Limits to #Green #Energy Leading to #Unsustainable #Future - Do the Numbers

Editor's Comments

To be brief, in this post we daringly bring together the critical observations and salient conclusions of three of the planet's top researchers and thinkers. To a large degree, they follow  the path created, in 1972, by the researchers from MIT who wrote and published the book 'Limits To Growth.' Over 30 million copies were sold internationally - but its thesis, models, and outcomes were sadly not accepted nor embraced by leaders in economics, business, religions, academics, and politics - who all generally wanted to maintain a business as usual approach and pursue infinite growth on a finite planet without regard for the dire consequences. Was it just their self-interest and greed?

The consequences and various symptoms of unbridled growth in a finite context are now abundantly clear and self-evident in terms of overpopulation, complete resource depletion, climate change, ecocide, with the related sixth species extinction, and ultimately economic and civilization collapse.  We were warned; but failed to take arms against these crafty, clever, invisible demons of physics, mathematics, and nature. Nor did we pay any concern to their exponential powers and outcomes; which no doubt, as the late Dr. Albert A Bartlett points out, is one of the greatest shortcomings of humanity.

As mentioned, this post incorporates the work and research of three leading contemporary thinkers who follow the reasoning of growth limits and the consequential physical shortages to be created - that are sure to lead to hyperinflation causing the collapse of economies and civilizations. There are many nations that are already experiencing these terrible circumstances. Gail Tverberg, Chris Clugston, and Paul Cheferka are the leading forward progressive thinkers whose works we will briefly summarize here.

Along with climate change, ecocide and massive non-vertebrate species extinction Gail points out that we are also on course to run out of critical fossil fuel energy sources in less than 50 years (2070)  and that it remains highly unlikely we can transition to Green Energy renewable sources due to limitations and constraints imposed by storage and intermittency - making them impractical and unreliable. Moreover, a quantity of fossil fuels will still be needed to operationalize these energy sources.  

Chris Clugston puts another bullet in the 'Green Energy Fairy Tale, by crunching the numbers and concluding that we will run out of the critical NNRs needed to sustain our 300-year-old experiment with the industrial, consumer, military, congressional complex, in 2050. In other words, there will be no materials available to build solar panels, wind turbines, hydro plants, and fission or fusion nuclear plants. Without fossil or non-fossil energy sources, we cannot sustain economic industrial activity in any form - the writing is hence on the proverbial wall.

So in face of all the logic, facts, science, and exponential mathematics why did we continue to grow our populations and economies? Was it simple self-interest, power, and greed? Paul Chefurka takes us into much deeper reasoning that asserts that despite our cognitive abilities and talents we are governed by the same laws of the universe as all other species. We are no different than bacteria in a Petri bowl or yeast - in that the only choice they/we have is to continue to grow, survive, and procreate until our habitat that allows this growth environment is gone. Entropy is a cruel mistress.

To summarize, we are on a population and economic growth path governed and driven by Entropic laws - de-growthing to a lower state of growth is practically, politically, and economically impossible as asset valuations depend upon going-concern assumptions. Without them asset values will dramatically collapse and so will the fractional-reserve global banking system, and thus all forms of sovereign and cryptocurrencies will become worthless without the energy and materials sources required to keep our global economies running.

So what do we do? In this regard, Paul provides us with his analytical wisdom acknowledging that we are dealing with a multi-variable complexity that can produce combinations and permutations of untold outcomes. 

We are in the hands of destiny. 

We are in the hands of finite energy and materials. 

We are in the hands of Entropy.

So, as Paul says, 'eat, drink and be mindful...'

T A McNeil

Founder CEO

First Financial Insights

 

Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer

Posted on February 9, 2022, by Gail Tverberg

Figure 1. Wind, solar and hydro as a share of total energy consumption for selected parts of the world, based on BP’s 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy data. Russia+ is Russia and its affiliates in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

We have been told that intermittent electricity from wind and solar, perhaps along with hydroelectric generation (hydro), can be the basis of a green economy. Things are increasingly not working out as planned, however. Natural gas or coal used for balancing the intermittent output of renewables is increasingly high-priced or not available. It is becoming clear that modelers who encouraged the view that a smooth transition to wind, solar, and hydro is possible have missed some important points.

Let’s look at some of the issues: (Provided are the key areas of concern. For the detailed facts and discourse please read Gail's  attached report)

[1] It is becoming clear that intermittent wind and solar cannot be counted on to provide adequate electricity supply when the electrical distribution system needs them.

[2] Adequate storage for electricity is not feasible in any reasonable timeframe. This means that if cold countries are not to “freeze in the dark” during winter, fossil fuel backup is likely to be needed for many years in the future.

[3] After many years of subsidies and mandates, today’s green electricity is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to keep our current economy operating.

[4] Even as a percentage of electricity, rather than total energy, renewables still comprised a relatively small share in 2020.

Figure 2. Wind, solar and hydro as a share of total electricity supply for selected parts of the world, based on BP’s 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy data.

[5] Most modelers have not understood that reserve to production ratios greatly overstate the amount of fossil fuels and other minerals that the economy will be able to extract.

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Figure 3. Reserve to production ratios for several minerals, based on data from BP’s 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy.

[6] The world economy seems already to be reaching limits on the extraction of coal and natural gas to be used for balancing electricity provided by intermittent renewables.

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Editor's Added Chart:

To add to the concern and support with facts that the global economy is reaching its limits - the trends in US inflation demonstrate a breakout that is heading towards an even higher rate as the shortage and  balance between supplies of key energy, agricultural, minerals, and metals (NNRs) and demand is forever widening. In fact, most NNRs are expected to be fully depleted by 2050 according to the research book - Blip - written and researched by Chris Clugston. 

Meaning logically that sustainable renewable green resources are an utter myth because they are reliant upon NNRs to exist and physically create such resources.  Putting 2 and 2 together, we can strongly and rightly conclude that by 2050 we will have very limited sources of energy to sustain human economies and conditions given the almost complete depletion of key resources.

Blip: Humanity's 300 year self-terminating experiment

[7] Conclusion. Modelers and leaders everywhere have had a basic misunderstanding of how the economy operates and what limits we are up against. This misunderstanding has allowed scientists to put together models that are far from the situation we are actually facing.

So where are we heading? What drives us to grow? Why can we not degrowth? What does all this mean?

 Here is Paul Chefurka's summation from his prophetic Paradise Lost (2013) post which gives us practical guidance and insights with something profound to ponder.

Excerpted Paradise Lost  

I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so inherently unpredictable, at least in detail.  But what I’m discovering about the way life works at a deep level makes me continually less optimistic.  I now think near-term human extinction (say within the next hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.

 

Our cybernetic civilization is approaching a "Kardashev Type 0/1 boundary" and I don’t think it's possible for us to make the jump to Type 1.  Like most other people, Kardashev misunderstood the underlying drivers of human behavior, assuming them to be a combination of ingenuity and free will.  We indeed have ingenuity, but only in the direction of growth (and damn the entropic consequences).  We can’t manage preemptive de-growth or even the application of the Precautionary Principle, because as a collective organism humanity doesn't actually have free will (despite what it feels like to us individual humans).  Instead, we exhibit an emergent behavior that is entirely oriented towards growth.

 

I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what I think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the unfolding crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to follow their hearts and their personal values. 

 I'm not exactly advising them to “Eat, drink and be merry”, though.  You might think of it more as, “Eat, drink and be mindful.”