Degrowth Can Work(nature.com) |
Degrowth Can Work(nature.com) |
We don't have a choice, we don't have serious replacements to fossil energy. Energy will go down, and therefore we have to prepare for that. Either we will degrow by force (without having prepared anything, it will mean a lot of poverty and instability), or by choice (which hopefully will look more like sobriety than poverty).
The sooner we accept that, the better.
Not in any consistent way. Not only does energy mix change over time (becoming less fossil-fuel heavy), so does energy intensity: US energy intensity (energy consumption per $ real GDP) was halved between 1983 and 2020. [0]
[0] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48976
> and we are passing the global peaks.
[citation needed]
From the 1970s to about 2006, predictions of an oil production peak between 1999 and 2004 were common (yes, some of those were predictions the peak had already been passed), and predictions have moved out considerably since then (as have estimates of the likely post-peak curve shape.)
> Fossil fuels will go down, and therefore the GDP will follow.
US fossil fuel consumption has gone down since about 2006, GDP has not followed.
> Either we will degrow by force (without having prepared anything, it will mean a lot of poverty and instability), or by choice (which hopefully will look more like sobriety than poverty).
There is no reason to believe either is necessity. I know it gives people a feeling of superiority to cosplay being willing to face harsh realities that others aren't, but that's all it is—fantasy cosplay.
Do you account for the fossil fuel consumption of everything that the US imports? Or does your own fantasy cosplay make you feel superior by thinking that the fossil fuel consumption of everything you import from China does not warm your climate?
Not sure of that. I think we actually have, we are just not serious enough about deploying them. At this point we should be already deploying new solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear reactors at crazy rates (~10% per year). The Apollo project of our era. Yet we don't.
Anyway, a good treatment on the potential for collapse is "Before the Collapse: A Guide to the Other Side of Growth", by Ugo Bardi. I recommend the reading, despite being left in a doom mood after finishing: https://terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/coll.pdf
Renewables are growing like crazy, that's true. They are just totally based on fossil fuels (check the total energy that was used in order to produce and bring your photovoltaic panel on your roof) and completely marginal. We have never deployed renewables at the scale of fossil fuels in history, I don't get how nobody seems to believe it may be hard. I believe it just doesn't scale at all.
And we actually have good examples: look at Germany in the last decade. They removed their nuclear plants and spent a ton on renewables. And they had to re-open coal mines because... well because when there is no sun and no wind, you need something else. Not even talking about LNG imports.
Nuclear reactors are nice, but for some reason people don't want them (Germany spent a decade removing them, Spain is apparently considering doing the same). Still they won't replace fossil fuels, but I do believe that we will need nuclear reactors (on top of our reduction in energy consumption).
Won't that create more wars first? I feel like most of those articles live in fairy tail land where war doesn't exist and we live in peace.
I don't see that as a fairy tale land.