Can We, or Can't We Transition?
.. successfully from fossils to renewables
Some Christmas cheer.
A friend passed on a blog that essentially says we may as well give up trying to transition away from fossil fuels to renewables, because it’s too hard.
I beg to differ ….
The blog first appeared about a year ago on a climate contrarian website. The author appears to be a frequent contributor. His argument is based on the graph below.
He argues that the projected increases in energy demands are so large that it will be physically impossible to meet them by building non-fossil alternatives fast enough.
The plot shows that energy consumption has more or less doubled in the 40 years since 1980, and is projected to continue that rate of increase. It took millennia to reach that half-way point, and most of that increase occurred in the 150 years or so since the start of the industrial revolution.
Depressing, I agree. It will be hard to meet those future energy demands. But not hopeless. We’ve been able to sustain exactly that rate of increased energy capacity for the last 40 years, so with the necessary change in deployment of personnel, why not? There’s no shortage of people.
It’ll be a hard task. But much easier if we can continue to improve energy efficiency, and population growth inefficiency. Both are happening. So that curve will soon start to roll over, if it hasn’t already.
Energy use in developed countries like the USA has been static since the turn of the century, despite continuing increases in their population.
The global rate of population growth is already slowing, and by some forecasts it has already maxed out. If so, that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time! A glimmer of hope. Some are concerned that China’s population will increase rapidly now that their 1-child policy has been scrapped. But the slowdown there began decades before that policy was implemented in 1980. By and large, educated parents don’t seem to want hordes of kids to burden their lifestyles. Africa has by far the highest birth rate at present. Improving education on that continent is key.
It’s worth a try.
Thanks for reading this. Previous posts on the intersection between Ozone, UV, Climate, and Health can be found at my UV & You area at Substack. Click below to subscribe for occasional free update