energy transition

Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made

by Vaclav Smil  · 2 Mar 2021  · 1,324pp  · 159,290 words

in Agriculture, Feeding the World, Harvesting the Biosphere, Should We Eat Meat?); energy resources and uses (Energy at the Crossroads, Energy in Nature and Society, Energy Transitions, Energy and Civilization); key technical and material inputs of modern economies (Creating the Twentieth Century, Transforming the Twentieth Century, Making the Modern World, Still the

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animal feeding, resulting in higher levels of per capita meat, eggs, and dairy-animal food supply (and, regrettably, also in higher rates of food waste). Energy transitions All premodern societies were also constrained by energy supply. Pre-transition societies were energized in ways that remained unchanged for millennia. Human and animal muscles

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even less efficient, and only a tiny share of chemical energy in wax and oil (candles and lamps) was converted to light. Early stages of energy transitions reduced phytomass fuels to minor shares of primary energy as fossil fuels, starting with coal and progressing to crude oil and natural gas, came to

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to support (few exceptions aside) cities of limited size. Economic transitions transformed the contribution of major sectors. These shifts were driven by demographic, agricultural, and energy transitions, with the key advances in cropping, fuel, and electricity use based on innovations arising from new scientific inquiries based on systematic experiments and on investigation

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only by several generations but also by as much as hundreds of years. Perhaps the most notable example of an early start is the English energy transition. In England and Wales coal combustion surpassed wood burning no later than by 1620. By that time, all major coal-mining regions that energized the

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and they ran most of their course in remarkably short periods of time. Economic development of post-Mao China—enabled by concurrent population, agricultural, and energy transitions (and accelerated by mass transfer of advanced foreign know-how that was also supplemented by large-scale theft of intellectual property)—is an unrivaled example

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transition that allowed the rural labor surpluses to migrate to cities. The cities could not have sustained high rates of growth without both agricultural and energy transitions that were able to supply food, thanks first to railways and then to new global markets for crops and meat (including refrigerated shipments since the

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force for rural emigration and that provided new and affordable inputs of machines, devices, and processes needed to sustain and to expand both agricultural and energy transitions. The expanding reach of cities beyond their immediate hinterlands and their demand for food, energy, and materials had eventually extended worldwide, and urban areas became

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—and eating store-bought white bread (including the energy cost of milling, baking, and distribution) would easily double that need. Several studies have traced agricultural energy transitions on national or regional scales (Gingrich et al. 2018). Depending on the agroecosystem, external energy subsidies have risen by one to two orders of magnitude

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product and of per capita incomes) will be detailed in the next chapter. In this chapter I will focus on the three principal components of energy transitions: the rapid shift from phytomass to fossil fuels and from animate to inanimate prime movers; the electrification of modern societies (an even more transformative development

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variety of energy uses. These shifts have been accompanied by impressively improving conversion efficiencies and declining energy intensities—but we still produce too much waste. Energy Transitions Once again, there is strong contrast between the stagnation and only a very slow rate of improvements during the millennia preceding industrialization and rapid changes

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power (de Zeeuw 1978; Unger 1984). But once the best peat deposits had been largely exhausted the country turned to coal. Accomplishments of this first energy transition are best appreciated by understanding low per capita use of wood in traditional societies. By 1800 average per capita supply of fuelwood was just 7

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of coal’s peak share reached in the early years of the 20th century (again, when we count only commercial energies). Figure 4.3 Global energy transitions, 1800–2015. Based on Smil (2017b). In the wake of the OPEC-driven quintupling of oil prices in 1973 and 1974 and their further nearly

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growth, with 8.2 billion passengers carried by 2037 compared to 4 billion transported in 2017. Prime movers: From animate to inanimate power Studies of energy transition focus on fuels but that is an incomplete perspective, as the epochal shift to fossil fuels was largely driven by the invention and diffusion of

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,000 km, the factor (assuming the mean speed of 60 km/h) is merely 4%. Perhaps the best way to appreciate the outcomes of this energy transition is to compare typical or modal power ratings, power/mass ratios, efficiency, reliability, and durability. Animate prime movers are inherently limited by the size of

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operating hours (an equivalent of flying nonstop for nearly 11.5 years), and with regular overhauls they can last more than two decades. Fundamental changes Energy transition has brought four fundamental changes. First, it moved the global system away from the reliance on recently photosynthesized phytomass (aged just 3–5 months for

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cars capable of traveling 500 km on a single fuel charge are impossible; wood-fired intercontinental airplanes are unthinkable. The fourth fundamental shift brought by energy transition has been the increase in power density of fuels measured per unit of the Earth’s surface (Smil 2015b; Figure 4.7). All phytomass fuels

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may eventually surpass 50 W/m2. That our energy future will be even more electric comes as no surprise, given the post-1882 trajectory of energy transitions. Electrification The first fundamental electrical experiments and the first practical designs of electricity-powered devices came during the first half of the 19th century (Smil

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motors offer the most flexible, most affordable, and most reliable choice to energize countless industrial, household, and transportation tasks. Electricity’s importance If the grand energy transition had been limited to displacing phytomass by fossil fuels we still would have more convenient and more efficient space heating, better sources of energy for

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to account for increasing efficiencies of energy conversions. Published comparisons generally neglect to do that but this efficiency gain has been a fundamental part of energy transitions as increasing efficiencies of every kind of energy conversion have been reflected in declining intensities of energy use and helped to reduce environmental impacts. Efficiencies

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expectations regarding this transition have assumed that it could be accomplished in relatively short time. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the very nature of energy transitions: they always take decades to unfold. 5 Economies An array of economic contrasts between pre-transition societies and modern affluent states is far too large

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output, profound structural shifts, and the arrival of mass-scale consumption of products and experiences—became clearly and widely discernible only as population, dietary, and energy transitions combined with technical innovations and with better modes of governance to start a new era of unprecedented economic advances. End points or asymptotic levels indicating

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the completion of demographic, dietary, and energy transitions are either self-evident or can be well defined. There can be no doubt that a society has completed its demographic transition once its fertility

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food has greatly surpassed even the highest conceivable nutritional requirements and has generated an unacceptably high level of waste; and that it has accomplished its energy transition when it consumes no traditional phytomass fuels and relies solely on a mixture of fossil fuels and primary electricity consumed at high per capita rates

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the COVID-19-driven decline of CO2 emissions will be negligible (Forster et al. 2020), and even if the pandemic experience were to accelerate the energy transition in affluent countries it will not have a similar effect in today’s low-energy economies. During the first two decades of the 21st century

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, and the Future is Electric Scenario would require a further increase equivalent to combined 2017 consumption in China and India (IEA 2018b). Second, large-scale energy transitions have been always gradual, prolonged affairs unfolding across generations, and the shift from fossil carbon to non-carbon energies will be no exception (Smil 2017b

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energies was just 2.2% of the global primary energy. Third, the shift toward renewable electricity generation is (relatively) the easiest part of the global energy transition, but while some countries now generate large shares of their demand from wind and solar PV, achieving a completely carbon-free electricity supply is a

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514:486–488. Chenery, H.B. 1960. Patterns of industrial growth. The American Economic Review 50:624–654. Cherif, R. et al. 2017. Riding the Energy Transition: Beyond Oil. Washington, DC: IMF. Chesnais, J.C. 1992. The Demographic Transition: Stages, Patterns, and Economic Implications. Oxford: Clarendon Pres. Chittenden, R.H. 1907. The

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1990. In: Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850–1990. Washington, DC: USBC. Gingrich, S. et al. 2018. Agroecosystem energy transitions in the old and new worlds: Trajectories and determinants at the regional scale. Regional Environmental Change 19:1089–1101. Glaeser, E.L., ed. 2010. Agglomeration

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. 2016a. Still the Iron Age. Oxford: Elsevier. Smil, V. 2016b. Embodied energy: Mobile devices and cars. IEEE Spectrum May 2016:26. Smil, V. 2016c. Examining energy transitions: A dozen insights based on performance. Energy Research & Social Science 22:194–197. Smil, V. 2017a. Energy and Civilization: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

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. Smil, V. 2017b. Energy Transitions. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Smil, V. 2017c. Electric vehicles—Not so fast. IEEE Spectrum December 2017:24. Smil, V. 2018. April 1838: Crossing the Atlantic

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modernization trajectory, 160–61 premodern, lack of economic growth, 155 savings rates, 192 service sector employment, 181, 184 tourism, 196–97 traditional farming, 167 China, energy transitions air conditioners, 142–44 blast furnaces, 119–20 car electrification, 276 coal output and use, 117, 121 compound feeds, use of, 83 electrification, 139, 144

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, 68 modern primary energy supply, fossil fuels in, 277–78 non-carbon system, characteristics of possible transition to, 279 production in premodern world, 2–3 energy transitions, 114–51 electricity, importance of, 136–37 electrification, 135–44, 136f fundamental changes from, 133–35 hydrocarbons, rise of, 120–25 illustration of, 122f introduction

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growth rates, 159–60 industrialization of, 179 premodern, lack of economic growth, 155 sources of economic growth, 160 water usage, 190 England/Britain/United Kingdom, energy transitions animate power in, early 19th century, 126 coal extraction and use, 117, 118–19, 119f energy intensity, 150 mentioned, 16 per capita energy use, 146

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vs. biotic raw materials, flow of, 188 international tourist arrivals, 196 leisure travel, 196 services, deindustrialization and transition to, 185 water usage, 189–90 Europe, energy transitions automobilization, 124 car ownership, 124–25 electric household products, 142 electrification, 139 energy consumption, 146, 273, 287 gas lighting, 138 mechanized field farming, transition to

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force (1870), 174 GDP growth, 161, 166 growth rates, 159–60 households, qualitative aspects of, 190 manufacturing, 176 tourism, 196–97 water usage, 190 France, energy transitions absolute energy consumption rates, 150–51 animate power, early 19th century, 126 coal extraction, 118–19 energy intensity, 150 energy sources, 115–17 per capita

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, flow of, 188 economic growth and development, 161, 162, 166 employment, 153, 179, 184 GDP growth, 161 household debt, 192 wealth distribution, 23–24 India, energy transitions blast furnaces, 119–20 car ownership, 125 electrification, 139 energy generation from coal, 144, 290–91 future primary energy consumption, 273 kerosene lamps, 145 residential

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growth rates, 159–60 happiness rankings, 192–93 industrialization, 179 material flows, 189 savings rates, 192 sources of economic growth, 160 water usage, 190 Japan, energy transitions air conditioners, 142–44 automobilization, 124 electric household products, 142 electrification, 139 energy sources, 117–18 nighttime light, 140–41 per capita energy use, 146

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-Atlantic crossings, 19–20 transformers (electrical), 135 transistors, 199, 200f transportation. See also aircraft; animate prime movers; cars; diesel engines fuels for, 145 possible future energy transition, 276–77 in premodern world, 2 railways, 123, 124, 132, 193 transitions in, 12, 19–20 travel air travel, 20, 194–95, 282 leisure-related

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–97 manufacturing, 175, 176–77 material flows, 188, 189 outbound tourism, 196–97 railways, 193–94 savings rates, 192 services in manufacturing, 178 United States, energy transitions absolute energy consumption rates, 150–51 air conditioners, 142 animate to inanimate energies, tipping point of transition to, 130 biofuels production, 276 car ownership, 124

Fully Automated Luxury Communism

by Aaron Bastani  · 10 Jun 2019  · 280pp  · 74,559 words

their lending both by amount and geographical area. What is more, their remit would be to maximise social value as well as returns, focusing on energy transition and accelerating specific sectors as well as financing a new wave of worker-owned business. The positive benefits of growing the cooperative and worker-owned

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present generations that take decisive action. Yet more than simply an intervention determining the future capacity of our planet to maintain life, the politics of energy transition must also articulate its ambition of bringing limitless energy to the world’s rich and poor alike. That is the prize on offer with solar

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and wind, almost as much as saving the planet, and should be stated as such when demanding energy transition alongside UBS. Switching to renewable energy won’t just mitigate increasingly chaotic climate systems, it will also deliver greater prosperity for all of us. But

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of renewable energy capacity. The worker-led economy will be financed by locally based and geographically restricted institutions. But because of the shortened timeframe, financing energy transition will be the responsibility for much larger National Energy Investment Banks (NEIBs) operating through regional hubs and capitalised – depending on the country – to the tune

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this tax would be raised by imposing a $25 fee on every tonne of CO2 emitted in high-GDP countries. As well as helping fund energy transition in the Global South this would also create an additional incentive among the wealthier nations to decarbonise in the decade following 2020, not to mention

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, 105–6 insulation of, 113–15 minimising consumption of, 220 post-scarcity in, 94–116 renewable (See renewable energy) solar, 101–5 wind, 111–13 energy transition, politics of, 218 Engels, Friedrich The Communist Manifesto, 51–2 England, 114. See also Britain enlightenment, 187 environmental consequences, of Second Disruption, 96 An Essay

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, 147n Planetary Resources, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136–7 Podemos party, 27–8, 30 political transformation, vehicles for, 194 politics of anti-austerity, 201 of energy transition, 218 green, 188–92 red, 188–92 relationship between technology and, 237 population, 139–40 The Population Bomb (Ehrlich), 166 populism, 187–8. See also

Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future

by Robert Bryce  · 26 Apr 2011  · 520pp  · 129,887 words

the twenty-first century and require trillions of dollars in new investment. So, given the Four Imperatives and the stark realities posed by the long energy transition that lies ahead, what are we to do? FIGURE 1 Annual U.S. Energy Production: Comparing Wind and Solar with Other Energy Sources Sources: Energy

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does that we all agree that moving to something else—anything else—is a really good idea. We must, we’re told, make a hurried energy transition, because:• The United States should be “energy independent.” Doing so will free us from the vagaries of the world energy market and increase employment here

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quickly, cheaply, and easily. That. Is. Not. True. Tomorrow’s energy sources will look a lot like today’s, because energy transitions are always difficult and lengthy. “There is one thing all energy transitions have in common: they are prolonged affairs that take decades to accomplish,” wrote Vaclav Smil in November 2008. “And the

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“world without fossil fuel combustion is highly desirable ... getting there will demand not only high cost but also considerable patience: coming energy transitions will unfold across decades, not years.”24 Indeed, energy transitions unfold slowly and are always under way whether we recognize them or not. Between 1973 and 2008, the amount of electricity

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available. The $5-trillion-per-year global energy business dwarfs all other sectors of the economy.25 Given its size, and given that any major energy transition will take decades, we must carefully analyze the various energy sources to determine which ones can satisfy the Four Imperatives: power density, energy density, cost

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like sex and Internet bandwidth: The more we get, the more we want. And that’s one of the biggest problems when it comes to energy transitions. We have invested trillions of dollars in the pipelines, wires, storage tanks, and electricity-generation plants that are providing us with the watts that we

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will gradually begin moving toward other forms of energy. But that move will be just that: gradual. And for those who doubt just how lengthy energy transitions can be, history offers some illuminating examples. Power Equivalencies of Various Engines, Motors, and Appliances, in Horsepower (and Watts) Saturn V rocket: 160,000,000

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: 0.03 (25 W)40 Recharging an Apple iPhone: 0.0013 (1 W)41 CHAPTER 4 Wood to Coal to Oil The Slow Pace of Energy Transitions GIVEN OUR CURRENT OBSESSION with Big Oil and Big Coal, it’s worth noting that the fuel source that has had the longest reign in

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percent. And over the coming decades, the percentage will likely continue its slow decline. It is true that this decline is part of a significant energy transition; it’s just not the rapid move to the “green” sources that Al Gore and many other boosters have been hyping. The big challenge for

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energy in the country.8 By the late 1950s, gas looked ready to rob even greater market share away from coal. But just as that energy transition was beginning, natural gas became a favored target for federal regulators. And the hodgepodge of regulations that resulted would hamstring the U.S. gas industry

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/2009/10/us-geothermal-capacity-could-top-10-gw. 9 Arnulf Grübler, “Transitions in Energy Use,” Encyclopedia of Earth, 2008, http://www.eoearth.org/article/Energy_transitions, 163. 10 Energy-density metrics for area are uncommon. 11 John Pearley Huffman, “Generations,” May 8, 2003, http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId

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. 15 Richard T. Cooper, “Carter Seeks Emergency Natural Gas Deregulation,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1977, B1. 16 Robert A. Hefner III, The GET: Grand Energy Transition (Oklahoma City: Hefner Foundation, 2008), 35. 17 Lawrence Goodwyn, Texas Oil, American Dreams: A Study of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (Austin

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Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies (Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society, 2003), 105. 13 Robert A. Hefner III, The GET: Grand Energy Transition (Oklahoma City: Hefner Foundation, 2008), 37–40. 14 Goodwyn, Texas Oil, American Dreams, 36. 15 Hunt Oil, “Hunt Oil History Window,” n.d., http://www

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C. The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World. Pueblo, CO: Vales Lake Publishing, 2001. Hefner, Robert A., III. The GET: Grand Energy Transition. Oklahoma City: Hefner Foundation, 2008. Heinberg, Richard. The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society

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Policy Act (2005) Energy posers Energy poverty Energy production, environmental costs of Energy sprawl Energy storage, and renewables “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?” (Lovin) Energy transitions Energy unease, main causes of. See Fear; Guilt; Ignorance Energy-intensive businesses Engineers Engines(photo) England Eni Enron Environmental costs. See under specific type of

Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration

by Kent E. Calder  · 28 Apr 2019

central questions that we now confront. The balance of this chapter considers the three most basic and dynamic sectoral catalysts for Eurasia’s deepening integration: energy, transit trade, and finance. Animating all three are even more elemental forces— economic growth and technological change. Both of these latent transformative agents have been unusually

The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World

by Oliver Morton  · 26 Sep 2015  · 469pp  · 142,230 words

at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis outside Vienna, has drawn from decades spent studying the history of energy systems, and in particular the ‘energy transitions’ in which one energy technology displaces another; the steam engine replacing the draft animal and the waterwheel, for example. One general principle, he says, is

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that energy transitions have been slow – they take about a century. Things are different now, say the mainstream environmentalists and the environmentally conscious politicians in the Yes/No

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camp. Previous energy transitions were for the most part realized with no overarching plan. This one will be deliberate. And there has already been a renewables revolution on which

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often be furnished pretty cheaply, too. It is a fine list of benefits. But there is a second lesson from Grübler’s studies of past energy transitions to be confronted. They have, in the main, been driven not by the availability of new ways of providing energy, but by new ways of

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has various charms. Its benefits are felt at the level of the system, not at the level of the individual buyer. That means a renewable-energy transition will need significant pushing. As with Grübler’s observations about the time transitions take, this points merely to decarbonization being unprecedented, not impossible. But the

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best example in recent history of an energy transition that governments tried to push through, rather than simply letting users pull, is not very encouraging. Governments in various countries pushed quite hard for a

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the consequences of it. I think it is worth looking at that process in a little detail, not just because of what it says about energy transitions, but because it throws light on our main themes. As will become apparent at various times in the course of this book, little else can

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regulations that surround them, a hard area in which to innovate. And nuclear energy enjoys none of the demand-pull that was crucial to earlier energy transitions; for a domestic or industrial user, nuclear electricity is no better than any other sort.* Many of those pressing for a nuclear renaissance accept some

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cent of their electricity market (the same sort of level, possibly coincidentally, that has been achieved in the other push-not-pull attempt at an energy transition – that of nuclear power). That’s a large enough fraction to transfer a significant amount of money to the builders and buyers of wind turbines

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with which organized lobbies have been happy to help. The Yes/No camp saves its doubt for people who point out the impracticality of an energy transition on the scale required to make a big change in the risks. Politicians who accept the need for climate action insist that it will be

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authoritative account of the lack of progress towards an international climate regime capable of curbing emissions, see Victor (2011). For Arnulf Grübler’s thoughts on energy transitions as cited, see Grübler (2012). The estimates of decarbonisation rates come from Anderson and Bows (2009). The pre-1980 history of nuclear power in America

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407 947 Grove, Richard (1995) Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 Cambridge University Press Grübler, Arnulf (2012) ‘Energy Transitions Research: Insights and Cautionary Tales’ Energy Policy 50 8–16 Gu, Lianhong et al. (2003) ‘Response of a Deciduous Forest to the Mount Pinatubo Eruption

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., 1 Ellis, Erle, 225 Emissions Trading System, 144 energy: from sunlight, 62–71; measures, 12; rising needs, 9–10; sources of world supply, 211–12 energy transitions: drivers, 13; time taken, 8–12 ENIAC, 312 ENMOD see UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger  · 28 Jun 2020

, LPG, and gasoline, which must be made from primary energies.) Throughout the next summer, Marchetti and a colleague inputted data from three hundred cases of energy transitions from around the world. The transitions were from wood to coal, whale oil to petroleum, coal to oil, and many other combinations. “I could not

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added, “The whole destiny of an energy source seems to be completely predetermined in the first childhood.”45 The study of what we today call energy transitions was born. Wars, big changes in energy prices, and even depressions, Marchetti found, had no effect on the rate of

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energy transition. “It is as though the system had a schedule, a will, and a clock,” he wrote.46 Older histories emphasized the role of scarcity in

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of energy around World War I, even though “coal reserves were in a sense infinite” as oil and natural gas started to replace it.50 Energy transitions have occurred in the way that Marchetti predicted, from more energy-dilute and carbon-dense fuels toward more energy-dense and hydrogen-dense ones. Just

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rather, its main component, methane, has four hydrogen atoms to one carbon atom, hence its molecular expression as CH4.52 As a consequence of these energy transitions, the carbon-intensity of energy has declined for more than 150 years. Between 1860 and the mid-1990s, the carbon intensity of primary global energy

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tend to move from energy-dilute to energy-dense fuels, but wrong that “the system had a schedule . . . and a clock.” While the direction of energy transitions he predicted was broadly correct, Marchetti’s timing was off. For example, in the United States, the share of electricity coming from coal declined from

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wildlife, insects, and humans. Dust that blows into the air from such operations can harm miners and people who live in nearby communities.73 No energy transition occurs without human and environmental impacts. Fracking brings pipelines, rigs, and trucks, which can disrupt peaceful landscapes that people rightly care about. Frackers have created

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didn’t foresee was how powerful and important opposition to the new technology, particularly from upper classes of society, could be in the case of energy transitions. 7. Fish Go Wild In late 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a genetically modified salmon, one that delivered major environmental benefits

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understood the immense indifference of nature,” said Ausubel, “and a lot of the human enterprise.” I asked Ausubel why he thought Marchetti’s model of energy transitions had been so off in terms of timing, even if it was broadly accurate on the direction. “You can look at the long term and

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abroad.”100 The moral of the story is that economic growth and the rising demand for food, lighting, and energy drive product and energy transitions, but politics can constrain them. Energy transitions depend on people wanting them. When it comes to protecting the environment by moving to superior alternatives, public attitudes and political action

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nation has done more to support renewables than Germany. For the last twenty years it has been going through what it calls an Energiewende, or energy transition, from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. It will have spent $580 billion on renewables and related infrastructure by 2025, according to energy

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physical demands of renewables thus spark local environmental opposition around the world. Of the 7,700 new kilometers of transmission lines Germany needed for the energy transition, only 8 percent have been built; in 2019, the deployment of renewables and related transmission lines slowed rapidly.45 As goes Germany so may go

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we have seen, for some advocates of renewables, that has always been the goal. In its 2019 exposé, Der Spiegel concludes that Germany’s renewable energy transition was just done incorrectly,91 but that’s misleading. The transition to renewables was doomed because modern industrial people, no matter how romantic they are

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war to ending racial discrimination. The author of the summary, which Oreskes and Conway claim “sided with the economists,” was Jesse Ausubel, the expert in energy transitions who worked with Cesare Marchetti in the 1970s at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna. Ausubel also coauthored an article with Yale

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-power-must-be-part-of-the-energy-solution. 97. R.B. Allen, “Backward into the future: The shift to coal and implications for the next energy transition,” Energy Policy 50 (2012): 17–23, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.03.020. 98. Jesse Ausubel (environmental scientist) in conversation with the

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conversion between Germany and USA made using OECD data for Purchasing Power Parity. 41. Fridolin Pflugmann, Ingmar Ritzenhofen, Fabian Stockhausen, and Thomas Vahlenkamp, “Germany’s Energy Transition at a Crossroads,” McKinsey & Company, November 2019, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/germanys

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-energy-transition-at-a-crossroads. 42. “Electricity Prices for Household Consumers—Bi-annual Data (from 2007 Onwards),” Eurostat, December 1, 2019, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/

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Bat,” Biological Conservation 209 (May 2017): 172–77, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.02.023. 132. Fridolin Pflugmann et al., “Germany’s energy transition at a crossroads,” McKinsey & Company, November 2019, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/germanys

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-energy-transition-at-a-crossroads. 133. Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation Air Quality and Climate Division, Vermont Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Update: Brief 1990–2015, June 2018,

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), 218–19 Energy efficiency, 98–99, 154, 165, 166, 167–68 Energy leapfrogging, 97–98, 224, 226–29, 248, 249 Energy subsidies, 145–46, 153 Energy transitions, 114–16, 120, 123–24, 125 Engels, Friedrich, 235 Enlightenment, 230, 265 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Godwin), 229–30, 231 Enron, 205 Environmental alarmism. See

Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities

by Vaclav Smil  · 23 Sep 2019

: A Beginner’s Guide Oil: A Beginner’s Guide Energy in Nature and Society Global Catastrophes and Trends Why America Is Not a New Rome Energy Transitions Energy Myths and Realities Prime Movers of Globalization Japan’s Dietary Transition and Its Impacts (with K. Kobayashi) Harvesting the Biosphere Should We Eat Meat

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? Power Density Natural Gas Still the Iron Age Energy Transitions (new edition) Energy: A Beginner’s Guide (new edition) Energy and Civilization: A History Oil: A Beginner’s Guide (new edition) Growth From Microorganisms to

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an enthusiastic user of logistic curves in forecasting technical developments in general and composition of global primary energy demand in particular. In his studies of energy transitions, he adopted a technique developed by Fisher and Pry (1971). Originally used to study the market penetration of new techniques, it assumes that the advances

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.jsp?arnumber=7459114. Smil, V. 2016b. Still the Iron Age. Oxford: Elsevier. Smil, V. 2017a. Energy and Civilization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Smil, V. 2017b. Energy Transitions. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Smil, V. 2017c. Oil: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Oneworld. Smil, V. 2017d. Transformers, the unsung technology. Spectrum IEEE (August):24

Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation

by Paris Marx  · 4 Jul 2022  · 295pp  · 81,861 words

we organize transportation networks, “battery storage for electric vehicles is currently projected to be the main driver of additional metals and materials needed for the energy transition.”8 To that point, the International Energy Agency reported in 2020 that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement to keep warming well below 2ºC

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. I Pray for Change,” Guardian, December 16, 2019, Theguardian.com. 7 Kirsten Hund et al., “Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition,” The World Bank, 2020, Worldbank.org. 8 “Turning Down The Heat: Can We Mine Our Way out of the Climate Crisis?,” Mining Watch Canada, November

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2020, Miningwatch.ca. 9 “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions,” International Energy Agency, May 2021, Iea.org. 10 Ibid. 11 Dominish, Teske, and Florin, “Responsible Minerals Sourcing for Renewable Energy.” 12 “Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021

Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet

by Varun Sivaram  · 2 Mar 2018  · 469pp  · 132,438 words

breakthrough clean energy technologies.15 Gates recognizes that harnessing the energy from the sun will probably be the single most important element of a clean energy transition. But he also knows that progress to date, though encouraging, is nowhere near sufficient to unlock the full potential of sunlight. The problem is that

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world is running out of time to switch over to clean energy. It doesn’t help that global energy transitions take a very long time. As the energy scholar Vaclav Smil has pointed out, global energy transitions—for example, from wood to coal to oil—have each taken roughly a half-century.45 If

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transition toward solar energy sputters by midcentury, there will be no opportunity for another do-over. A particularly rosy 2016 study suggested that a clean energy transition could happen much faster—in just a decade or two—with the right support from policymakers.47 And some argue that more sensible climate policies

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American (May 2017), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-india-save-the-warming-planet. 22.  “Financing India’s Energy Transition,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance, November 1, 2016, https://about.bnef.com/blog/financing-indias-clean-energy-transition. 23.  Rajesh Kumar Singh and Saket Sundria, “Living in the Dark: 240 Million Indians Have No Electricity

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.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf. 47.  Benjamin K. Sovacool, “How Long Will It Take? Conceptualizing the Temporal Dynamics of Energy Transitions,” Energy Research & Social Science 13 (March 2016), http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615300827. 48.  Jessica F. Green, “Don’t Link Carbon Markets,” Nature

…

tariff, for which the owner of the installation could sell solar power to a utility over the next twenty years. Thus began Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition). Over the next ten years, Germany’s generous policy support would make it the world’s largest solar market and almost singlehandedly underwrite the global

…

a tractable bath toy, CAISO adopted the “duck curve” as the mascot of its campaign to educate the public about the difficulties of the renewable energy transition. Figure 3.4 California’s duck curve. This is an updated version of the original figure created by the California grid operator (CAISO) to predict

…

-flooded-by-solar-farms-i7hlfkm0. 6.  Soren Amelang and Jakob Schelandt, “Germany’s Electricity Grid Stable Amid Energy Transition,” Clean Energy Wire, October 24, 2016, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electricity-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition. 7.  Amy Gahran, “Germany’s Course Correction on Solar Growth,” Greentech Media, November 3, 2016, https://www

…

, April 15, 2016, http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/04/15/dealpolitik-governance-was-a-casualty-of-sunedisons-financial-crisis. 20.  “Financing India’s Clean Energy Transition,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance, November 1, 2016, https://www.bbhub.io/bnef/sites/4/2016/10/BNEF-Financing-Indias-clean

…

-energy-transition.pdf. 21.  Uday Varadarajan, David Nelson, Andrew Goggins, and Morgan Hervé-Mignucci, “Beyond YieldCos,” Climate Policy Initiative, June 2016, https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/beyond-yieldcos.

…

112, no. 49 (2015): 15060–5065, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1510028112. 20.  Varun Sivaram, “A Clean Energy Transition Needs More Technology Options,” The Aspen Institute, June 19, 2017, https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/clean-energy-transition-needs-technology-options/. 21.  Christopher T. M. Clack et al., “Evaluation of a Proposal for Reliable Low

…

would with government support. Acemoglu and colleagues find that even with a price on carbon, delaying investment in technological innovation can set back a clean energy transition and steeply raise its cost.46 Pricing carbon is an elegant, important policy, but it is by no means a panacea. Rather, an ideal policy

…

, 245 economics of eliminating, 234 and future of solar energy, 5–6, 10 in India, 16 Carbon intensity, 106 Carbon price (carbon tax) and global energy transition, 23 political coalitions and, 166 stimulating innovation with, 253, 266, 270–271 Carter, Jimmy, and administration, 30, 35, 255, 256 Catalysts, 176, 177, 182–183

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indium gallium (di)selenide Clean Energy Investment Trust, 97 Clean energy technology(-ies). See also specific types deployment of, 11 expansion of, 5, 7 global energy transition to, 22–23 institutional investments in, 66 limitations on, xvi nuclear power as, 21 private funding for, 111, 113 tax incentives for, 266–271 U

…

superconducting magnetic, 228 and technological innovation in solar power, 190–191 value deflation and technologies with, 81 Energy transfer, in silicon solar cells, 148–151 Energy transitions, 22–23, 36, 234 E.ON, 70 Equity capital, 90–91 Ethiopia, 120, 124 Europe. See also specific countries compensation for unused solar power in

…

Fund, 93 Public policy distortionary, and off-grid solar, 135–136 encouraging innovation with, 24, 83, 85, 194, 270 and energy access, 86 on global energy transition, 22–23 and technology lock-in, 165–166 Public sector. See also U.S. government funding for new solar projects by, 65, 110–114 investment

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