{"id":68463,"date":"2024-06-03T18:48:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68463"},"modified":"2024-06-03T18:48:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T23:48:01","slug":"the-energy-transition-story-has-become-self-defeating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68463","title":{"rendered":"The Energy Transition Story Has Become Self-Defeating"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Energy Transition Story Has Become Self-Defeating<\/a><\/h3>\n

We need another kind of transformation more than ever<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A place and time for magical thinking. Photo by\u00a0Dollar Gill<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

There is still a widespread belief that it is possible to transition away from fossil fuels, a myth which is contradicted by an ever growing body of evidence. Not that the previous model\u200a\u2014\u200abased on coal, oil and gas\u200a\u2014\u200awas even a slight bit more sustainable: we are talking about finite resources after all. However, the \u201cenergy transition\u201d was a far more easier sell, than admitting that we have reached the end of growth, and that a long winding road back to a much simpler life is what awaits. Meanwhile, the real crisis (climate change), has proved to be a far more complex topic than what could be \u201ctackled\u201d by turning a few coal fired power plants off, and wishing for the magic unicorn of the Hydrogen economy to materialize\u2026 Where did it all go wrong? What kind of transition is possible then?<\/em><\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s start by making a simple statement first: There has been no energy transition\u00a0ever\u00a0<\/em>taking place in human history. Neither in the 19th century, when coal came into the picture, nor in the 20th with the advent of nuclear, or in the 21st, for that matter, with the widespread adoption of wind and solar. As the term implies, it would\u2019ve required us to abandon a viable energy source in favour of another, ramping down the old one in advantage of the new. That would\u2019ve meant leaving vast reserves of the old energy source out there, untapped. That has never happened, and never will, for a simple reason: the\u00a0Maximum Power Principle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

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The Energy Transition Story Has Become Self-Defeating We need another kind of transformation more than ever A place and time for magical thinking. Photo by\u00a0Dollar Gill\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash There is still a widespread belief that it is possible to transition away from fossil fuels, a myth which is contradicted by an ever growing body of evidence. Not […]<\/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":[5930,33950],"class_list":["post-68463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-energy-transition","tag-maximum-power-principle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68463","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=68463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68464,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68463\/revisions\/68464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}