{"id":68224,"date":"2024-05-19T14:54:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T19:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68224"},"modified":"2024-05-19T14:54:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T19:54:30","slug":"a-renewable-energy-transition-violates-the-maximum-power-principle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68224","title":{"rendered":"A Renewable Energy Transition Violates The Maximum Power Principle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Renewable Energy Transition Violates The Maximum Power Principle<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Energy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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We all want solutions to the world\u2019s many crises but do we understand the underlying problems?<\/p>\n

Everything in nature, including human society, relies on energy for production, consumption, recycling, and sustainability. Therefore, to understand things, we must first examine how energy is turned into work and power.<\/p>\n

Steel, concrete, plastic, and fertilizer are fundamental to modern civilization yet we have no idea how to make any of them at scale without fossil fuels. Those who think that the solution to our climate crisis is to end the use of fossil fuels do not understand this. Ending fossil fuels would cause society to collapse, and result in more short-term human death and suffering than is expected even in the worst-case scenarios for global heating.<\/p>\n

Those who think that a solution is to substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels don\u2019t understand this either. Even if true, we\u2019re a long way from that. At present, wind and solar account for only two-and-half percent of global energy consumption, and all renewables\u2014including hydroelectric and nuclear energy\u2014account for only seven percent using the\u00a0direct equivalent method<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The larger problem is that energy substitution is only a theory. It is naive and flawed because it only considers\u00a0amounts<\/em>\u00a0of energy while ignoring\u00a0rates<\/em>\u00a0of energy<\/em>\u00a0output.<\/p>\n

Society runs on\u00a0power<\/em>, not energy. Energy is the potential to do work. Energy must be converted into work for anything to happen in the physical world. Work takes place when energy is transferred to an object by application of force along a displacement.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Renewable Energy Transition Violates The Maximum Power Principle We all want solutions to the world\u2019s many crises but do we understand the underlying problems? Everything in nature, including human society, relies on energy for production, consumption, recycling, and sustainability. Therefore, to understand things, we must first examine how energy is turned into work and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8195,33950,643,674],"class_list":["post-68224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-art-berman","tag-maximum-power-principle","tag-power","tag-renewable-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68225,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68224\/revisions\/68225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}