Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is an energy historian and says that energy transitions are close to impossible as evidence by despite the massive amounts of renewable energy being added.
With extra energy supplementing previous sources of energy not displacing them.
Alongside the Jevon’s Paradox which states that gains in energy efficiency would lead to the use of more energy and not staying at the previous level.
Is he right? Or do you agree with him.
I also heard there is not enough rare earth minerals like copper to transition to renewable energy.
The historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz says that the transition to carbon free energy sources is impossible and that it’s almost unheard of to have a “energy transition”. How right is he?
byu/Konradleijon inenergy
by Konradleijon
20 comments
Yeah, he’s totally wrong. It’s happening right now.
Our new generative technology is far more efficient and burns no fuels. And our consumption technologies are also much more efficient so we’re getting more out from less in. Advanved economies are seeing low consumption demand growth as most people have their needs (perhaps not all their wants) met. The growth in demand is from under serviced economies.
There are also billions of under serviced consumers in less developed nations who ate leap frogging old tech they were excluded from and going straight to new renewables and building these grids ground up. They are never going to use the old ways.
Did this brilliant historian write his thesis under the light of his whale oil lantern?
“He denounces the obsession with technological solutions to climate change and advocates a reduction in the use of materials and energy.”
He advocates poverty and mass death and largely keeping undeveloped countries in their current state of poverty. Any country who goes with these policies will do so at their own peril.
We no longer burn whale oil for energy. Material and energy revolutions are real and to assume that humanity will be locked into our current state of development for all time is asinine.
Several things to unpack here.
First of all: Have we historically made an energy transition? No. We’ve so far only managed to transform our energy mix by adding new sources – not really replacing the existing ones. As a species, we still burn more wood today than at any point in history. We still burn more coal today than at any point in history. We still use more hydro, uranium, wind, solar, than at any point in history. But does that mean that it’s inherently impossible to phase out energy sources? I think that’s a spurious claim. Just look, for instance, at how countries in Nortwestern Europe are right now phasing out coal from the energy mix, simply because it can be replaced by other sources that are cleaner, more efficient, and cheaper. Why wouldn’t we see this on a global scale, in time?
Jevon’s Paradox is also a good thing to be aware of, but it’s not a natural law. There are many areas where more efficiency means less energy consumption. For instance, changing from an ICEV car to an electric vehicle means you’ll use 60-80% less energy. But you won’t drive 3-4x more for that reason, and so the gross energy use goes down. It’s true that for e.g. lights, switching to LED has made lights so energy efficient, people essentially don’t bother turning them off when leaving a room. But it’s not the same as Jevon’s Paradox making less energy use impossible.
On rare earth minerals: There is enough plenty. The entire planet is made of them. The problem is not the rarity but the rarity of concentrations that are high enough to feasibly mine. However, we’re continuously finding and developing new deposits. Furthermore, as technology progresses, we’re finding ways around this, e.g. replacing one mineral for another (like, aluminum instead of copper, or coming up with new batteries that don’t rely on the same scarce resources.
I think he is being overly contrarian in some aspects. The energy transition is absolutely necessary and there are historical examples that he ignores or dismisses. England used to be largely powered by charcoal, until they almost ran out of trees and found an alternative in coal. Some jurisdictions have eliminated coal generation of electricity, and yeah, coal is still used in steel, but that doesn’t negate the other accomplishment. And it ignores that we are also developing alternatives to coal use in steel.
I also think his focus on “using less”, while critical, still isn’t enough and that along with an energy transition will be required.
But, I do agree that the energy transition will be a monumental and unprecedented task that is going to be a lot harder than most people think and it’s quite likely it won’t be achieved in the 30 years we have.
I also agree with his point that more people need to be talking about degrowth, and how that can be made to happen in a way that isn’t completely destructive.
I’ve not read his work, but it sounds wrong.
The Economist Ed Conway has a book called Material World where he examines our use of Salt, Oil, Coal, Copper, Lithium and Iron/Steel.
The coal, oil and Lithium chapters in particular are relevant to this topic, in that we used to burn charcoal, then moved to coal at twice the energy density, then onto oil and gas with increasing densities. Ed Conway refers to those as Energy Transitions. E.g; the UK moving from Charcoal to coal on the 1800s doubled the effective GDP compared to France who were still using charcoal till the end of the century.
With Lithium and Green power we’re moving back a little on the available energy density in the power source, but from many examples in the book he examines the technological ingenuity for each material and how we’ve overcome problems and got more efficient in our use of the current fuel source for the time.
If you look at Charcoal and Coal usage, they used to be our primary sources of fuel, yet have been replaced and superseded almost completely.
Even in steel manufacturing, electric arc forging and recycling steel is negating the requirement for one of the major uses of coal currently. And there are trials for replacing gas in steel plants with blue/green hydrogen.
RE the concerns about copper, he also explores this. If I recall correctly there’s currently 40 years worth of known copper we’re aware of at current rates, but we’re getting more efficient at extracting lower percentages which should extend that for a period yet.
JB Fressoz sounds like the latest scaremonger in a long line of people who are concerned about resources running out, and so far we keep finding ways to make all these guys wrong.
He’s not right at all.
History is filled with energy transitions.
But that is beside the point.
Don’t ask historians about the reasons for our inevitable transition to sustainable energy. Their work is more qualitative than quantitative. Historians aren’t even asking the right questions, much less looking at the key data. Instead, ask physicists, biologists, network scientists, and systems engineers.
Underlying the need for the transition to sustainables are a few a simple facts:
Our ever-growing, ever-adapting, and mostly urban socioeconomic networks depend on getting the cheapest available energy.
Their historic growth follows more-than-exponential curves that will soon crash into a hard barrier and quickly begin to deteriorate if they continue to exist within the closed system of extracting finite fossil fuels from the Earth.
The pace of technological innovation is scaling exponentially, fueled by our socioeconomic expansion.
*. *. *.
Illustration: Bacteria colony growing in a petrie dish surviving on a finite sugar-based solution. Its growth also follows an exponential curve, doubling one minute at a time… For most of the history of the colony, everything seems fine. If it has a 60 minute supply of sugar solution, a bacterial historian might scarcely even take notice of the colony’s exponential nature, and its energy supply will appear more than adequate. In fact, it will not even be visible to the naked eye for most of its existence.
At minute 54 it fills 1/64 of the dish.
At minute 56 it fills 1/16 of the dish.
At minute 58 it fills 1/4 of the dish.
It is only filling half the petrie dish at minute 59.
One minute later, it is Game Over.
*. *. *.
Comparing fossil fuel energy efficiency gains to sustainable energy gains is apples-to-oranges.
Solar, wind, and wave energy are basically infinite open-system power sources. Advances in and adoption of the associated tech are coming at an exponential rate, even as fossil fuel extraction becomes harder and more expensive.
The energy we get from just one day of sunlight massively dwarfs what is needed from available from fossil fuels.
This transition is happening, or we are fucked.
No matter how difficult or impossible this transition will be we must do it, either we transition asap or life on this planet will suffer immensely.
“That’s like your opinion, man” – The Dude
Human history says we have four before. Ocean liners did not always use oil to travel
No. Technology hasn’t been invented yet, but we’re close.
Many things that have never happened before have happened in the last 100 years. Mankind split the atom. Terrible diseases have been eradicated. The Eagles won a Super Bowl.
Before the steam engine, I’m sure he would have said we’d never replace horses and oxen.
I’ve a MSc in renewable energy and voices like this don’t do anyhting but give far-right uncles on Twitter more “proof” to throw into their family chat.
It’s like people in 1910 arguing against automobiles because they wholeheartedly stand behind improving a horse’s diet so it’s even faster.
So let’s not take anti-progression narratives seriously and realise that many scientists are seeking personal traction, not actual progress.
Well, tell the whale oil merchants of 1800’s New England that ‘old energy sources’ remain in place with new ones.
This is a short-sided view of things. If a source of energy becomes uneconomic, we’ll abandon it. If we have technological capability and political consensus to replace a harmful energy source, we can transition away from it. In the process of transitioning, we’ll achieve ‘economies of scale’ and the innovation that will further reduce costs, making the next thing more economically attractive…
Jevon’s Paradox was an observation from the 1800s not a rule. It may have been true then but not now. Just think about it. When electricity was expensive and scarce lowering the price of a task (efficiency) causes more use. Now electricity prices are not the limiting factor in most tasks. You can only drive so far or do so many loads of laundry. There are other limiting factors. Now when you have more efficiency it just lowers electrical use.
Use my house as an example, replacing appliances and changing a couple of windows lowered my electricity use. Same activity – lower use.
This is the second time I have seen Jevon’s Paradox mentioned lately. I don’t know who is peddling this talking point but it’s clearly not true. The sad thing is that I think for some people it doesn’t have to be true, it only has to sound slightly plausible if you don’t think about it.
What does a historian know about energy? Does he also have a relevant degree in engineering?
Zero right.
Everybody knows that it is common sense to visit the gynecologist when you have a toothache.
He is certainly right about one thing: the fact that gains in energy efficiency does not result in a proportional decrease in energy use. I read a study on energy use in Danish houses several years ago. Energy efficiency has increased dramatically over the past 50 years in terms of heating, and the researchers wanted to figure out how that is reflected on the heating bills. The energy savings were not just smaller than expected, they were almost non-existent. Instead of saving money on heating bills, most home owners instead simply increase their comfort level. 50 years ago, people would put on sweaters during the winter and keep a lower indoor temperature than during the summer, and there was a higher tendency to only heat the rooms that are in use. Today, many people keep indoor temperatures at 20-24°C year round in every room in the house, perhaps with the exception of a slightly colder bedroom, but the temperature difference from 50 years ago is similar here as well.
It seems that when people don’t have high economic incentives to save energy, they won’t do it. They become lazy and increase their level of comfort instead of saving on their energy bills.
I think this is part of the explanation for why energy use continues to increase despite huge gains in energy efficiency in practically every sector. Higher production and consumption of goods and services obviously also plays a central role, but I don’t think enough people realise how wasteful most people are/have become with their energy use.
He’s 101% correct.
Major energy source is still burning wood, and majority of cars, ships and trains still use steam engines around the world.
Most houses are still lit from kerosene lamps.
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