Ihe history of energy is a history of accumulation: for two centuries, all energies have only increased. The history of energy is also a story of symbiosis: it takes a lot of wood to extract coal, a lot of steel and therefore coal to extract oil. If we talk a lot about new energies, the energies we use are old. In 2022, for example, wood will produce twice as much final energy as nuclear in the world. In Europe, wood weighs more than all other renewables combined. And, of course, oil and coal continue to grow.
The fact that solar and wind power have become competitive, including against coal, could lead one to believe that after so many false starts the transition is well and truly under way, that the world is about to change base. It is not a question here of criticizing the “transition”, if one understands by this term the development of renewable energies. But it is unreasonable to expect more from solar panels and wind turbines than they can deliver.
First, electricity production represents only 40% of global emissions, and 40% of this electricity is already decarbonized. Getting fossils out of global electricity production before 2050 would be a success that is as extraordinary as it is insufficient in terms of climate objectives. Generating carbon-free electricity is nothing new: about fifty very different countries – from Ethiopia to Switzerland, via France, Brazil or Uruguay – have already largely decarbonized their electricity… without causing a drastic drop in their emissions!
Second, like all other energies, renewables are caught in an endless web of material symbioses. According to recent calculations, the construction of a renewable energy production infrastructure on a global scale would cost around 50 gigatonnes of CO₂ to manufacture the solar panels and wind turbines as well as the materials that compose them. This means that 3% of fossil fuels should be directed towards the production of renewable infrastructures.
pure leap of faith
Much more problematic, however, are the symbioses that occur downstream, in the world of consumption. Solar panels and wind turbines reduce the carbon footprint of electricity production, but this electricity feeds a world which, in its very materiality, relies and will for a long time still rely on carbon. The reason for this is that renewables are unable to competitively produce at sufficient scale and on time materials like steel, cement and plastic on which contemporary infrastructure, machinery and logistics depend.
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