Techno-Optimism Won't Save the Day

Your data is wonky

The United States has experienced an “absolute decline” in fossil fuel burning. This was one of the stats a consultant recently used to rebuke claims that technological disruption is not enough to force through anything resembling an energy transition.¹ The piece cited both my work and Nate Hagens’, accusing us of uncritically platforming cited and peer-reviewed academic research.

Let’s get critical, shall we?

Emissions Have Nothing To Do With Economics!

There was no citation for the claim about fossil fuel burning, referring instead to graphs from Statista about the increased share of renewables in the USA energy mix. So I went to have a look at the USA government’s data on their gross and net emissions over the past few decades. And, yes, while the share of renewable-generated electricity has increased over the past decade and while gross emissions have decreased by 3% since 1990, renewables have not led to that decrease.

We have not “decoupled” energy consumption from carbon dioxide, despite the insistence of techno-optimists that we are just one innovation away from an unlimited energy consumption, economic growth future. It’s a wonderful delusion, that future. Its fundamental impossibility is revealed in a closer look at the same data of emissions decline and economic growth: The USA’s emissions decline of 3% mirrors the economic declines triggered by the banking crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020.

USA GDP growth + decline

As degrowth economists and scientists have been banging on about for over a decade, you cannot absolutely decouple economic growth from energy consumption over the long-term. This means, too, that economic downturns result in a decrease in energy consumption. That’s why, if you take the long view, energy emissions in the USA have decreased: it’s not the introduction of renewables nor the implementation climate policy, but simply the overall reduction in energy consumption during those economic crashes.

To further prove the point, the emissions decline mirrors the overall decline in energy production those same years across all energy sources. This isn’t technology changing the world. It’s economics.

Renewables are Replacing Fossil Fuels!

One major claim in the piece is that renewable electricity is replacing coal in the USA electricity production mix, simply because, in 2022, it surpassed coal generation for the first time. I find this gobsmacking, presenting data which in no way points to the conclusion made by the author. Yes, renewable electricity production surpassed coal-generated electricity in 2022. No, it does not mean renewables are replacing fossil fuels. The energy source which is gobbling up the majority of coal’s former share, as you can see from the graph above, is methane gas, which the USA has become the largest producer of in the world over the past decade.

Another argument which changes shape when you zoom out concerns Europe’s energy mix. The author correctly shows that coal is being phased out of Europe’s energy generation, and, in 2020, renewables produced more electricity in the EU than all fossil fuels combined. What he fails to mention is that the EU imports more than half of its energy (62% in 2022), and that renewables still make up the smallest section of EU’s energy mix even when you add in biofuels which are hugely carbon-intensive.

In fact, even despite the coal phaseout the EU was still using as much coal-generated power as renewable generated power. The EU produced 37.5% of its energy, and 38.2% of that was produced by renewables. 37.5% of 38.2% is 14.3%. In the same year, 14% of the EU’s energy supply was produced by coal. On top of all of this, we must remember that electricity is only a fraction of the power consumed by Europeans. In 2022, it was just 23%.

“Wherever renewable energy is scaling up, the curve of fossil fuel use bends downward,” claims the author. This is blatantly false. Below is the energy supply of China’s energy mix, the biggest national deployer of renewable energy in the world.

Bank on Scaling Up Fantasies!

The world feels pretty Orwellian these days, particularly with regard to how language is being robbed of collective meaning. We’re often expected to swallow linguistic contradictions, and our failure to is perceived as evidence of morality. “Net Zero Mining” is one of those contradictions and, sadly, has the unfortunate ring of belonging to science as opposed to policy. The author goes on to make a huge stake in the viability—let alone existence—of Net Zero mining, claiming that renewables will power the energy to produce future renewables and eventually all the minerals required for future build-out will be sourced from ageing solar and wind farms. On top of this, the mining required is actually going to be less than what we currently do for fossil fuels.

That’s true. Our overall material footprint will decrease. However, the footprint of certain minerals will increase massively, and these minerals are often found in the few remaining biodiverse hotspots. This has led scientists warning of that we are in danger of triggering a biodiversity crisis with worse consequences than the climate crisis. Mining often comes with a slew of human rights abuses on top of the enormous impact to biodiverstiy. The mine I visited in Colombia, which is mining gold for the energy transition, clashed violently when villagers tried to resist an extraction so violent it ripped apart one of the oldest towns in the country to gouge open the mountain.

As for the endless recycling of materials—that would be wonderful! I certainly hope one day we do achieve a fully circular economy with regards to certain material inputs. However, we’re not there yet, and basing the future of human civilisation on technologies which aren’t at scale—or don’t exist at all—is harmful.

This is normally the point in the conversation when someone claims that denying “developing” countries’ rights to surplus energy denies their movement out of poverty. It’s funny how that was the same argument made for capitalism for decades. The only reason any of us need so much surplus energy is because we were thrown off our lands. Our centralised society is hugely energy inefficient because that very centralisation shores power up with the few rather than distributing it across the many. It is that very centralisation which generates poverty. As long as the Global South is being targeted for its minerals to create the Global North’s new energy desires, that cycle will continue to be exacerbated. Even within countries in the Global South, poorer regions and more vulnerable communities are still being displaced by their own governments, their resources acquired to power their wealthy neighbours while they are still forced to depend on brown energy to survive. If access to power in and of itself lifted people out of poverty than there would be no such thing as urban ghettos and the most energy-hungry countries would have the smallest wealth divide. In reality, the countries which consume the most energy are the most unequal.

Until we dismantle the economic system which exploits power to steal resources to create wealth for some and poverty for many, technology will only fulfil the requirements of the powerful. People seem to think technology disruptions just happen. In a world that is so energy and materials intensive, technological innovation demands capital. And who has the capital spare to finance technology?

It’s Not Me, It’s You!

There is not some fundamental moral binary between fossil fuels and renewables. Renewables can be just as helpful to the current system as fossil fuels. In fact, wind turbines are generating power on oil rigs so they can be self-sustaining. They’re also creating closed loop military bases which aren’t dependent on the national grid. Same with billionaire bunkers. For some, renewables provide a security guarantee, an exit from the centralised system. They’re the back-up generator for when the diesel runs out.

Let’s be clear: I want to see a future where renewables are part of the energy mix when those minerals have been fairly sourced. I also want to see a build-out of the grid so that countries maintain an energy dependence which will hopefully mitigate resource wars. I want to see a world where our technology and brainpower is deployed to fulfilling the needs of the many, not the wants of the few. I do not wish to see a future mired still in ideological whims which then monoliths of certainty, like the insistence on economic growth. We do renewable energy a disservice by lionising it as the saviour of modernity. It could very well form a brick on the road to a better future. Pretending technology will save the day will stop the rest of the road from ever being built.

And as for those of us on the same side—I’m increasingly seeing stones thrown by the techno-optimists, and challenges devolving into personal insults. Please remember that we all need each other: It is the techno-optimists’ job to push the technology, and the pragmatists’ job to mitigate both false promises and harms delivered by that technology. The big picture is so huge we need as many perspectives as possible: It is only together that we can figure out what is truly realistic.

1. https://ageoftransformation.org/the-delusion-of-no-energy-transition-and-how-renewables-can-end-endless-energy-extraction/

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