“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” says the false maxim. This may come to mind now that yet another warning has been issued regarding “green” energy.
Björn Lomborg, a researcher at the Copenhagen Consensus Center, says the transition to that is simply “not happening.” problem?
First, such a transition would be prohibitively expensive. In fact, Dr. Lomborg estimates that reducing the Earth's temperature by just one-third of a degree Fahrenheit by 2100 would cost $100 trillion. This makes that effort impossible.
Second, and counterintuitively, the creation of “renewable” energy does not replace coal, oil, and gas. Mainly it just increases energy consumption.
Nevertheless, the world is moving ahead with China's aggressive energy plans, spending $2 trillion a year on the “transition.” The bottom line, Lomborg said, is that a “major review of policy” is needed.
fact, not fantasy
Contrary to what climate-worried people might expect, Lomborg is not an ardent realist who denies global warming. He believes humans are partly responsible for climate change (I disagree, please note). But he also argues that the threat it poses is overstated and that current solutions are reckless.
Mr. Lomborg writes:
Many studies show that adding renewable energy increases energy consumption by displacing coal, gas, and oil. A recent study revealed that less than one in every six units of new green energy displaces fossil fuels.
Analysis in the United States shows that subsidies for renewable energy often increase total energy consumption. Essentially, policies aimed at increasing green energy lead to increased emissions.
Human demand for affordable energy is insatiable, as it underpins every aspect of modern life. Over the past 50 years, energy from oil and coal has doubled, hydropower has tripled, and gas has quadrupled. Meanwhile, nuclear, solar and wind energy are increasing significantly. As a result, energy availability has reached unprecedented levels globally.
There are good reasons for this. Maintaining today's large populations requires large amounts of energy. Fittingly, there is an estimate that it takes one square mile for one person to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Note that the world's average population density is 98 people per square mile (61 people per km2). Is it any wonder, then, that former Greenpeace official and ecologist Patrick Moore has estimated that implementing a “Green New Deal” around the world would kill most people on the planet? And what will happen before they meet their tragic end?
In a futile effort to survive, they killed all the animals for food and cut down all the trees for fuel.
not a new phenomenon
Returning to Lomborg, he points out that this phenomenon of increased energy consumption is the norm of history. He explains:
In the 1800s, as society transitioned from wood to coal, overall wood consumption increased as coal began to meet most of its energy needs. Similarly, in the transition from coal to oil, by 1970 the combined energy contribution of oil, coal, gas, and wood was greater than ever before.
Reality: Research shows that a complete transition to new energy sources takes about 150 years on average. However, even then, the transition only occurs under one condition. “The main driver is always that new energy services are better or cheaper,” Lomborg said.
worse and more expensive
But today's “green” energy is failing on both counts. Lomborg wrote in the New York Post in April:
Wind energy and solar energy only produce electricity when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. At other times of the day, your electricity bill is sky-high, so you need a backup system.
This is why almost two-thirds of the world's electricity still relies on fossil fuels.
It is often reported that emerging industrial powers such as China, India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh are increasing their electricity supply from solar and wind sources. But these countries get even more electricity from coal.
…If solar and wind power are indeed cheaper, why are these countries missing out? Because reliability is important.
… The Biden administration's Energy Information Administration pegs solar power generation at 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, slightly higher than natural gas's 3.8 cents. However, once you reasonably include the cost of reliability, the actual cost increases exponentially. One peer-reviewed study found an 11- to 42-fold increase, making solar by far the most expensive source of electricity, followed by wind.
Lomborg also points out that “current estimates of the cost of solar and wind power also ignore the cost of recycling used wind turbine blades and used solar panels.”
many things are overlooked
There's more to come. Mr. Lomborg provided further information:
We have not yet found green energy solutions for most of our transportation needs, such as airplanes and cargo, and we have not yet begun to transition to massive energy needs such as heating, manufacturing, and agriculture. Solar and wind power are all deployed in the power sector and account for just one-fifth of the world's total energy use. We are tackling just a small part of a huge challenge and ignoring all the 'too hard' problems such as steel, cement, plastics and fertilizers.
Okay, that has to be addressed, but what's the whole story about spending? Isn't it a small price to pay to pay a cleaner tomorrow? Well, it's not that simple.
It's not just that rising energy costs increase poverty, resulting in more suffering and death for the world's poor. They also lead to environmental destruction, since prosperity is a prerequisite for environmental health. We discussed this in detail in 2020's “Why Greentopians Destroy the Earth.”
What course of action is appropriate?
You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. ― R. Buckminster Fuller
Lomborg says we should pursue technologies such as hydrogen and nuclear power, rather than picturesque energy fantasies. What he doesn't specifically mention is fusion, perhaps because it hasn't been put to practical use yet.
No matter where we stand on climate change, we can all agree that, all other things being equal, reducing pollution is beneficial. And nuclear fusion (fusing atoms together rather than splitting them through nuclear fission) would provide abundant, cheap, and clean energy. As the saying goes, it will be the holy grail of energy production.
Yes, technical hurdles need to be overcome. But this is something that everyone on the left, right and center should be able to unite with. Remember also why Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich's apocalyptic famine prophecies never came true. It was innovation and invention. Advances that improve human life generally come from technologies that virtually no one expected. And so it will be in the future.
That's if we stop wasting our dollars on greentopian fantasies and pursue reality instead. Note that if the new model doesn't naturally obsolete the existing model, you'll probably need to go back to square one.
