Morgan wrote:
In fact, the "end of growth" world view is actually based on a political fallacy, a semi-religious doctrine.
In its modern versions, it tends to be based on the analysis that we have not figured out what to do with all the effluent.
It's worth reading Matt Simmons on the Club of Rome Report. What he found when he dug into it was that 1). most of it dealt with time periods after where we are now (ie 40 years after it was published) 2). it was surprisingly accurate in some respects. You can link to his comments either via the Energy Bulletin (about 5 years back, maybe 6-7) or via the Simmons & Co website, I think.
Just on automobile propulsion. We have the answers now: compressed natural gas, electric cars etc. We'd have to make concessions on convenience, performance etc. (particularly if we cannot find enough lithium) and we're not willing to do that-- yet.
But the technologies for non petroleum propulsion of cars (but not yet trucks or planes) exist now.
With respect to energy, it takes a great deal of faith to imagine we're not going to come up with a viable energy solution to high oil or gas prices.
Indeed in the sense that along came shale gas. For how long we do not know, but it has changed the picture on extractible natural gas.
And there's coal bed methane. And more than enough coal to drown us in the pollution we would create converting it into vehicle fuel.
That gets us to the second half of the 21st century, and by then our cars will almost certainly be electric, and in some sense solar (either directly via solar cells, indirectly via biofuels or, who knows, maybe by nuclear fusion).
There is a kaleidoscope of energy production systems where once we had only a few. At least one of them will come out ahead and massively succeed as the standard. That's how every technology event has occurred.
The majority of those problems are completely imaginary. Once one starts to use benchmarks to measure things, you begin to find this.
I don't think I can change your mind on this issue, it's never succeeded before, it seems practically genetic, but know that at least one person thinks you're dead wrong in the most irrevocable sense possible, and is willing to bet on it.
Don't ignore the transition problems. The lags are huge.
Vaclav Smil is annoying in that his books seem to be rewrites of each other.
Nonetheless he's one of the few readable authors I have seen tackle the actual quantities of energy production.
He points out how slowly we actually change methods of producing energy. Since 1945 nuclear has appeared (about 8% world electricity generation or c. 3% world energy consumption). Natural gas has gone from very small to about 15%.
Oil rose very quickly to something like half of all energy consumption, and has fallen back to about 35% from memory (all transportation).
But that's it. The world is basically powered the way it was in 1945.
So in 2050 I expect to see the big 3 as oil, gas and coal. Just as they are now. Wind and solar will be significant-- perhaps 20-30% of all electricity production (when the wind is blowing hard, Spain apparently can get 50% of its electricity by wind: that's extraordinary for an industry that hardly existed in 1998). Nuclear will be about the same (big shifts in which countries) as the wave of reactors in places like China is offset by the shutdown of the reactors in the west and old Soviet bloc.
EDIT
I should note also that it's almost certain there will not be 'one' winner.
Oil is predominant in transport fuel (say 98%) but it is not predominant in power generation (that's coal) nor home heating and cooking (that's gas, biomass, and electricity).
Since the world will likely be all electric, or nearly so, then each of the multiplicity of electricity generation technologies has its own advantages.
You tend to get one solution when there is one common standard (the internet, the electricity grid. the Bell System) and ever rising economies of scale in production and use.
The economies of scope and scale in electricity production are not infinite. 5000 MW wind farms are not 50 times more efficient than 100MW ones. Nuclear power plants are unlikely to rise above 1600MW capacity, etc. Coal generating units (as opposed to plants) have been about 550MW since the 1960s.
Yeah, I need to pay attention to exactly what terms have been used and what they mean.
