<
https://theconversation.com/muscle-wood-coal-oil-what-earlier-energy-transitions-tell-us-about-renewables-213550>
"In 2022, the burning of fossil fuels provided 82% of the world’s energy. In
2000, it was 87%. Even as renewables have undergone tremendous growth, they’ve
been offset by increased demand for energy.
That’s why the United Nations earlier this month released a global stocktake –
an assessment on how the world is going in weaning itself off these
energy-dense but dangerously polluting fuels. Short answer: progress, but
nowhere near enough, soon enough.
If we consult history, we find that energy transitions are not new. To farm
fields and build cities, we’ve gone from relying on human or animal muscle to
wind and water to power sailboats and mill grain. Then we began switching to
the energy dense hydrocarbons, coal, gas and oil. But this can’t last. We were
first warned in 1859 that when burned, these fuels add to the Earth’s warming
blanket of greenhouse gases and threaten our liveable climate.
It’s time for another energy transition. We’ve done it before. The problem is
time – and resistance from the old energy regime, fossil fuel companies. Energy
historian Vaclav Smil calculates past energy transitions have taken 50–75 years
to ripple through societies. And we no longer have that kind of time, as
climate change accelerates. This year is likely the hottest in 120,000 years.
So can we learn anything from past energy transitions? As it happens, we can."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
