Don’t know much about it? Then read this book. Think alternative energy sources (solar, geothermal, etc.) are the answer? Then read this book.
Easy, cheap oil has provided a high-powered tailwind to society over the past 100 years. We’ve taken cheap energy for granted, but once we lose that tailwind, we’re on our own again.
With fossil fuels fast disappearing, and their continuing supplies becoming ever more problematic and expensive, hopes have turned to renewable sources that we ask to save “our way of life” at more or less its current level. Alas, as we will see, the “net energy” gain from all alternative systems—that is, the amount of energy produced, compared with the amount of energy (as well as money and materials) that must be invested in building and operating them—is far too small to begin to sustain industrial society at its present levels. This is very grim news, and demands vast, rapid adjustments by all parties, from governments to industries and even environmental organizations, that thus far are not clearly in the offing.
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The scale of denial is breathtaking. For as Heinberg’s analysis makes depressingly clear, there will be NO combination of alternative energy solutions that might enable the long term continuation of economic growth, or of industrial societies in their present form and scale.
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Meanwhile, the highly promising alternative energy systems, which in most respects are surely far cleaner than fossil fuels, cannot yield net energy ratios that are anywhere near what was possible with fossil fuels. In other words, they require for their operation a significant volume of energy inputs that bring their energy outputs to a very modest level. Too modest, actually, to be considered a sufficient substitute for the disappearing fossil fuels. In fact, as Heinberg notes, there is no combination of alternative renewables that can compete with the glory days of fossil fuels, now ending. So, what does this portend for modern society? Industrialism? Economic growth? Our current standards of living? All prior assumptions are off the table.Which way now? Systemic change will be mandatory.
