers) and price decreases in one do not generally filter down to consumers
-while much has been made of the falling price of the material components of ‘renewables’, other costs have risen (e.g., land, integration of ‘renewables’-produced electricity, price of capital); the ‘levelised cost of energy’ (LCOE) metric often cited as proof of ‘renewables’ inexpensiveness, often excludes these other costs
-the intermittency of ‘renewables’ impacts the price received for electricity (since it varies depending upon supply and demand) making the LCOE low in theory but high in reality
-the IEA report cited above notes that to achieve Net Zero, electrical grids need to more than double in size and scope given the bottleneck it currently is for ‘renewable’-generated power; Chris notes that this will require massive fossil fuel-powered extraction
-adding the grid costs and additional facilities increases the actual cost of ‘renewables’ past that of hydrocarbons
-the financial institutions that provide the capital for ‘renewables’ projects have little interest given the low profitability and debt-servicing issues common in the sector
-while there is some efficiency in ‘renewables’ over hydrocarbons given the amount of energy lost to heat in the latter, hydrocarbons have a distinct advantage in also providing chemical feedstocks important in various other sectors
-in addition, electricity only supplies a fraction of industrial energy use (about 10-20%), with industries that cannot easily (or not at all) electrify
-as it stands, the globe is nowhere close to achieving Net Zero
-even if one accepts the argument that recycling and/or a circular economy can help to address these issues, there exist limits and our current trajectory is taking us nowhere near the ideal

Make Government Great Again?
-could the economic impediments be overcome if governments nationalised their electricity sectors?
-while China, in their quick adoption and rollout of ‘renewables’ suggests this may be possible, there remain difficult if not impossible realities to overcome [NOTE: it’s true that China has adopted a lot of ‘renewables’, and produces the vast majority; but China also is seeing record amounts of coal use in their power generation and use]
-regardless of who is in charge, there remains: industries that are difficult/impossible to electrify; intermittency of generation; high material costs; difficulty matching supply and demand
-nationalisation is no ‘easy’ feat and requires political, bureaucratic, and technical aspects; to say little about the lack of interest in such a move by many in government, industry, and the public–neoliberalism dominates almost everywhere
-instead, governments tend to offer incentives/subsidies; this approach, however, often results in boom/bust situations
-“..neoliberal globalization needs to end–but that’s not going to bring the Keynesian happy place back. There’s too much debt, and too little real growth.”

Batteries to the rescue?
-hydrocarbons are advantageous in that they can be turned on/off as needed; ‘renewables, however, require energy storage systems
-while there are constant cheers for potentially inexpensive and efficient systems to do this, none exist at the moment [current systems require hydrocarbon-based industrial and ecologically-destructive processes to produce] and the costs of decommissioning/reclaiming/disposing current systems must be considered–to say little about scaling such systems up

Minerals
-the mineral requirements for this ‘transition’ are critical and a number of analysts/researchers doubt the ability of our planet to provide what is being called for
-there exist limits/bottlenecks/diminishing returns for finite minerals/other resources (especially hydrocarbons), and concerns over the ecological impacts of the massive mining required
-here, many ‘renewables’ advocates point to the ecological destructiveness of hydrocarbons but “..if you set the bar as low as ‘not as bad as fossil fuels’ then a lot of things can jump over it.”

Energy cliffs, energy traps and economic slips
-while the concept of energy-return-on-energy-invested (EROEI; also known as net energy) is important to the global economic systems geared to growth, its real-life application to this issue is controversial
-despite the EROEI falling for hydrocarbons, it tends to remain higher than that for ‘renewables’
-energy cliff refers to the idea that as the EROEI of an energy source declines, the energy available to an economy declines more quickly; this is especially a problem for ‘renewables’ given their energy investment mostly occurs upfront creating less economic incentive to switch and resulting in a negative feedback (or energy trap)
-a transition may be more feasible for an economy not dependent upon growth, but we do not live in that world [and given the Ponzi-like structure of our economic systems it’s unlikely we could shift to such a system]

Geopolitics
-it appears that many countries (especially those not self-sufficient in hydrocarbons) are building out ‘renewables’ for energy security purposes, not for ‘decarbonisation’, given that world politics has become more volatile as the US’s hegemony wanes
-there is no fossil fuel-replacement occurring, however; what we are witnessing is an energy diversification and “…the pursuit of economic growth, energy security and geostrategic power is likely to drive increases–or at least retrenchment–in all forms of energy, including fossil fuels.”
-in fact, we may witness an increase in hydrocarbon use (especially coal), including the intensive-energy military sector–and particularly from the US is unlikely to “…give up its fossil-fuelled control of its oceanic trade empire without a fight…”
-domestically, governments opt for hydrocarbons over renewables to ensure grid stability during peak demand times and due to them being a less expensive option; this, however, can lead to grid failures when fuel shortages occur
-with global temperatures increasing, we can imagine a positive feedback loop where higher demand (air conditioning) leads to more hydrocarbon use, resulting in higher global temperatures and so on
-it’s also possible grids will be overwhelmed by demand and/or richer nations pushing up prices beyond the reach of poorer ones and impacting supply chains so that ‘renewables’ production is impacted negatively
-many/most poorer nations depend upon relatively cheaper hydrocarbons (especially coal); Africa, for example, produces 74% of its electricity from hydrocarbons and only 11% from ‘renewables’
-for any kind of global ‘transition’ to occur, it’s going to require a massive transfer of wealth from richer nations to poorer ones

On-grid
-‘renewables’ skeptics are often criticised as playing into the pursuits of Big Oil, but Chris counters that it is those who advocate for the transition that have interests that are more in line with Big Oil/Capital
-these interests are dominated by profit-making and many Big Oil companies have invested heavily in ‘renewables’ (deinvesting when profits are waning) [I would add that part of their support for ‘renewables’ is likely because the industrial processes required to produce/distribute/maintain/reclaim them are heavily dependent upon hydrocarbons]

Off-grid
-while techno-fix narratives sound serious, whether they actually offer ‘solutions’ to our meta-crisis times is questionable
-one often used approach is to market ‘renewables’ as beneficial to the ‘poor’ and ’emerging’ economies but what mostly occurs is a loss of autonomy, increased assimilation, disruption of traditional living, etc.
-ecomodern, techno-fix narratives brush aside these concerns

-Chris concludes his thoughts by stating that “I don’t think renewables transitions are a serious likelihood for most people worldwide, but I don’t expect to be taken seriously by those who think otherwise…the more we can get off-grid, use soft-energy paths and agroecology, and build local communities, the more we can avoid getting wrecked by the siren call of banoffees (business as nearly ordinary feasibly-fast (and) future-proofed energy-transition enthusiasts)…[and] off-grid doesn’t have to mean isolation or survivalism. There’s a world o localism to be won.”

MM#11: Renewable Salvation?

Dr. Tom Murphy, August 6, 2024

-Tom presents “various reasons why renewable energy and recycling are not our way out of the predicament modernity has set out for us. It’s just a doubling-down that can’t really work anyway.”

A Past Enthusiast
-having lived an off-grid lifestyle and experimented with a number of off-grid configurations, Tom has an intimate relationship with the concept and products
-he originally believed ‘renewables’ were part of the answer to our issues of climate change and peak oil but has reached the conclusion that such narrow solutions tend to work only for narrowly-defined problems

Cost of Climate Change Dominance
-a narrow view of our ecological predicament where CO2 emissions can be eliminated via ‘renewables’ and all is well is attractive but overlooks the complexities
-the belief that climate change is the main issue and this can be corrected with technology denies the larger picture/complexities
-‘renewables’ fail to get us out of the mess we’ve created

Materials Demand
-‘renewable’ technologies require massive amounts of finite resources

https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jms/article/view/0/47241.

-‘renewables’ require significantly more materials per unit of electrical energy delivered than that of hydrocarbon combustion; it is not a build-once-and-done game
-‘renewables’ are thus not actually ‘renewable’ as they depend upon finite materials in perpetuity

The Genius of Life
-Nature is remarkable in that it has figured out how to accomplish all it does with the small set of elements found upon our planet (e.g., 96% of human mass is composed of oxygen (65%), carbon (18%), hydrogen (10%), and nitrogen (3%)–all derived from air and water)
-natural recycling is essentially 100% efficient and can continue indefinitely
-modern human inventions, however, rely upon the wrong things (e.g., rare earth minerals), don’t last (some not even a human generation and rarely a lifetime), and leave often harmful waste streams (e.g., radioactive waste)

Recycling Limitations
-the common rebuttal to the significant material needs of ‘renewables’ is the idea of recycling or circular economy
-first, the massive initial build-out should not be discounted and you cannot recycle what’s not present
-and it’s worth considering that even the substantial speed of ‘renewables’ production over the past couple of decades has not been able to meet human energy needs with hydrocarbon-use increases being necessary
-the massive outlay required to even meet growing needs would result in significant ecological systems destructive
-second, even the most efficient recycling is imperfect with fantasy-level 90% recovery resulting in a 50% loss of material after just 7 cycles and 90% loss after 22–it is not indefinite
-wind turbines and solar panels last a couple of decades prior to requiring replacement, so at best recycling can push ‘renewables’ out for a handful of centuries (that’s if everything goes ‘just right’)

What Do We DO with Energy?
-at the heart of our predicament is what we do with energy
-much is used to cause ecological systems damage (e.g., clear forests, industrial agriculture, mine, manufacture products, etc.)
-regardless of the energy source or technology, we are destroying planet health

Intent Matters
-with technology in hand, we appear intent on harming Nature
-it matters not if the technology is hydrocarbon-based or ‘renewable-based’
-Tom suspects, however, that it won’t be long before “…the deteriorating web of life will create cascading failures that end up making humans victims, too, and pulling the power cord to the destructive machine.”

Obligatory Titanic Metaphor
-powering modernity with different technology does not change the outcome, just as lithium batteries instead of a coal-fired engine would not have altered the Titanic’s tragedy

Cease What, Exactly
-none of our destructive activities are likely to cease if we alter our energy source
-eliminating CO2 might be great but it doesn’t change our ecological predicament in the least if everything else remains the same
-“…doing so keeps our boot on the throat of the community of life so it can’t breathe. Doing so keeps the sixth mass extinction basically on track, uninterrupted—though perhaps not as quickly or warmly.”

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):Book 1: $2.99Book 2: $3.89Book 3: $3.89Trilogy: $9.99

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If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXX–She Blinded Me With Science, and More on the ‘Clean’ Energy Debate…

June 2, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXX

She Blinded Me With Science, and More on the ‘Clean’ Energy Debate…

For whatever reason, I just can’t seem to help myself…

The most relevant issue for the first part of this Contemplation is a loose definition and lack of agreement at the outset on what all of us involved in the shared conversation below mean by the word ‘science’. It can refer to a body of knowledge, but it can also refer to a method of ascertaining this knowledge.

From my perspective, the scientific method, in its ideal form, is perhaps one of the best ways our species has developed for helping us to understand many aspects of our universe; not all, of course, but many. It fails, however, in reaching universal ‘truths’ in many other aspects and I would argue this is particularly so in the areas where humans are involved but also where complex systems exist. Put complex systems and humans together, and all bets are off as to whether even the most sound use of the scientific method can reach definitive and totally objective conclusions.

A further issue, as my comments below hopefully demonstrate, is that the methodological practice is carried out by us totally subjective, story-telling apes and so the conclusions can be suspect as can much of the body of knowledge we garner from it. And there should be nothing wrong or controversial about skepticism towards such knowledge. Such skepticism is, in fact, (or at least should be) an integral part of the process. As this paper argues, “…In science, being skeptical does not mean doubting the validity of everything, nor does it mean being cynical. Rather, to be skeptical is to judge the validity of a claim based on objective empirical evidence. David Hume, the 18th century philosopher, asserted that we should accept no things as true unless the evidence available makes the non-existence of the thing more miraculous than its existence. Even extraordinary claims can be true, but the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence required…To be skeptical does not mean dismissing claims—even extraordinary claims—out of hand. It means examining the available evidence before reaching a decision or withholding judgment until sufficient evidence is had. One should not start with the assumption that a claim cannot be true any more than one should start with the assumption that a claim must be true. All reasonable evidence on both sides should be considered. Skepticism is a critical feature of a scientific repertoire. Indeed, many of the most prominent skeptics are and have been some of the world’s most prominent scientists, including Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan…”

Many people, however, take extreme umbrage when their ‘science’ is skeptically viewed. This occurs for a number of psychological reasons, not least of which would be the cognitive dissonance it can lead to. To reduce the anxiety/stress that can result when one’s beliefs are questioned, our fight/flight responses take over and we lash out by ‘attacking’ the critic or simply ignore/deny their perspective.

Don’t get me wrong, ‘science’ is great; I love it and practised it somewhat in an earlier life. However, my time engulfed in that world and experiences/reading since have led me to better understand the human tendencies that impact its practice and story-telling. This is especially so in the past number of years where it all seems to be turning far more ‘political’ in nature, where ‘science’ is being leveraged as a new ‘religion’ that cannot be questioned and is used to justify/rationalise social policy and action (i.e., socio-political, -economic, -cultural) by those at the top of our power and wealth structures.

I use ‘science’ to bolster my arguments about those things I discuss and I try (but am not always successful) in couching my words and ideas as possibilities, probabilities, and in terms of evidence. I believe there are paths ahead that are more likely than others based on the evidence humans have observed and gathered, but I also understand that such paths may go in some completely different or unseen way. Much uncertainty exists and, of course, humans loathe uncertainty so we seek certainty regardless of sound evidence.

The meme in question struck me as problematic in a few ways but perhaps mostly because of the us versus them intonation, and the idea that if you’re not ‘with us’ then you’re ‘against’ us and the reason we don’t reach our potential and succeed at this experiment of life (especially via our ingenuity and technology, all the result of ‘science’).

My conversation with others within a FB Group (Neil deGrasse Tyson) on the topic of ‘science’ in response to the Bill Nye meme:

Steve Bull
Would that be the science that led humanity to 10,000+ nuclear warheads? Or maybe the science that leveraged hydrocarbons to help put us into ecological overshoot and helped to destroy the ecological systems all life depends upon. ‘Science’ has been as much a curse as a saviour.

SG
Steve Bull, Discoveries and invention always have the capacity to be used or misused. Science is about discovering the nature of things. We can’t stop doing that. It is humans that are flawed not science.

Steve Bull
SG, Yes, and who carries out the science and the interpretation of observable phenomena? Humans. Humans that can never be completely objective and interpret the universe through biased eyes. Conclusions based upon perfectly performed scientific methods still require interpretation. And especially when systems being studied are complex and are impacted by nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena, it is impossible to control all the variables to thoroughly test hypotheses and reach absolute certainty. Throw on top of this the incentives that influence research (socio-cultural/-economic/-political) and science simply provides us with mostly socially-constructed stories that may or may not represent accurately the phenomena it is hoping to understand. One needs ‘faith’ to accept conclusions at complete face value given all the impediments to the ‘ideal’ we hold science against. And then there’s the whole interpretation via established paradigms (refer to Thomas Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions) that can overturn decades of conclusions by shifting the interpretation of phenomena…

JD
SG, great point. Same is true with religion. Religion isn’t flawed it’s just the leaders and the people who practice it

Steve Bull
JD, I am reminded of the line by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park: “…your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Perhaps, for example, performing gain-of-function research on viruses was/is not an area that should be ‘explored’—I mean, what could go wrong?

SG
Steve Bull So should we stop trying to figure it all out because we are flawed and biased? What are you saying here?

Steve Bull
SG, Basically, what I’m suggesting is that we need to not place science upon a pedestal from which it cannot be questioned/criticised, which is what I sense from a lot of commenters in this group. The scientific method and the interpretation of conclusions from it is always impacted by the humans who practice it; it is impossible to separate the social influences humans are susceptible to from it. Humans can never be completely objective, so the narratives we weave are oftentimes if not always influenced by our social circumstances and conditioning. Ecologist Dr. Bill Rees and coauthor Megan Siebert perhaps place things in perspective via this statement at the beginning of a recent paper on our energy ‘transition’: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives—even scientific theories—are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”(https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508) As for ‘figuring it all out’, have we not learned enough to understand that we will never achieve such lofty ideals. That instead of focusing on those learnings that indicate we have proceeded significantly into ecological overshoot and need to begin preparing for the inevitable consequences of this, we are attempting to sustain, even expand upon, the unsustainable (which is what a lot of science is being used for). We need to recognise and acknowledge our limits and reorient our existence towards living within Nature’s hard, physical boundaries–not try and keep the growth party going and putting us even further into overshoot because ‘science will figure it out’.

SG
Steve Bull I realize we will never “figure it all out” and there will always be new discoveries and new interpretations. A true scientist does not stop questioning. The whole point of science is to question. If some people choose to close their minds to the possibility of new information that may change what we think we know, they are missing g the point of “ science” Again it’s more of a human failing not a science failing.

Steve Bull
SG, While the properly carried out ‘scientific method’ is likely our best process for determining universal ‘truths’ it is, unfortunately, carried out by humans and we can never be eliminated/isolated from the equation. This is especially true for complex systems (those with nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena) where all variables are impossible to control for and interpretations of results are carried out.

JD
Steve Bull, the moral high ground scientist operate off of because they believe they aren’t participating in religious activities is extraordinary. It’s absolutely 100% no different than what born again Christians experience as they operate. I have no judgment of either party, but only interested in pointing out the similarities, which makes finger pointing silly.

JD
SG, maybe he’s just pointing out that scientists are no different than religious zealots. You might say well, religious zealots murder in the name of God. Well, scientist did a bunch of murdering in the last few years in the name of I’m not sure what. So it’s not that people should stop trying to figure it all out, it’s people should stop pointing to that process as justification for an implicit moral high ground.

SG
JD, It is not the intent of science to murder people but it is sometimes the intent of religion

Steve Bull
SG, Consider how ‘science’ contributed to the eugenics movement or what virus gain-of-function research has accomplished. There are plenty of examples of scientific research into better ways to eliminate other humans.

SG
Steve Bull Again, human failings. Science has no conscience, it just tries to research answer to questions. If humans misuse it it is not the fault of “science”

Steve Bull
SG, We’re simply talking past each other and will have to agree to disagree. I stand committed to the perspective that you cannot remove the human aspect from the practice of science. It is a human endeavour, through and through.

RS
Steve Bull Your point of view is quite narrow. Science never hurt a person, reality was the one who hurt. And that is humans wanting to use science as a weapon. Science is merely knowledge and what the human does with this knowledge is what needs to be addressed. We the human are not , at this time, capable of handling mind altering information

RY
Steve Bull You are probably alive because of vaccinations and anti-biotics, so no.

Steve Bull
RY, Perhaps, but there’s an argument to be made that humans are well into ecological overshoot because of our inability to allow ‘natural’ processes to keep our population numbers below the planet’s carrying capacity. So are our interventions in these processes helpful or harmful, in the long run? The consequences that a species in overshoot experiences are often if not always quite ‘harmful’.

RY
Steve Bull I agree, in fact that may be an answer to the Fermi Paradox. But science itself is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. Only how it is used can determine that. Science also gives us birth control, while religion often opposes it and urges people to procreate endlessly.

Projections are that Earth’s population is expected to peak and then decline. Lift people out of poverty and educate them and they inevitably have fewer children.

Steve Bull
RY, There are many economists and futurists that also encourage increased population growth (but that’s mostly to keep the Ponzis that are our monetary and economic systems from imploding, and based upon the view that infinite growth is entirely possible on a finite planet).

And the projections about a levelling off of population that you speak of depend almost entirely upon the global population achieving a standard of living comparable to the so-called advanced economies of the world. Such optimistic predictions (dare I say delusional) are fully and completely resource blind (especially as it relates to energy). There is almost certainly not going to be a ‘managed’ curtailing of the growth our species has been experiencing; it will be forced upon us by Nature and we are unlikely to enjoy the transition.

RY
Steve Bull Sadly, I suspect you are correct. We are not good at recognizing or addressing rolling threats.

Steve Bull
RY, It’s the complexity that we can’t understand. Nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena cannot be predicted no matter how sophisticated one’s model. It also doesn’t help that we tend to believe our species stands outside and apart from Nature. We continue to tell and believe in stories where we have significant agency and can control everything. That’s not the real world; that’s magical thinking.

NZ
Steve Bull no, that was the politics

Steve Bull
NZ, Humans, including scientists, are ‘political’ animals. Look into how academic/economic incentives influence research.

NZ
Steve Bull it could have been worse … they could have used them

DC
Steve Bull no that would be the Science that allows you to gripe about science while doing so on a device that lets you fit the sum of all human knowledge in the palm of your hand and communicate instantly with nearly everyone worldwide.

Anyway you look at it or slice it Science has been a net-plus for humanity.

Steve Bull
And a contrarian perspective could be that all this technology that many crow on about as being so ‘beneficial’ has also—because of the industrial processes required in their production and the geopolitical dynamics involved in acquiring resources—has not only placed humanity in ecological overshoot (with a problematic ‘collapse’ to come) but helped to destroy the ecological systems all life depends upon. The experiment that Homo sapiens is (especially its last 10-15000 years with the rise of complex societies) has not yet concluded and there’s good evidence that the hyper-exploitation of finite resources over the past couple of centuries (thanks a lot to technological developments) will not end well.

DC
Steve Bull, I feel you are looking at it through not just a contrarian lense but a myopic one as well.

The problem isn’t Science.

It’s people.

Even now….with all the evidence that Science has given us revealing how we are harming the planet and our long term prospects on it in we refuse to come together and take the necessary steps to mitigate the damage.

That isn’t Science’s fault.

Without Science life for humans would have remained short and brutal with women frequently dying in childbirth, children frequently dying young from common pathogens, and a general average life expectancy of 30.

Steve Bull
DC, Yes, it’s helped to expedite our journey into overshoot.

DC
Steve Bull, well…..yes.

But, again…..Science has explained to us how to “undershoot.”

We won’t listen.

It would be interesting to see how humanity would be doing now if Science was never used.

I suspect we would be generally miserable.

Or could already be extinct.

Too bad advanced Science wasn’t around 66 million years ago and used to deflect the asteroid that wiped out most life on the planet at the time.

Or maybe it’s a good thing because if the dinosaurs had the tech to do that we wouldn’t be here lol.

Steve Bull
DC, The evidence suggests strongly that we are too far past the tipping point for overshoot to be ‘corrected’; with or without ‘science’. The best we might do is mitigate at the margins, but instead (mostly because of denial combined with who sits atop our complex societies’ power and wealth structures) we are continuing to pursue policies and actions that are taking us further into overshoot—especially the belief that there’s a technological ‘fix’.

That human populations were ‘miserable’ prior to the widespread use of ‘science’ assumes a lot about the life and times of the prehistoric hunter-gathering groups that existed for 100,000+ years prior to ‘modern’ times (say the past 12,000 since large, complex societies arose)as well as assumptions about how most of the current 8+ billion live (only a minority live in the ‘splendour’ of so-called ‘advanced’ economies that exploit and use the majority of finite resources to support their ‘advantaged’ living standards).

DC
Steve Bull whether we are past a tipping point is, again, the fault of humans and not Science.

All available archeological evidence indicates that prehistoric humans lived short and largely miserable lives spending most of their time just trying to stay alive as do most of the current world’s population that doesn’t have advanced technologies readily available to them.

The Science of Agriculture and irrigation alone has saved countless lives from starvation.

Even if some paradise or garden of eden ever existed or exists today I see little point or advantage in a humanity that never advances beyond a primitive nature.

DC
Steve Bull ironically, if not for Science I doubt either one of us would have the luxury of the time it has taken to engage in this debate.

Steve Bull
DC, I’d argue it’s more about net energy surpluses than science. Net energy surpluses (especially thanks to hydrocarbons) have afforded humans the luxury to engage in all sorts of non-survival practices. And as these surpluses have encountered ever-quickening diminishing returns, such ‘luxuries’ are increasingly looking to be in the rear-view mirror in the not-too-distant future.

RR
Steve Bull More people have been killed “in the name of God” than by nuclear warheads

Steve Bull
RR, I don’t disagree. There’s also been a lot killed in the name of politics and supposed democracy/freedom.

RM
Steve Bull back to the caves

Steve Bull
RM, While it is impossible to predict the future with much accuracy, it seems certain that a societal transition to a much simpler existence is ahead for those that make it through the bottleneck we have led ourselves into.

CB
Steve Bull Science is observing the facts of electricity. Social & economic forces create light bulbs or electric chairs, or rail guns. Scientists discover politicians, military people, & capitalists manipulate those findings to fit THEIR desires.

LM
Steve Bull One of the things “sciences” doesn’t do is tell us how to use the knowledge science uncovers. Usually taught at the middle school level. Miss something?

Steve Bull
LM CB, That’s a convenient logical runaround for abdicating responsibility for the misuse of knowledge. As I stated above, the line from Jurassic Park by Jeff Goldblum is apropos here: “…your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

MO
Steve Bull You’re confusing scientists with the politicians and military or corporate entities that put advancements to a nefarious use. That is like blaming architects for the building of the gas chambers.

Steve Bull
MO, You’re missing (or perhaps ignoring) everything I have stated about the social influences that impact the scientific process and thus the work of supposed ‘objective’ and ‘non-partisan’ scientists. In an ‘ideal’ world where such impacts don’t exist or can be completely controlled for, the scientific method appears to be our best means of understanding our universe. We don’t live in such a world, however.

Similar ‘simplistic’ memes have appeared on this FB Group repeatedly. The other one that makes me shake my head (for a variety of reasons) is this one:

A handful of relevant articles:

https://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/introduction/scientific-inquiry/why-must-scientists-be-skeptics.php
The Skeptical Scientist

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-skepticism-reveals/
What Skepticism Reveals about Science

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780123984982000023
Elements of Scientific Thinking: Skepticism, Careful Reasoning, and Exhaustive Evaluation Are All Vital

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2011.0177
Science as organized scepticism

https://skepticalscience.com/the-skepticism-in-skeptical-science.html
The Skepticism in Skeptical Science

One of the more significant issues for me in calling into question the assertions that non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies are ‘green/clean/non-polluting’ (all great marketing propaganda via the manipulation of language use by the way) is the denial/ignorance/obfuscation/rationalising away of the ecological systems destruction these technologies (all complex, industrial technology actually) require.

So I share this FB Group conversation initiated by one of this technology’s cheerleaders:

Steve Bull
Except: “…and I have already heard that auto parts suppliers are stopping orders for EV production and that combustion engine plants are being spruced up for a few more years.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/…/chinese-battery-makers-bac

AD
What are the environmental costs? (Real not provocative question)

UB
AD, Batteries are a non-polluting technology. One of the nicest ever. No emissions, no liquids, no gas. When they’ve degraded a bit, you recycle them and make them new. What more can you ask for?

Steve Bull
UB, The production and recycling of batteries is anything but non-polluting. To argue otherwise is disingenuous in the extreme.

GT
Steve Bull, please link facts no bla bla bla

UB
Currently, lead batteries are recycled at 95%. One of the best recycling rates of the whole industrial system. There is no reason why we can’t recycle lithium batteries at the same rate. And even better.

Steve Bull
GT, Do a simple internet search. There’s a ton of information on the detrimental environmental impacts of battery production and recycling. Here’s one article to get you started: https://www.wired.com/…/lithium-batteries-environment…/

Steve Bull
UB, Yes, recycling happens but to suggest it has zero negative environmental impacts is not supported by the realities of its practice.

GT
Steve Bull, “Do a simple internet search”

NO NO NO YOU STATE > YOU EXPOSE STUDIES DATA AND RESEARCH !!!!

YOU DO THAT IN THE PUBLIC COURT OF FACEBOOK

MR
UB, until now the capacity for proper recycling is low, and without extremely expensive recycling in plants with appropriate technologies it becomes one of the most polluting waste ever. In addition, they continue to have big problems in the event of an accident, because the chemical combustion they develop is not possible by ordinary firefighters, which is unaware of chemical reagents that were so far only expected in the presence of large chemical plants. Finally and first problem for the buyer, in a short time they degrade and the charge, already low in terms of guaranteed mileage compared to communal fuels, becomes really demanding, best suited to urban journeys. Problems that, at least for a while, and until a technological leap in battery components, will remain difficult to solve.

Steve Bull
GT, I’ve played this dance with others. If you believe that battery production and recycling is inert for the environment as UB claims, no amount of evidence (peer-reviewed research included) is likely to dissuade you. I have challenged an assertion that has plenty of research to show it is false. Just the fact that hydrocarbon-reliant mining is the major process required for their production should be enough to show that batteries are not environmentally neutral. I get, however, that denial is a powerful drug.

AD
UB, I do environmental assessments (even if it is infrastructure projects and territorial plans), so I put myself the problem of the LCCA compared to a car with a thermal engine. In addition to the costs of infrastructure construction and the issue of sustainability of the demand for electricity. I think, in my childhood, that the intermediate solution of hybrids is the way to pursue in the middle period.

I would be interested to have scientific sources, if possible. Thank you

DB
MR, the batteries of current electric cars are guaranteed for over 1000 charge cycles, they run 300 thousand kilometers. Usually at 200 thousand km poor a car like a Clio 1.2 petrol could be scrapped with a dozen years of use and that’s fine, why should there be problems with higher performance in the case of an electric car? Are they going to be blatantly ideological problems?

MR
DBD, The reality so far, especially for the low and medium-range models, is that after 300, 400 charging cycles, and especially when you have to do icycles in half, with your car outside of work, between the morning and the afternoon and so on, the road is guaranteed to diminish dramatically. If you have a dislevel to do, even just because you work in the city and you bought the house on a hill, if not you would limit yourself to a hole where it is impossible to have children – and half of Italy is mountainous, I remind you – the battery’s property degrades even faster. Sometimes you have to look at reality, not what is on the paper. As with fluorescent lamps, which in theory were supposed to be a revolution and instead degraded very quickly, in the face of what the manufacturers claimed, and disappeared without regret at the advent of LED. So far, we’re talking about urban commuting technology, which keeps cities crowded with 4-wheelers, and unable to replace cars for mid-distance extra-urban commuting and for those who have to travel/deliver for work (and there’s a lot of them). We’re not even within reach of a route Bologna-Milan, Milabno-Venice, Bologna-Florence and back.

DBD
MR, yes but the ones you are campaigning are excuses, they are not reality, they are the reality you want to build with purely made up data. Very free to do it but a little less to think that stuff like this can be accepted as an argument, that’s all.

DBD
MR, ah there, stuff to hear, I get it. Interesting. Keep changing nothing from what was written before but you are free to keep saying it, for charity.

A few articles of relevance:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/09/worlds-largest-floating-solar-farm-wrecked-by-a-storm/
The World’s Largest Floating Solar Farm Wrecked by a Storm Just Before Launch

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/13/ev-euphoria-is-dead-automakers-trumpet-consumer-choice-in-us.html
EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans

https://wirepoints.org/pritzker-doubles-down-with-827-million-of-taxpayer-money-for-expansion-by-troubled-electric-vehicle-maker-rivian-wirepoints/
Pritzker doubles down with $827 million of taxpayer money for expansion by troubled electric vehicle maker, Rivian – Wirepoints

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Cold-Hard-Truth-About-Renewable-Energy-Adoption.html
The Cold Hard Truth About Renewable Energy Adoption

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/energy-largets-project-fails/909/ The largest renewable energy project in history fails: only desert is left and we have lost $2 billion

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/biggest-corporate-welfare-scam-of-all-time-5625203?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge
Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam of All Time

https://mishtalk.com/economics/ford-loses-132000-on-each-ev-produced-good-news-ev-sales-down-20-percent/
Ford Loses $132,000 on Each EV Produced, Good News, EV Sales Down 20 Percent

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/fords-120000-loss-per-vehicle-shows-california-ev-goals-are-impossible-5641432?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge&src_src=partner&src_cmp=ZeroHedge
Ford’s $120,000 Loss Per Vehicle Shows California EV Goals Are Impossible

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/your-tax-dollars-work-75-billion-has-produced-just-7-charging-stations-across-four-states
Your Tax Dollars At Work: In Two Years, $7.5 Billion Has Produced Just 7 EV Charging Stations

If you’ve made it to the end of this Contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.

The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Europe Scraps Net Zero, Biden Should But Won’t, Why?

May 5, 2024

Europe Scraps Net Zero, Biden Should But Won’t, Why?

“Unaffordable climate commitments have two leftist British parties racing to exit stage left.”

Europeans Ditch Net Zero

The Wall Street Journal reports Europeans Ditch Net Zero, While Biden Clings to It

You know you’ve stumbled through the looking glass when European politicians start sounding saner on climate policy than the Americans do. Well here we are, Alice: Europeans are admitting the folly of net zero quicker than their American peers.

The latest example—perhaps “victim” is more apt—is Humza Yousaf, who resigned this week as Scotland’s first minister. That region within the U.K. enjoys substantial devolved powers over its own affairs, including on climate policy. An administration led by Mr. Yousaf’s left-leaning Scottish National Party had hoped to rush ahead of the national government in London in slashing carbon emissions.

Until, that is, someone noticed the costs. A recent report from the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee noted Scotland had fallen far behind on its climate goals. The government aimed to reduce by 20% the aggregate distance driven by Scottish motorists, compared with 2019 levels, but had no plan to accomplish the reduction in personal mobility by the 2030 deadline. To get back on track with the government’s goal of a transition to home electric heat pumps, Scotland would have to replace natural-gas fire boilers at a rate of more than 80,000 households a year by the end of the decade. That’s a big ask considering that in 2023 it managed 6,000 boiler replacements. The government resisted imposing an aviation tax to discourage excess flying. And so on.

Mr. Yousaf did the only thing he could under the circumstances: He all but abandoned net zero. His administration announced it is ditching firm annual emission-reduction targets in favor of fuzzier “carbon budgets.”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Cold Hard Truth About Renewable Energy Adoption

May 3, 2024

The Cold Hard Truth About Renewable Energy Adoption

The energy transition is essential but complex and challenging.
The pace of the transition and the balance between future and current energy security are key issues.
Economic and logistical barriers, as well as geopolitical and environmental concerns, need to be addressed for a successful transition.

The future of the global energy sector is caught up in a messy and misleading ideological debate. Depending on which politically informed echo chamber one inevitably finds themself confined to on social media, they are either told that the energy transition is a dangerous myth that will end in economic disaster and permanent rolling blackouts, or that clean energy is going to save the world overnight – as soon as conservatives get out of the way. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between.

The energy transition is strictly necessary. But it’s going to be very, very hard. It’s damaging to deny that there will almost certainly be shocks, missteps, and setbacks as we undergo one of the most disruptive chapters in industrial history. In large part we’re relying on untested and in many cases as-yet unproven technologies to emerge in the nick of time.

There’s a temptation to sugar-coat the scale of the imperative to make the energy transition more palatable and less daunting. But there’s no denying it – it’s a very uncomfortable, and even frightening, petition to be in. And there will be winners and losers as economic priorities shift – the energy transition is good for humanity as a whole, but it certainly isn’t good for everyone. Acknowledging these difficult truths is essential to properly planning for and managing humanity’s greatest cooperative project.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Build It, And The Wind Won’t Come

May 2, 2024

Build It, And The Wind Won’t Come

Weather-dependent generation sources are…weather dependent: Last year, despite adding 6.2 GW of new capacity, U.S. wind production dropped by 2.1%.

**Damaged wind turbines at the Punta Lima wind project, Naguabo, Puerto Rico, 2018. Photo: Wikipedia.**

Three years ago, in the wake of Winter Storm Uri, the alt-energy lobby and their many allies in the media made sure not to blame wind energy for the Texas blackouts. The American Clean Power Association (2021 revenue: $32.1 million) declared frozen wind turbines “did not cause the Texas power outages” because they were “not the primary cause of the blackouts. Most of the power that went offline was powered by gas or coal.”

NPR parroted that line, claiming, “Blaming wind and solar is a political move.” The Texas Tribune said it was wrong to blame alt-energy after Winter Storm Uri because “wind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.” The outlet also quoted one academic who said that natural gas was “failing in the most spectacular fashion right now.” Texas Tribune went on to explain, “Only 7% of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.”

In other words, there was no reason to expect the 33 GW of wind capacity that Texas had to deliver because, you know, no one expected wind energy to produce much power. Expectations? Mr. October? Playoff Jamal? Who needs them?

But what happens when you build massive amounts of wind energy capacity and it doesn’t deliver — not for a day or a week, but for six months, or even an entire year? T…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The largest renewable energy project in history fails: only desert is left and we have lost $2 billion

April 14, 2024

The largest renewable energy project in history fails: only desert is left and we have lost $2 billion

A renewable energy project that promised to change history seems to have failed. At the moment, there is only desert and an apparent loss of 2 billion dollars. Human beings are going through a period of energy transition. We need energy and several initiatives have already appeared that promise to exploit infinite and renewable energy.

Today Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CI–Theory Is Great, In Theory: More On Our ‘Renewable’ Energy Future

April 13, 2024

Today Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CI

February 13, 2023 (original posting date)

Monte Alban, Mexico (1988). Photo by author.

Theory Is Great, In Theory: More On Our ‘Renewable’ Energy Future

Quite often I get involved in online discussions with others about our predicament(s). Most of the time these are quite friendly in nature and a sharing of ideas and questions.

On occasion these turn into disagreements. And sometimes, unfortunately, these turn quite confrontational with me having to disengage from the dialogue due to the vitriol thrown at me — apparently I am not only anti-humanistic but a Big Oil shill, a climate change denier, and a fucking idiot/liberal/conservative/progressive/Malthusian, etc..

Once the ad hominem attacks begin, I usually just state we will have to agree to disagree and discontinue the interaction. I know people don’t want their beliefs challenged, they want them confirmed so if the interaction has gone sideways there’s little point to continue it. Few if any people change their beliefs due to a well-reasoned or evidence-based argument that runs counter to their own thoughts.

This said, most of the disagreements are civil and the issue stems from a divergence in whether we can ‘solve’ the problem/predicament we are focusing upon. I’ve found that the vast majority continue to believe that we can address the topic we’re discussing via some complex technology — usually non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies such as those that harness wind or sunshine to produce electricity (aka ‘renewables’).

While at one time during my fall into the rabbit’s hole of Peak Oil and all the related issues, I held out ‘hope’ for humanity and our planet. Nowadays, more often than not, I am tending towards there being no way out of the conundrum we walking, talking apes have led ourselves into. Neither time nor resources are on our side it would seem. Salvation, as it were, has been lost to the sands of time.

Here is one recent example with a fellow member of a Degrowth group I am a member of stemming from an article of The Honest Sorcerer’s that I posted to the group.

My original post:

Is There an Off-Ramp for Civilization?
Our high-tech civilization is like an ageing man in full denial of his mortality. It is eating his children just to…thehonestsorcerer.medium.com

LK: “Politics” is just a name for technology of resource allocation on a societal scale.

We’re currently using the 18th century technology based on exponential growth (investments are made to obtain money to make more investments), it’s called “capitalism”.

Degrowth is another technology of resource allocation, and the one we need, because exponential growth on a finite planet is not possible.

(Having said that, we still need to combine degrowth with all kinds of low-emissions energy sources like renewables and nuclear, and we need to work on extending the life of existing low-carbon energy sources for as long as possible)

My response:: While I agree that degrowth (and radical at that) is needed, the alternative energy-harvesting technologies to fossil fuels you suggest we need to pursue require huge carbon inputs for their construction (and in perpetuity), continue to contribute to the destruction of our biosphere via the massive mineral mining and processing necessary, and only serve as an attempt to sustain the unsustainable so end up making our fundament predicament of ecological overshoot even worse. We need to be pursuing a low-/no-tech future with one hell of a lot fewer people. It is increasingly looking like it will have to be Nature that takes us there…

LK: The science is quite clear, low carbon energy sources have much, much lower carbon intensity of energy generation over their lifetimes, and lifetime extension to optimise for energy production instead of returns on investment decreases that carbon intensity even further. And fossil fuels have an enormous mining impact.

This is the third line of defense of fossil fuel companies: first they were straight-out lying about climate change, then they were lying about whether climate change is caused by humans, now they are lying about relative impacts of fossil fuel vs low carbon technologies, and it apparently works.

Low-tech future doesn’t work, it’s just a lie fossil companies are telling us to keep burning fossil fuels. We’re a tool-using social species and we need tools to get out of the shit we got into by using tools.

We will have to agree to disagree.

First, it seems you are assuming a support for fossil fuels in my comment that is not present. One does not have to be in any way supportive of the continuation of our extraction and use of them to see that alternatives are in every way — upstream and downstream — still quite dependent upon them. In fact, if you look at the largest investors in support of ‘alternatives’, you will discover it is the large energy businesses (aka Big Oil). Why would that be? Perhaps because they know that fossil fuels are required in huge quantities for them.

Second, the view that only carbon emissions are important blinds people to all the other complexities concerning our predicament of ecological overshoot. Biodiversity loss, mostly because of land system changes brought on by human expansion, appears to be much more significant. A concerted push to adopt non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies will ensure continued destruction of our biosphere.

The current refrain seems to be “Complex technologies and human ingenuity will save us from our predicament of ecological overshoot and its various symptoms (e.g., biodiversity loss) because they’ve worked up to this point in our history”…except inductive reasoning/logic does not always work. Continual observations by the turkey of the farmer have provided nothing but overwhelming evidence and positive reinforcement that the farmer is a beneficent and thoughtful caregiver; right up until the day before Thanksgiving and the trip behind the barn to the killing cone.

You should look at the work of energy researcher Alice Friedemann and geologist Simon Michaux to understand better the limitations of the ‘solution’ referred to as our ‘energy transition’.

But you are correct that a low-tech future doesn’t work. It doesn’t work to support our unsustainable living arrangements but more importantly the power and wealth structures of the status quo…that is why the ruling caste is pushing ‘renewables’: to maintain/expand their share of a quickly-shrinking economic pie. And this is ultimately why we will pursue these complex technologies despite the impossibility of what their cheerleaders promise. The profiteers of our world stand to make one hell of a lot of money before it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

These images/memes perhaps sum my perspective up:

LK: There’s one thing that kills people pretty rapidly and effectively and that is the lack of energy.

You can either support low-carbon energy sources or you can support fossil fuels or you can support widespread energy poverty that kills a fuckton of people, and those will be mainly poor people in the Global South.

Degrowth is not anarcho-primitivism, it’s not about the remnants of humanity huddling in cold and without hospitals and sewage networks, it’s about building sustainable future around equitable use of energy for everyone.

But we need low-carbon energy, because climate change drives biodiversity loss, water crises (because rising oceans make a lot of areas lose their access to potable water) and other nasty third-order effects.

My response: Again, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Pre/history shows us overwhelmingly that the utopian future you imagine is not possible on a finite planet with 8 billion (and growing). It is denial/bargaining in the face of biogeophysical realities and limits. Ecological overshoot for homo sapiens will be, I am almost certain, dealt with by Nature, not us — particularly given all the claims/liens on future energy/resources in the form of quadrillions of dollars of debt/credit that currently exist and have been created to sustain our current arrangements with zero concern for the future from which the resources have been stolen.

LK: There’s a lot of research by degrowth theoreticians that demonstrates that we’re perfectly technologically capable of supporting 8 billion people on a finite planet, leaving 50% of it to wild nature. It just would be a different life than the US “cardboard houses in suburbia with 2,5 cars per family and 2+ hours of commuting daily, eating beef and flying regularly”.

It would require end of capitalism, though, which is why capitalists are promoting narratives of “we’re doomed, there’s nothing we can do, all alternatives are bad, I guess we’ll have to die off in the future, but so far, we’re bringing in record annual profits”.

My response: Theory is great, in theory. Reality is something quite different. Every complex society to date has perished/collapsed/declined — most before ‘capitalism’ ever existed. To believe we will do otherwise is, well, just denial/bargaining built upon a lot of assumptions and hope. We would be better to plan for a future much, much different than the one you paint. But, again, I think Nature is going to take care of this predicament for us.

After mostly finishing this contemplation I came across Gail Tverberg’s latest that provides some great insight into why the complex technologies many are arguing will help solve our energy dilemma will not.

Transitioning to an all electric economy requires too much complexity
Many people believe that wind, solar and electric vehicles are solutions to our energy problems. In this post I talk…ourfiniteworld.com

There are plenty of similar arguments out there if one so chooses to discover them and the overwhelming evidence that ‘renewables’ are not in any way going to do much except: add to the drawdown of finite resources; contribute to the continuous overloading of planetary sinks; provide more profits for the industrialists, financiers, and well-connected elite; and, sustain the misguided belief system that all is well for the most part, and human ingenuity and our technological prowess can solve any problem that stands in the way of some utopian future where we all (billions and billions of us) live in harmony with nature. Transcending the biological and physical constraints of existence upon a finite planet is well within our reach…if only you believe.

See especially:

Peak Everything, Overshoot, & Collapse
Preface. This is a book review of “In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on…energyskeptic.com

Home – Transformation of the Industrial System
I am developing a plan to transform our relationship between energy, minerals, and industrialization, as the existing…www.simonmichaux.com

If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers). Encouraging others to read my work is also much appreciated.

World’s biggest economies pumping billions into fossil fuels in poor nations

April 11, 2024

World’s biggest economies pumping billions into fossil fuels in poor nations

G20 countries spent $142bn in three years to expand operations despite a G7 pledge to stop doing so, study finds

The world’s biggest economies have continued to finance the expansion of fossil fuels in poor countries to the tune of billions of dollars, despite their commitments on the climate.

The G20 group of developed and developing economies, and the multilateral development banks they fund, put $142bn (£112bn) into fossil fuel developments overseas from 2020 to 2022, according to estimates compiled by the campaigning groups Oil Change International (OCI) and Friends of the Earth US.

Canada, Japan and South Korea were the biggest sources of such finance in the three years studied, and gas received more funding than either coal or oil.

The G7 group of biggest economies, to which Japan and Canada belong, pledged in 2022 to halt overseas funding of fossil fuels. But while funding for coal has rapidly diminished, finance for oil and gas projects has continued at a strong pace.

Some of the money is going to other developed economies, including Australia, but much of it is to the developing world. However, richer middle income countries still receive more finance than the poorest.

The most recent G7 pledge, in the study, is to phase out all overseas fossil fuel funding by the end of 2022. The OCI study concentrates on the period from the beginning of the fiscal year of 2020-21 for each country, to the end of the fiscal year of 2022-23.

However, the researchers also found that Japan had continued to make new fossil fuel investments overseas in the past few weeks, up to mid-March 2024, exploiting loopholes in its promise to end fossil fuel funding.

The World Bank provided about $1.2bn a year to fossil fuels over the three-year period, of which about two-thirds went to gas projects.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam of All Time

April 11, 2024

Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam of All Time

President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes. It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.

But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart. They pay billions in taxes.

The culprits here are the very companies that President Biden is in bed with: green-energy firms.

It turns out that despite all of the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in the United States, by far the biggest tax dodgers in the country are the wind and solar power industries. Over the past several decades, the green-energy lobby—what I call the climate-change-industrial complex—hasn’t been paying its fair share. That’s because the vast majority of these companies pay nearly zero income taxes.

But they wade in rivers of federal direct and indirect subsidies that keep these zombie companies alive. Over the past two decades, the renewable energy lobby has collected more than $250 billion in subsidies—payments that we’ve been assured over and over would be temporary. The argument for these grants, loans, tax abatements, and other sweetheart kisses is that these were “infant industries” in need of a Head Start program for CEOs. Except that these companies have never even reached puberty after all these years.

What’s worse is that President Biden keeps spoiling the children with lavish gifts for bad performance. A new report by tax expert Adam Michel at the Cato Institute finds that the green-energy subsidies—mostly created by Biden policies such as the so-called Inflation Reduction Act—will drain the Treasury of as much as $1.8 trillion over 10 years.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCVI–Technological ‘Breakthroughs’, Ponzi Schemes, and ‘Green’ Energy

April 5, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCVI

February 3, 2023 (original posting date)

Technological ‘Breakthroughs’, Ponzi Schemes, and ‘Green’ Energy

A collection of my recent comments on posts/articles that have been shared with me via FB groups/pages. I share these to provide further ‘insight’ into where I am coming from in my understanding/learning but also to share the differing opinions/beliefs that exist (see the last/third conversation).

January 31, 2023

Post by CM via Peak Oil FB group: Article posted (https://www.freethink.com/space/space-planes?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1675103347) and introductory paragraph:

“On January 19, Washington-based startup Radian Aerospace came out of stealth mode, announcing that it had secured $27.5 million in funding to develop the Radian One, a first-of-its-kind space plane that flies into orbit after taking off horizontally from the ground.”

CM’s introduction: I doubt, it’ll ever be developed.

My comment: Almost all such projects, breakthroughs, magical solutions, etc. are never developed or become a literal money pit. This is one of the ways ‘hope’ is kept alive, but also how many fund their careers. Near-limitless cheap and clean fusion energy is one such animal. Always just another handful of years away. Keep funnelling funds to the industry/research teams and we can achieve it…nothing is impossible for humanity if we put our collective minds to it.

January 30, 2023

Some back and forth dialogue between SC and me in response to my last Contemplation via Degrowth FB group:

SC: The high immigration growthist policies of Canada and Australia amounts to a continuation of colonization. It seems indigenous people are so caught up in the rhetoric of diversity that they don’t call it out as such. ??

Me: That’s true. I do believe, however, that the primary purpose of such immigration policies is not for the virtue-signalling reasons provided to the masses by the government but to keep the Ponzi that is the economic system sputtering along for a few more quarters/years. With domestic populations not reproducing at a fast enough rate to keep an economy expanding, so-called ‘advanced’ economies need to steal ‘consumers’ from other countries. Much tougher for the ruling caste to extract their profits from the ‘national treasury’ when an economy is contracting.

SC: Very true. I’m glad you don’t fall into the fallacy of fearing an aging population, too, btw. https://population.org.au/discussion-papers/ageing/

Me: I would argue that the fears around a demographic cliff are mostly held by and perpetuated by economists that know (but cannot divulge openly) that our monetary/financial/economic systems are little more than a complex and very fragile Ponzi scheme (that they have helped to create and inflate). In fact, the truth of the matter is probably closer that everyone knows these are little more than Ponzi schemes but given we are all caught up in them and completely dependent upon them we all look the other way…

SC: Yeah, I’m not so sure there are so many aware people… mixed feelings if it’s true ay…

Me: I think it’s part and parcel of our ability and tendency to deny reality. See the work of Ajit Varki https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-08774-006

A rather contentious back and forth (with several others involved as well that I have not included) with one individual on the Peak Oil FB group we are all members of. The comments are in response to an announcement by AZ that he is interviewing Geological Survey of Finland geologist Simon Michaux and seeking questions to ask:

SP: Perhaps ask him why his assumptions on the amount of infrastructure required for energy transition is so radically different than other professional energy system modelers (who have actually had their work peer reviewed). Specifically, he assumes 150X the level of stationary battery storage requirements of others. This error then drives his other (now spectacularly incorrect) conclusions about the levels of resources required. https://twitter.com/aukehoe…/status/1594084375972712448…

Me: Auke Hoekstra’s career depends almost entirely upon the narrative he is peddling. All his income appears to come from the idea that investment in renewables is well worth it. Research grants (as a university researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology). Capital investments (as program director of Neon Research and Zenmo.com). He is highly incentivized to persuade others that investment in renewables (and his research) is worthwhile; and that critics of this are wrong. Not sure I see such bias in Simon Michaux’s work.

SP: it’s not just Auke. He just compiled the most articulate single response I have seen. It’s pretty much every single professional energy systems designer. The utilities, the capital, the whole space. Not one single professional thinks multiple days of battery storage are necessary. Let alone weeks. But then along comes Simon with his PowerPoint, and a bunch of media articles start popping up about how energy transition is not possible because we can’t build enough batteries, based on Simon’s bad forecast. At best, it wastes everybody’s time debunking his nonsense. More likely it adds enough fear uncertainty and doubt that we lean on fossil a while longer, with all the associated ecological impacts. He isn’t helping.

Me: What I find ‘interesting’, given you raise the issue of ecological impacts, is how often (always?) the ecological destruction that accompanies ‘renewables’ is left out of the equation; especially given its destruction has led to extreme biodiversity loss, probably our more and most pressing negative impact of our ecological overshoot. Those who cheerlead a shift from fossil fuels deny/ignore/rationalise away those impacts from the huge amount of fossil fuels that are still required (and may be in perpetuity) to produce alternatives and all the mining for the mineral resources to make them functional. Rare (in fact, mostly nonexistent) is the recognition by renewable cheerleaders (most who claim to be supporting it for its positive environmental/ecological aspects) that they too would destroy our natural world — particularly given how much destruction would be required to even replace a fraction of what fossil fuels currently provide.

SP: the “ecological destruction” from (most responsible) renewables (meaning not palm oil, gen 1 biofuels, etc) is minuscule compared to the fossil sources they are replacing. These impacts are not ignored. They are just a whole lot less worse. The ugly trend of the last year is that when new cleaner tech shows up, all the sudden the hard right “come and take it” types that will not stop burning oil for any reason, are suddenly environmentalists that give a sit about child labor in the Congo. Over just that one specific thing. It’s a delaying tactic, and somebody is paying for a campaign to signal boost that narrative over the last few months.

Me: As Upton Sinclair has been credited with stating: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” You seem to have (conveniently?) overlooked the dependency of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies upon fossil fuels; so, if your argument is based upon ‘renewables’ being less destructive then fossil fuels, there is a huge gap in your logic…and you are simply rationalising away the environmental/ecological destruction that accompanies complex technologies.

SP: let’s make it crayon-level simple: I assert that renewables are capable of making more renewables, and enough net energy in top of it to keep something resembling civilization running. Others on here assert that because the systems are currently running in fossil, when they switch to renewables they will somehow cease to operate, and therefore transition to renewables is impossible. I find this assertion absurd on its face. We have and will go around in circles in this until so much of the system is transitioned that folks like Eric have to find a new asteroid or something else to profess the imminent collapse of civilization over. All of this is a distraction from the OP, which is about Simon’s work. I pointed out an error, and so far the only refutation of that has been character attacks on me or the authors I cite. Not anything to do with the actual substance of the argument.

Me: Having renewables capable of making more renewables is an assertion that may be true on a small-scale level but there is no proof in the pudding that this can be done at a scale required to support much of anything, and certainly not what most would consider ‘civilisation’. For the sake of argument, let’s assume this is possible. This does nothing to address the continued ecological destruction that would result from it. Nothing. The mining. The processing of materials. The transportation. The construction. The after-life disposal/reclamation. All are destructive and will simply compound negatively the already fragile situation we have created over the past couple of centuries of unfettered growth.

SP: really? Because we extract many orders of magnitude more fossil fuels (which cannot be recycled at end of life) than we do the minerals required for energy transition. The amount of mining required will be vastly reduced. You could counteract all new mineral requirements for energy transition by reducing the amount of land used for cow pasture by 1%.

Me: As for pointing out that those who tend to push for ‘renewables’ tend to have a vested interest (almost always economic in nature) in that narrative is not a character attack. It is a reminder that ‘objectivity’ is rare, if even at all possible, when attempting to support one’s beliefs…this is true for all of us. Now ramp up ‘renewable’ resources to ‘replace’ fossil fuels and take a different look at the chart you shared. I am not arguing in favour of fossil fuels. I am arguing both are destructive and we cannot continue to do anywhere close to the damage we are already doing. Pushing for renewables to replace fossil fuels is attempting to sustain the unsustainable while continuing to destroy the planet.

This is why the energy transition will be reliant on the mining industry
Minerals like cobalt, lithium, and nickel are common in the make-up of a range of tech products. Image: Unsplash/…www.weforum.org

And finally, let’s not lose sight of the inconvenient fact that almost every promise of decarbonising/cleaning up/electrifying/net zeroing the industrial processes needed for ‘renewables’ are not based upon present, at-scale realities but upon accounting gimmicks, laboratory or small-scale prototypes, and as-yet-to-be-hatched chickens. There is nothing presently in place that comes remotely close to the promised land of “…in the future…” (and by the way, please invest in our research…)

SP: You just aren’t paying attention. Here is a good starting point on green steel. There is a ton out there on cement too. https://twitter.com/valenvogl/status/1620085082718617603…

Me: We all believe what we want to believe…including magical solutions that will allow humanity to continue pursuing our utopian dreams on a finite planet. I think we will leave it at agreeing to disagree. In a world of quickly declining surplus energy, continuing population growth (many with aspirations to achieve higher economic ‘prosperity’), significant diminishing returns on increasing resource scarcity, a complex yet gargantuan Ponzi-type economic system predicated upon hundreds of trillions of dollars of unplayable debt (quadrillions if we include derivatives and shadow banking), escalating geopolitical tensions, building totalitarianism, overburdened planetary sinks, massive biodiversity loss, increasing frequency and power of extreme weather events, etc., etc., I have a very, very, very difficult time having faith in all the as-yet-to-be-hatched techno-promises (especially at scale) particularly since they tend to be coming from those who profit from the continuation of the narrative that all problems are solvable — as long as we believe and divert lots of money/resources to them…

*****

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCI–Mainstream Green Narratives: It’s About Selling More Industrial Products

April 4, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCI

January 16, 2023 (original posting date)

Mainstream Green Narratives: It’s About Selling More Industrial Products

A follow-up to Contemplation LXXXIX that responded to the idea that if enough people found true contentment and happiness by cooperating with others, humanity would discover a ‘oneness’ that could ‘achieve truly coherent action’; all within the context of pursuing a ‘sustainable’ future. The individual that shared this notion added a link to a UK House of Lords publication as a follow-up, suggesting it demonstrates ‘an evolution of ideas’. The following is my response after reading the document.

Skimmed through the document. Here are a few clues as to why what is written will not and cannot work, and, in fact, will exacerbate our overshoot:
“…through adopting new technologies…[that] will bring…economic benefits.”
“… through technological innovations and their uptake…[by] making it easier…to adopt new technologies…”
“…focus [upon]…adopting ultra-low emission vehicles…low-carbon heating technologies…”
“…several positive trends such as…growing uptake of electric vehicles…”
“…stimulate investment and innovation…”
“…focus on the rollout of low-emission vehicles…”
“…new developments [of public transportation]…”

Then there’s the entire mythical narrative around ‘net zero’ and achieving it via non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies and their associated industrial products (when really it’s about dependence upon unproven technologies and manipulative accounting). And one way of achieving this is the ‘phasing out’ of fossil fuel-based products (conveniently leaving out the inconvenient facts that ‘green/clean’ energy products rely heavily upon fossil fuels both up and down their production, maintenance, and disposal/reclamation industrial processes).

While there is much, much more in the document, these examples point to the undeniable fact that much of what is being proposed relies upon the (mandated?) adoption of ‘green/clean’ industrial products, and the continuation of, for the most part, our status quo systems. They’re simply tweaked a bit to reduce our cognitive dissonance.

Much of the document relies upon marketing/propaganda to drive behavioural change, learning from what was achieved without much pushback during the pandemic. In fact, I get the sense that the document is a stepping stone (slippery slope?) towards what some analysts have predicted: widespread pandemic-type lockdowns in the guise of combatting climate change.

And I cannot help but interpret this as further confirmation of my growing belief that this is primarily (totally?) about narrative control and forced adoption of industrial products by those who own/control the industries and resources as they attempt to consolidate/maintain/enlarge their slice of an ever-shrinking economic pie as we increasingly bump up against the limits to growth on a finite planet. To say little about the blindness to the many layers of our predicament, especially when it comes to energy and other finite resources.

My ‘fear’ is that we will do almost exactly what is outlined here because rather than challenge or disrupt the status quo power and wealth structures of the globe’s ruling caste it actually enhances them; but, as demonstrated in this document, can be wrapped up in a veil of ‘green’ and marketed to the masses as another beneficent policy/action by the ruling class for the masses. Perhaps this image sums it up best:

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Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 2

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