In a dramatic scientific and engineering breakthrough, researchers at the Bay Area’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently achieved the long-sought goal of generating a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than was directly injected into a tiny reactor vessel. By the very next day, pundits well across the political spectrum were touting that breakthrough as a harbinger of a new era in energy production, suggesting that a future of limitless, low-impact fusion energy was perhaps a few decades away. In reality, however, commercially viable nuclear fusion is only infinitesimally closer than it was back in the 1980s when a contained fusion reaction – i.e. not occurring in the sun or from a bomb – was first achieved.

While most honest writers have at least acknowledged the obstacles to commercially-scaled fusion, they typically still underestimate them – as much so today as back in the 1980s. We are told that a fusion reaction would have to occur “many times a second” to produce usable amounts of energy. But the blast of energy from the LLNL fusion reactor actually only lasted one tenth of a nanosecond – that’s a ten-billionth of a second. Apparently other fusion reactions (with a net energy loss) have operated for a few nanoseconds, but reproducing this reaction over a billion times every second is far beyond what researchers are even contemplating.

We are told that the reactor produced about 1.5 times the amount of energy that was input, but this only counts the laser energy that actually struck the reactor vessel.  That energy, which is necessary to generate temperatures over a hundred million degrees, was the product of an array of 192 high-powered lasers, which required well over 100 times as much energy to operate. Third, we are told that nuclear fusion will someday free up vast areas of land that are currently needed to operate solar and wind power installations. But the entire facility needed to house the 192 lasers and all the other necessary control equipment was large enough to contain three football fields, even though the actual fusion reaction takes place in a gold or diamond vessel smaller than a pea.  All this just to generate the equivalent of about 10-20 minutes of energy that is used by a typical small home. Clearly, even the most inexpensive rooftop solar systems can already do far more. And Prof. Mark Jacobson’s group at Stanford University has calculated that a total conversion to wind, water and solar power might use about as much land as is currently occupied by the world’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

Long-time nuclear critic Karl Grossman wrote on Counterpunch recently of the many likely obstacles to scaling up fusion reactors, even in principle, including high radioactivity, rapid corrosion of equipment, excessive water demands for cooling, and the likely breakdown of components that would need to operate at unfathomably high temperatures and pressures. His main source on these issues is Dr. Daniel Jassby, who headed Princeton’s pioneering fusion research lab for 25 years. The Princeton lab, along with researchers in Europe, has led the development of a more common device for achieving nuclear fusion reactions, a doughnut-shaped or spherical vessel known as a tokamak. Tokamaks, which contain much larger volumes of highly ionized gas (actually a plasma, a fundamentally different state of matter), have achieved substantially more voluminous fusion reactions for several seconds at a time, but have never come close to producing more energy than is injected into the reactor.

The laser-mediated fusion reaction achieved at LBL occurred at a lab called the National Ignition Facility, which touts its work on fusion for energy, but is primarily dedicated to nuclear weapons research. Prof. M. V. Ramana of the University of British Columbia, whose recent article was posted on the newly revived ZNetwork, explains, “NIF was set up as part of the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program, which was the ransom paid to the US nuclear weapons laboratories for forgoing the right to test after the United States signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty” in 1996. It is “a way to continue investment into modernizing nuclear weapons, albeit without explosive tests, and dressing it up as a means to produce ‘clean’ energy.” Ramana cites a 1998 article that explained how one aim of laser fusion experiments is to try to develop a hydrogen bomb that doesn’t require a conventional fission bomb to ignite it, potentially eliminating the need for highly enriched uranium or plutonium in nuclear weapons.

While some writers predict a future of nuclear fusion reactors running on seawater, the actual fuel for both tokamaks and laser fusion experiments consists of two unique isotopes of hydrogen known as deuterium – which has an extra neutron in its nucleus – and tritium – with two extra neutrons. Deuterium is stable and somewhat common: approximately one out of every 5-6000 hydrogen atoms in seawater is actually deuterium, and it is a necessary ingredient (as a component of “heavy water”) in conventional nuclear reactors. Tritium, however, is radioactive, with a half-life of twelve years, and is typically a costly byproduct ($30,000 per gram) of an unusual type of nuclear reactor known as CANDU, mainly found today in Canada and South Korea. With half the operating CANDU reactors scheduled for retirement this decade, available tritium supplies will likely peak before 2030 and a new experimental fusion facility under construction in France will nearly exhaust the available supply in the early 2050s. That is the conclusion of a highly revealing article that appeared in Science magazine last June, months before the latest fusion breakthrough. (I’ve subsequently learned that most of that data was first reported for a non-specialist audience in the New Energy Times in 2021.) While the Princeton lab has made some progress toward potentially recycling tritium, fusion researchers remain highly dependent on rapidly diminishing supplies. Alternative fuels for fusion reactors are also under development, based on radioactive helium or boron, but these require temperatures up to a billion degrees to trigger a fusion reaction. The European lab plans to experiment with new ways of generating tritium, but these also significantly increase the radioactivity of the entire process and a tritium gain of only 5 to 15 percent is anticipated. The more downtime between experimental runs, the less tritium it will produce. The Science article quotes D. Jassby, formerly of the Princeton fusion lab, saying that the tritium supply issue essentially “makes deuterium-tritium fusion reactors impossible.”

So why all this attention toward the imagined potential for fusion energy? It is yet another attempt by those who believe that only a mega-scaled, technology-intensive approach can be a viable alternative to our current fossil fuel-dependent energy infrastructure. Some of the same interests continue to promote the false claims that a “new generation” of nuclear fission reactors will solve the persistent problems with nuclear power, or that massive scale capture and burial of carbon dioxide from fossil fueled power plants will make it possible to perpetuate the fossil-based economy far into the future. It is beyond the scope of this article to systematically address those claims, but it is clear that today’s promises for a new generation of “advanced” reactors is not much different from what we were hearing back in the 1980s, ‘90s or early 2000s.

Nuclear whistleblower Arnie Gundersen has systematically exposed the flaws in the ‘new’ reactor design currently favored by Bill Gates, explaining that the underlying sodium-cooled technology is the same as in the reactor that “almost lost Detroit” due to a partial meltdown back in 1966, and has repeatedly caused problems in Tennessee, France and Japan. France’s nuclear energy infrastructure, which has long been touted as a model for the future, is increasingly plagued by equipment problems, massive cost overruns and some sources of cooling water no longer being cool enough, due to rising global temperatures. An attempt to export French nuclear technology to Finland took more than twenty years longer than anticipated, at many times the original estimated cost. As for carbon capture, we know that countless, highly subsidized carbon capture experiments have failed and that the vast majority of the CO₂ currently captured from power plants is used for “enhanced oil recovery,” i.e. increasing the efficiency of existing oil wells. The pipelines that would be needed to actually collect CO₂ and bury it underground would be comparable to the entire current infrastructure for piping oil and gas, and the notion of permanent burial will likely prove to be a pipedream.

Meanwhile, we know that new solar and wind power facilities are already cheaper to build than new fossil fueled power plants and in some locations are even less costly than continuing to operate existing power plants. Last May, California was briefly able to run its entire electricity grid on renewable energy, a milestone that had already been achieved in Denmark and in South Australia. And we know that a variety of energy storage methods, combined with sophisticated load management and upgrades to transmission infrastructure are already helping solve the problem of intermittency of solar and wind energy in Europe, California and other locations. At the same time, awareness is growing about the increasing reliance of renewable technology, including advanced batteries, on minerals extracted from Indigenous lands and the global South. Thus a meaningfully just energy transition needs to both be fully renewable, and also reject the myths of perpetual growth that emerged from the fossil fuel era. If the end of the fossil fuel era portends the end of capitalist growth in all its forms, it is clear that all of life on earth will ultimately be the beneficiary.

Updated bio: Brian Tokar is an activist and author, and a long-time faculty and board member of the Institute for Social Ecology. For most of the past 15 years he has been a lecturer in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. His latest book is Climate Justice and Community Renewal: Resistance and Grassroots Solutions (Routledge, 2020), an international collection on grassroots climate responses, coedited with Tamra Gilbertson.

by Katie Singer

Say that a restaurant offers “healthy, natural” chicken soup. How do you know what it means by “healthy” or “natural?” Farmers can cage chickens, feed them genetically-modified soy, wash butchered birds in antibiotics—and still call their chickens natural. Cooks can use lead-coated pots¹ and chemically-fertilized vegetables–and still, legally, call the soup healthy.

“Healthy” and “natural” are marketing terms.

Likewise, when corporations offer “clean,” “renewable” solar photovoltaic (PV) power, how do you know their definition of “clean” or “renewable?”

Now, with The Inflation Reduction Act granting $369 billion to subsidize “renewables” like rooftop and utility-scale solar, must consumers considering these systems assess the technology themselves? Do we aim for an energy resilient country—or just lower electric bills in some households?

When I realized that I don’t know how to live without electricity for more than a few days, I challenged myself to investigate my assumptions about “green” technologies. In this article, I’ll introduce what I’ve learned about solar photovoltaics (PVs).

Assessing electronics from design to discard

Accurate assessment of any product, including solar PVs, requires analyzing impacts from manufacturing, operation and discard. Energy used to manufacture any electronic product accounts for much more than what it uses during operation and discard. For example, a laptop consumes 81% of lifetime energy use before its end-user turns it on for the first time.²

Then, energy efficiency actually increases consumption: when a product’s efficiency increases, its price decreases, and more people buy it. This leads to more manufacturing—more energy use, mining and hazardous waste.³

#1 Manufacturing

You know those white squares under solar panels’ glass? They’re made from pure silicon, which is not available in nature. Manufacturing polysilicon starts with transporting pure quartz gravel, a pure carbon (i.e., petroleum coke) and moist wood to a smelter that is kept at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit for years at a time. Smelters require steady delivery of electricity—or they could explode. They’re typically powered by natural gas, coal and/or nuclear power. Neither solar nor wind can power a smelter since they provide only intermittent power.⁴

For Step 2, producing polysilicon, a modern factory consumes up to 400 megawatts of continuous power per year. Producing 20,000 tons of polysilicon draws enough power for 300,000 homes.⁵ 

Next—making a cylindrical silicon ingot, then slicing it into wafers—are also energy-intensive, toxic waste-emitting processes.⁶

Nearly half the world’s polysilicon comes from a handful of Chinese factories. Reports claim that these manufacturers use forced Uyghur labor.^7,8

Once silicon is formed, phosphorous, boron and sometimes arsenic are “doped” into it so wafers can receive electric signals.

To increase durability, dirt-repellency and energy production, a solar panel’s frame, front sheet, back sheet and encapsulant^9-13 (and batteries, if there are any^14,15) each, typically, hold perfluorinated chemicals (PFAs). Exposure to “forever chemicals” may weaken immune systems, increase cholesterol levels, change liver enzymes, increase pregnant women’s risks of high blood pressure, and increase kidney or testicular cancer risks.^16-18 While manufacturers claim that newer PFAS are safer, research shows that these chemicals are equally harmful.¹⁹ If panels crack (from hailstorms, say), do PFAs leach into groundwater?^20,21

Transporting solar PVs’ raw materials to factories—and final products to consumers—requires cargo ships powered by highly polluting bunker fuel. ²²

#2 Operation  

On sunny days in North America, solar PVs collect sunlight and generate energy between about 11am and 3pm. On cloudy days, they produce 10-25% of sunny-day energy. Meanwhile, households demand electricity mostly around dinnertime. Users who want electricity 24/7 therefore need backup power.

Ten percent of solar systems are backed up by battery storage. Making batteries requires mining (i.e., lithium, cobalt, copper), chemicals and water. Batteries are hazardous to manufacture and at disposal.²³

About ninety percent of solar PV systems stay grid-connected. Their backup comes from whatever fuel the utility uses.

Solar PVs can weaken grid stability. For example, grid-connected solar systems generate so much daytime electricity that utilities must sometimes pay other utilities to take their excess.²⁴

#3 End-of-life waste

While the vast majority of toxic waste occurs during manufacturing, by the end of 2016, the world had generated about 250,000 metric tons of discarded solar panels. By 2050, the world could acquire 78 million metric tons of (hazardous) solar panel waste.^25,26

Typically, solar panels contain lead, cadmium and toxins like PFAs. Since modules can break—and toxins can leach into soil—solar panels should not be disposed of in “regular” landfills.^27,28 Recycling solar panels requires separating their materials—and consumes substantial energy.

Fire hazards

A rooftop solar system requires wiring multiple panels together, connecting them to the main power system, and a DC-to-AC inverter. Many of its components are outdoors.²⁹ Whenever the number of electrical connections increase, so do fire hazards. Firefighters may need special training to respond to solar PV fires.³⁰ If there’s a fire while panels generate electricity, can firefighters turn panels off?

Battery Electric Storage Systems (BESS), which store power generated by solar PVs,³¹ also pose fire hazards:³² On September 20, 2022, a Tesla mega pack battery (one of 256) caught fire at PG&E’s battery storage facility in Moss Landing, California.^33,34 Nearby residents were advised to shelter-in-place, close windows and ventilation systems—because when lithium-ion batteries burn, they emit hazardous chemicals.³⁵ For most of the day, businesses and storefronts were not allowed to open; roads in the Monterey Bay area were closed. Designed and maintained by both PG&E and Tesla, this PG&E plant could store enough energy (generated by solar PVs) to power 225,000 homes for up to four hours during peak demand. This was the facility’s third fire since it opened in April. For now, it is shut down indefinitely.

Other key issues:

• Since solar PVs produce low-energy-density, large arrays require massive amounts of acreage to supply industries with sufficient power. For example, Virginia’s 500MW Spotsylvania Energy Facility removed 4500 acres of trees before installing 1.6 million solar panels to power data centers (with backup from the nearby natural gas-powered utility).³⁶
• When converting the sun’s direct current to alternating current, solar PV systems expose residents to potentially harmful electrical pollution.³⁷
• Manufacturing solar PV systems depends on rare earths. China controls 70% of the rare-earth market: dependence on it creates geo-political conflicts.³⁸
• While demand grows for solar PVs and other electronics, so does demand for cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper. Mining these ores endangers fragile ecosystems including the Amazon.³⁹ As terrestrial supplies become harder and less profitable to extract, some propose mining the ocean floor, regardless its impacts to marine ecology.⁴⁰
• Demand for copper—used in solar panel wiring, cables and inverters—could exceed supply by 2025.⁴¹

New questions and challenges

Proponents might say that solar PV systems emit less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. Whether or not this is true, don’t we need to reduce all kinds of ecological harm? In 2016, The United Nations’ Environmental Programme noted that countries that invest heavily in “green” technologies—Sweden, Germany and the U.S.—rank sustainable on the UN’s index.⁴² China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India—where ores are mined and smelted, where manufacturers make chemicals and dope silicon, where e-waste is discarded—these countries generate CO_2, toxic waste and worker hazards—and rank unsustainable.

Instead of comparing fossil fuels and solar PVs, could we focus on reducing international production and consumption?

Could we restore the engineering principle that no technology is safe or ecologically sound until licensed experts prove it?

Could we define and monitor terms like “sustainable,” “carbon-neutral,” “zero-emitting” and “renewable?”

Would consumers research the supply chain of one substance in a solar panel, a smartphone, a TV or an e-vehicle—and host forums to share their research with classmates, neighbors and co-workers?

Could households, schools, businesses and municipalities each reduce their consumption by three percent each month—and share what they learn?

Systemically and by household, how could we reduce consumption by three percent each month?

Study and discuss what safe, reliable, affordable electricity require. (Is ecologically sound electricity possible?)⁴³

Learn from countries prone to frequent blackouts.

Paint rooftops with reflective paint.

Opt for swamp coolers over air conditioners.

Dry laundry in the sun.

Build and cook with solar ovens.

Grow food at schools, businesses, clinics and in neighborhoods.

Compost kitchen scraps.

Walk, bike or take public transportation.

Create media diets. Wait at least four years to upgrade new hardware and software. Prefer wired connections (which use much less energy) to mobile ones. For meetings, prefer voice (which uses much less data and energy) to video. Delay electronics for children at least until they master reading, writing and math on paper. Download videos rather than stream them. Limit video-watching to (say) three hours per week.

Since buying anything new engages the global super-factory, keep what we have in good repair. Celebrate mechanics and people who consume less.

Live with the questions: What’s a luxury? What’s essential? and treasure people who will discuss them.

References  

1. www.tamararubin.com
2. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/your-phone-costs-energyeven-before-you-turn-it-on
3. Read about the Jevons Paradox, first described in William Jevons’ 1862 book, The Coal Question.
4. Troszak, Thomas, “The hidden costs of solar photovoltaic power,” NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, No. 16., Nov. 2021. https://www.enseccoe.org/data/public/uploads/2021/11/d1_energy-highlights-no.16.pdf
5. Bruns, Adam, “Wacker Completes Dynamic Trio of Billion-Dollar Projects in Tennessee: ‘Project Bond’ cements the state’s clean energy leadership,” 2009, www.siteselection.com
6. Troszak, Thomas, “Why Do We Burn Coal and Trees for Solar Panels?” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels
7. Murtaugh, Dan, Colum Murphy and James Mayger, “Secrecy and Abuse Claims Haunt China’s Solar Factories in Xinjiang, April 13, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-xinjiang-solar/
8. Bloomberg News, “Solar energy boom could worsen forced labor in China, group says,” March 28, 2022.
9. Rojello Fernandez, Seth, C. Kwiatkowski, T. Bruton, “Building a Better World: Eliminating Unnecessary PFAS in Building Materials,” Green Science Policy Institute, 2021. https://greensciencepolicy.org/docs/pfas-building-materials-2021.pdf
10. AiT Technology. (2015). Transparent Encapsulating PVDF Front Sheet – AI Technology, Inc. AiT Technology.
    https://www.aitechnology.com/products/solar/transparent-pvdf-encapsulating-front-sheet/?s=
11. Terreau, C., De, J., & Jenkins, S. (2014). Encapsulation of solar cells (USPTO Patent). Google Patents.
    https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/80/c1/43/c47454f302f6d6/US8847063.pdf
12. Daikin. (2020a). Chemical Products UNIDYNE Repellents and Surface Modifiers Daikin America. Daikin America.
    https://daikin-america.com/surface-modification-technology/#zeff
13. Daikin. (2020b). Renewable Green Energy Zero-Energy Fluoropolymers. Daikin America. https://daikin-america.com/renewable-energy/
14. Arcella, V., Merlo, L., Pieri, R., Toniolo, P., Triulzi, F., & Apostolo, M. (2014). Fluoropolymers for Sustainable Energy. In D. Smith, S. Iacono, & S. Iyer (Eds.), Handbook of Fluoropolymer Science and Technology (pp. 393–412). Wiley Online Library. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118850220
15. Daikin. (2012). Business Review: Daikin Fluorochemical Products. In Chemwinfo. http://www.chemwinfo.com/private_folder/Uploadfiles2015_Feb/Daikin_Brochures_Chem_Biz.pdf
16. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. (2018). ATSDR – Toxicological Profile: Perfluoroalkyls. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp200.pdf
17. C8 Science Panel. (2012). C8 Probable Link Reports. C8 Science Panel. http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/prob_link.html
18. National Toxicology Program. (2016). NTP Monograph Immunotoxicity Associated with Exposure to Perfluorooctanoic Acid or Perfluorooctane
    Sulfonate. In the National Toxicology Program. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/ohat/pfoa_pfos/pfoa_pfosmonograph_508.pdf
19. Gomis, M. I., Vestergren, R., Borg, D., & Cousins, I. T. (2018). Comparing the toxic potency in vivo of long chain perfluoroalkyl acids and fluorinated alternatives. Environment International, 113, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.01.011
20. http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/DesertSunlight.html
21. http://www.businessnorth.com/daily_briefing/storm-damages-minnesota-power-solar-power-plant/article_a7f34d54-75fb-11e6-89fe-53abb52280c3.html
22. https://www.wired.com/story/container-ships-use-super-dirty-fuel-that-needs-to-change/
23. Klinger, PhD, Julie Michelle, “Environmental Footprints of Rare Earth Mining Past and Present,” Center for the Sustainable Separation of Metals, Feb. 23, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQeXrkCqM0
24. Penn, Ivan, “California invested heavily in solar power. Now there’s so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it,” LA Times, June 22, 2017.
25. https://www.irena.org/publications/2016/Jun/End-of-life-management-Solar-Photovoltaic-Panels
26. Atasu, Atalay, et al., “The Dark Side of Solar Power,” Harvard Business Review, June 18, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
27. https://www.re-plus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/N253_9-14-1530.pdf
28. Kisela, Rachel, “California went big on rooftop solar. Now that’s a problem for landfills, LA Times, July 14, 2022. https://darik.news/california/californias-growing-solar-panel-waste-poses-environmental-risk-due-to-lack-of-safe-disposal-options-affect-your-world-today/657021.html
29. https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/system-wiring-and-interconnect-for-rooftop-solar-panels
30. Piantedosi, Matt and Tony Granato, “Solar PV Fire Safety Training,” U.S. Dept. of Energy SunShot Initiative Rooftop Solar Challenge II. https://www.cesa.org/wp-content/uploads/CESA-PV-Fire-Safety-Training-Slides.pdf
31. https://www.utilitydive.com/spons/energy-storage-101-how-energy-storage-works/627194/
32. https://rivercitymalone.com/wind-solar-energy/bess-bombs-part-1/ https://rivercitymalone.com/wind-solar-energy/bess-bombs-part-2/
33. Copitch, Josh, “Highway 1reopened near Moss Landing, shelter-in-place lifted,” KWBW Action news, Sept. 21, 2022. https://www.ksbw.com/article/highway-1-reopened-near-moss-landing-shelter-in-place-lifted/41302918
34. Wright, Thomas, Sept. 20, 2022, Monterey County Herald. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/09/20/caltrans-highway-1-temporarily-closed-in-moss-landing/   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z.pdf
35. Larsson, Fredrik, et al, “Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires,” Scientific Reports, 30 August 2017.
36. Johnson, Jeromy, “The Dark Side of Solar,” April 2017. https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dark-Side-of-Solar.pdf
37. https://smallcaps.com.au/rare-earth-stocks-asx/ultimate-guide/ Cullinane, Danica, “Rare earth stocks on the ASX: The Ultimate Guide,” September 11, 2019.
38. www.OurWeb.tech/letter-28
39. Aldred, Jessica, “Explainer: Deep-sea mining,” China Dialogue, 11.23.21. https://chinadialogueocean.net/6677-deep-seabed-mining/; Teske S, Florin N, Dominish E, Giurco D., “Renewable Energy and Deep Sea Mining: Supply, Demand and Scenarios: Report prepared by ISF for J.M.Kaplan Fund, Oceans 5 and Synchronicity Earth,” July 2016; 2016.
40. https://www.mining.com/the-looming-copper-crunch-and-why-recycling-cant-fix-it/
41. Jason Hickel, “The World’s Sustainable Development Goals Aren’t Sustainable,” Sept. 30, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/30/the-worlds-sustainable-development-goals-arent-sustainable/ Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity: Assessment Report for the UNEP International Resource Panel, 2016. https://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-material-flows-and-resource-productivity-database-link
42. www.OurWeb.tech/letter-14

Further Resources

Citizens for responsible solar: https://www.citizensforresponsiblesolar.org/

Jensen, Derrick, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, Monkfish, 2021.

Martin, PhD., Calvin Luther, “Solar Energy: Yes or No?” https://d19cgyi5s8w5eh.cloudfront.net/usr/7cf0b55423c99874f014fa1484465c9c/eml/0gT1mQ6MSLyoWNirz_1NKw?e=19clay%40gmail.com&a=GZmXcm4zQ6GbJD1RJ2k-iQ&f=&t=

Owen, David, The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse, Riverhead, 2011.

Rehbein, Jose A., et al., “Renewable energy development threatens many globally important biodiversity areas,” Global Change Biology, 4 March, 2020.

Smith, Olivia, “The dark side of the sun: avoiding conflict over solar energy’s land and water demands,” New Security Beat, 10.2.18. https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/10/dark-side-sun-avoiding-conflict-solar-energys-land-water-demands/

Deep-sea mining (for materials that make electronics, solar PVs, and e-vehicles possible) now steps further toward a green light. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/27/united-nations-ocean-treaty-marine-life

Documentaries:

• Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”
• Julia Barnes’ “Bright Green Lies”
• Jean-Louis Perez and Guillaume Pitron’s “The Price of Green Energy”

Katie Singer writes about the energy, extractions, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. She believes that if she’s not aware that she’s part of the problem, then she can’t be part of the solution. She dreams that every smartphone user learns about the supply chain of one substance (of 1000+) in a smartphone. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring. She currently writes about nature, democracy and technology for Meer.com. Visit www.OurWeb.tech and www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com.

A surge in natural gas has helped drive down coal burning across the United States and Europe, but it isn't displacing other fossil fuels on a global scale. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are also failing to cut emissions fast enough, the report says, as much of their growth has provided new energy supplies instead of displacing fossil fuels.

What Is Energy Denial?

by Don Fitz

The fiftieth anniversary of the first Earth Day of 1970 will be in 2020. As environmentalism has gone mainstream during that half a century, it has forgotten its early focus and shifted toward green capitalism. Nowhere is this more apparent than abandonment of the slogan popular during the early Earth Days: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”

The unspoken phrase of today’s Earth Day is “Recycle, Occasionally Reuse, and Never Utter the Word ‘Reduce.’” A quasi taboo on saying “reduce” permeates the lexicon of twenty-first century “environmentalism.” Confronting the planned obsolescence of everyday products rarely, if ever, appears as an ecological goal. The concept of possessing fewer objects and smaller homes has surrendered to the worship of ecogadgets. The idea of redesigning communities to make them compact so individual cars would not be necessary has been replaced by visions of universal electric cars. The saying “Live simply so that others can simply live” now draws empty stares from those who can only fantasize happiness via unlimited possession of “green” stuff.

Long forgotten are the modest lifestyles of Buddha, Jesus and Thoreau. When the word “conservation” is used, it is virtually always applied to preserving plants or animals and rarely to conserving energy. The very idea of re-imagining society so that people can have good lives as they use less energy has been consumed by visions of the infinite expansion of solar/wind power and the oxymoron, “100% clean energy.”

But… wait – aren't solar and wind power inherently clean? No, and that is the crux of the problem. Many thoroughly modern environmentalists have become so distraught with looming climate catastrophe that they turn a blind eye to other threats to the existence of life. Myopia of those who rightfully denounce “climate change denial” has led to a parallel unwillingness to recognize dangers built into other forms of energy production, a problem which can be called “clean energy danger denial.”

Obviously, fossil fuels must be replaced by other forms of energy. But those energy sources have such negative properties that using less energy should be the beginning point, the ending point and occupy every in-between point on the path to sane energy use. What follows are “The 15 Unstated Myths of Clean, Renewable Energy.” Many are so absurd that no one would utter them, yet they are ensconced within the assumption that massive production of solar and wind energy can be “clean.”

Myth 1. “Clean energy” is carbon neutral. The fallacious belief that “clean” energy does not emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) is best exemplified by nuclear power, which is often included in the list of alternative energy sources. It is, of course, true that very little GHGs are released during the operation of nukes. But it is highly disingenuous to ignore the use of fossil fuels in the construction (and ultimate decommissioning) of the power plant as well as the mining, milling, transport and eternal storage of nuclear material. To this must be added the fossil fuels used in the building of the array of machinery to make nukes possible and the disruption of aquatic ecosystems from the emptying of hot water.

Similarly, examination of the life cycle of producing other “carbon neutral ” energy reveals that they all require machinery which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Steel, cement and plastics are central to “renewable” energy and have heavy carbon footprints. One small example: The mass of an industrial wind turbine is 90% steel.

Myth 2. “Clean energy” is inexhaustible because the sun will always shine and the wind will always blow. This statement assumes that all that is needed for energy is sunshine and wind, which is totally false. Sunshine and wind do not equal solar power and wind power. The transformation into “renewable” energy requires minerals which are non-renewable and difficult to access.

Myth 3. “Clean energy” does not produce toxins. This is so far from the thoughts of “clean” energy apostles that it does not cross their minds to compare the level of toxins resulting from fossil fuel usage to toxins involved in the extraction and processing of lithium, cobalt, copper, silver, aluminum, cadmium, indium, gallium, selenium, tellurium, neodymium, and dysprosium. After all, any comparison of toxins associated with the production of clean energy to fossil fuels would be an open admission of the dirtiness of what is supposed to be “clean.”

Exposing the life-threatening emissions from burning fossil fuels should not lead us to ignore that “Processing one ton of rare earths produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste.” Similar to what happens with Myth 2, toxins may not be produced during the operation of solar and wind power but permeate other stages of their existence.

Myth 4. “Clean energy” does not deplete or contaminate drinkable water. This also does not seem to enter the minds of “clean” energy proponents who rarely, if ever, address water in their writings. Though water is usually thought of for agriculture and cooling in nuclear power plants, it is used in massive amounts for manufacturing and mining. The manufacture of a single auto requires 350,000 liters of water.

In 2015, the US used 4 billion gallons of water for mining and 70% of that comes from groundwater. Water is used for separating minerals from rocks, cooling machinery and dust control. Even industry apologists admit that “Increased reliance on low ore grades means that it is becoming necessary to extract a higher volume of ore to generate the same amount of refined product, which consumes more water.” Julia Adeney Thomas points out that “producing one ton of rare earth ore (in terms of rare earth oxides) produces 200 cubic meters of acidic wastewater.”

Myth 5. “Clean energy” does not require very much land usage. In fact, “clean” energy could well have more effect on land use than fossil fuels. According to Jasper Bernes, “To replace current US energy consumption with renewables, you’d need to devote at least 25-50 % of the US landmass to solar, wind, and biofuels.”

Something else is often omitted from contrasts between energy harvesting. Fossil fuel has a huge effect on land where it is extracted but relatively little land is used at the plants where the fuel is burned for energy. In contrast, solar/wind power requires both land where raw materials are mined plus the vast amount of land used for solar panels or wind “farms.”

Myth 6. “Clean energy” has no effect on plant and animal life. Contrary to the frequent belief that there is no life in the desert, the Mojave is teeming with plant and animal life whose habitat will be increasingly undermined as it is covered with solar collectors. It is unfortunate that so many who express concern for the destruction of coral reefs seem blissfully unaware of the annihilation of aquatic life wrought by deep sea mining of minerals for renewable energy components.

Wind harvesting can be a doomsday machine for forests. As Ozzie Zehner warns: “Many of the planet’s strongest winds rip across forested ridges. In order to transport 50-ton generator modules and 160-foot blades to these sites, wind developers cut new roads. They also clear strips of land … for power lines and transformers. These provide easy access to poachers as well as loggers, legal and illegal alike.”

As the most productive land for solar/wind extraction is used first, that requires the continuous expansion of the amount of land (or sea bed) taken as energy use increases. The estimate that 1 million species could be made extinct in upcoming decades will have to be up-counted to the extent that “clean” energy is mixed in with fossil fuels.

Myth 7. “Clean energy” production has no effect on human health. Throughout the centuries of capitalist expansion workers have struggled to protect their health and families have opposed the poisoning of their communities. This is not likely to change with an increase in “clean” energy. What will change is the particular toxins which compromise health.

Creating silicon wafers for solar cells “… releases large amounts of sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide. Crystalline-silicon solar cell processing involves the use or release of chemicals such as phosphine, arsenic, arsine, trichloroethane, phosphorous oxycholoride, ethyl vinyl acetate, silicon trioxide, stannic chloride, tantalum pentoxide, lead, hexavalent chromium, and numerous other chemical compounds.” The explosive gas silane is also used and more recent thin-film technologies employ toxic substances such as cadmium.

Wind technology is associate with its own problems. Caitlin Manning reports on windmill farms in the Trans Isthmus Corridor of Mexico: “which is majority Indigenous and dependent on agriculture and fishing. The concrete bases of the more than 1,600 wind turbines have severely disrupted the underground water flows … Despite promises that they could continue to farm their lands, fences and security guards protecting the turbines prevent farmers from moving freely. The turbines leak oil into the soil and sometimes ignite … many people have suffered mental problems from the incessant noise.”

Though the number of health problems documented for fossil fuels is vastly more than those for solar/wind, the latter have been used on an industrial scale for a much shorter time, making it harder for links to show up. The Precautionary Principle states that a dangerous process should be proven safe before use rather than waiting until after damage has been done. Will those who have correctly insisted that the Precautionary Principle be employed for fracking and other fossil fuel processes demand an equivalent level of investigation for “clean” energy or give it the same wink and nod that petrochemical magnates have enjoyed?

Myth 8. People are happy to have “clean energy” harvested or its components mined where they live. Swooping windmill blades can produce constant car-alarm-level noise of about 100 decibels, and, if they ice up, they can fling it off at 200 miles per hour. It is not surprising that indigenous people of Mexico are not alone in being less than thrilled about having them next door. Since solar panels and windmills can only be built where there is lots of sun or wind, their neighbors are often high-pressured into accepting them unwillingly.

Obviously, components can be mined only where they exist, leading to a non-ending list of opponents. Naveena Sadasivam gives a few examples from the very long list of communities confronting extraction for “clean” energy components: “Indigenous communities in Alaska have been fighting to prevent the mining of copper and gold at Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery and a crucial source of sustenance. The proposed mine … has been billed by proponents as necessary to meet the growing demand for copper, which is used in wind turbines, batteries, and solar panels. Similar stories are playing out in Norway, where the Sámi community is fighting a copper mine, and in Papua New Guinea, where a company is proposing mining the seabed for gold and copper.”

Myth 9. No one is ever killed due to disputes over energy extraction or harvesting. When Asad Rehman wrote in May 2019 that environmental conflicts are responsible for “the murder of two environmental defenders each and every week,” his data was out of date within two months. By July 2019 Global Witness (GW) had tabulated that “More than three people were murdered each week in 2018 for defending their land and our environment.” Their report found that mining was the deadliest economic sector, followed by agriculture, with water resources such as dams in third place. Commenting on the GW findings, Justine Calma wrote “Although hydropower has been billed as ‘renewable energy,’ many activists have taken issue with the fact large dams and reservoirs have displaced indigenous peoples and disrupted local wildlife.”

GW recorded one murder sparked by wind power. Murders traceable to “clean” energy will certainly increase if it out-produces energy from fossil fuels. The largest mass murder of earth defenders that GW found in 2018 was in India “over the damaging impacts of a copper mine in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.” Copper is a key element for “clean” energy.

Myth 10. One watt of “clean energy” will replace one watt from use of fossil fuels.  Perhaps the only virtue that fossil fuels have is that their energy is easier to store than solar/wind power. Solar and wind power are intermittent, which means they can be collected only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Storing and retrieving their energy requires complex processes that result in substantial loss of energy. Additionally, the characteristics of solar panels means that tiny fragments such as dust or leaves can block the surface.

Therefore, their efficiency will be much less under actual operating conditions than they are under ideal lab conditions. A test described by Ozzie Zehner found that solar arrays rated at 1000 watts actually produced 200-400 watts in the field. Similarly, Pat Murphy notes that while a coal plant operates at 80-90% of capacity, wind turbines do so at 20-30% of capacity. Since they perform at low efficiencies, both solar and wind energy require considerably more land than misleading forecasts predict. This, in turn, increases all of the problems with habitat loss, toxic emissions, human health and land conflicts.

Myth 11. “Clean energy” is as efficient as fossil fuels in resource use. Processes needed for storing and retrieving energy from intermittent sources renders them extremely complex. Solar/wind energy can be stored for night use by using it to pump water uphill and, when energy is needed, letting it flow downhill to turn turbines for electricity. Or, it can be stored in expensive, large and heavy batteries. Wind turbines “can pressurize air into hermetically sealed underground caverns to be tapped later for power, but the conversion is inefficient and suitable geological sites are rare.” Daniel Tanuro estimates that “Renewable energies are enough to satisfy human needs, but the technologies needed for their conversion are more resource-intensive than fossil technologies: it takes at least ten times more metal to make a machine capable of producing a renewable kWh than to manufacture a machine able to produce a fossil kWh.”

Myth 12. Improved efficiency can resolve problems of “clean energy.” Perhaps the most often-stated illusion of green energy, this is one of the most nonsensical claims. It shows a complete lack of understanding of market economics and consumer habits. Energy efficiency (EE) is the same as putting energy on sale. Shoppers do not buy less of something on sale – they buy more. Stan Cox describes research showing that at the same time air conditioners became 28% more efficient, they accounted for 37% more energy use. Findings such as this are due both to users keeping their houses cooler and more people buying air conditioners. Similarly, at the same time as automobiles showed more EE, energy use for transportation went up. This is because more drivers switched from sedans to SUVs or small trucks and there were many more drivers and cars on the road.

EE parallels increased energy consumption not just because of increased use of one specific commodity, but also because it allows people to buy other commodities which are also energy-intensive. It spurs corporations to produce more energy-guzzling objects to dump on the market. Those people who do not want this additional stuff are likely to put more money in the bank and the bank loans out that money to multiple borrowers, many of whom are businesses which then increase their production.

Myth 13. Recycling “clean energy” machine components can resolve its problems. This myth vastly overestimates the proportion of materials that can actually be recycled and understates the massive amount of “clean” energy being advocated. Kris De Decker point out that “… a 5 MW wind turbine produces more than 50 tonnes of plastic composite waste from the blades alone.” If a solar/wind infrastructure could actually be constructed to replace all energy from fossil fuel, it would be the most enormous build-up in human history.  Many components could be recycled, but it is not possible to recycle more than 100%, and actual recycling is vastly less of that (often about 3-4%). A build-up would mean an exponential growth rate which would produce an expanding mountain of non-recycled components.

Myth 14. Whatever problems there are with “clean energy” will work themselves out. Exactly the opposite is true. Problems of “clean” energy will become worse as resources are used up, the best land for harvesting solar and wind power is taken, and the rate of industrial expansion increases. Obtaining power will become more vastly difficult as there are diminishing returns on new locations for mining and placing solar collectors and wind mills.

Myth 15. There Is No Alternative. This is the most obscene of all efforts to deny damages of “clean” energy. Repeating Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing verbiage, energy deniers say “We have to do something because moving a little bit in the right direction is better than doing nothing at all.” The problem is that expanding energy production is a step in the wrong direction, not the right direction.

The alternative to overgrowing “clean” energy is to remember what was outlined before. The concept of conserving energy is an age-old philosophy that an earlier incarnation of environmentalism realized as it used the word “reduce.” Those who tunnel vision on the horrible potential of climate change have an unfortunate tendency to mimic the behavior of climate change deniers as they themselves deny the dangers of alternative energy. Too many of today’s environmentalists respond to any attempt to realistically assess problems of “clean” energy with a three monkey approach of “I won’t hear it; I won’t see it; I won’t print it.”

Kris De Decker traces the roots of toxic wind power not to wind power itself but to hubristic faith in unlimited energy growth: “For more than two thousand years, windmills were built from recyclable or reusable materials: wood, stone, brick, canvas, metal. If we would reduce energy demand, smaller and less efficient wind turbines would not be a problem.”

Every form of energy production has difficulties. “Clean, renewable energy” is neither clean nor renewable. There can be good lives for all people if we abandon the goal of infinite energy growth. Our guiding principle needs to be that the only form of truly clean energy is less energy.

Don Fitz has taught Environmental Psychology at Washington University and Fontbonne University in St. Louis. He is on the Editorial Board of Green Social Thought, newsletter editor for the Green Party of St. Louis and was the 2016 candidate of the Missouri Green Party for Governor.

The closure of the last shipyard in Belfast would end centuries of ship building in the city. A group of workers are demanding the U.K. nationalize the yards.

Josh Schlossberg is an investigative journalist, horror author and former environmental organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Biomass Monitor, a subscription-supported publication that bills itself as “the nation’s leading publication investigating the whole story on bioenergy, biomass, and biofuels.” In early September 2018, I was visiting Colorado and met up with Josh. We talked biomass, “renewable” energy, wildfires, politics and activism. What follows is a partial transcript, edited for clarity.

The nation’s entrenched fossil-nuclear corporate elites are more focused on propping up the industries of the past than embracing the technologies of the future.

How Donald Trump Plans to Enlist Fossil Fuels in the Struggle for Global Dominance

The new U.S. energy policy of the Trump era is, in some ways, the oldest energy policy on Earth. Every great power has sought to mobilize the energy resources at its command, whether those be slaves, wind-power, coal, or oil, to further its hegemonic ambitions. What makes the Trumpian variant — the unfettered exploitation of America’s fossil-fuel reserves — unique lies only in the moment it’s being applied and the likely devastation that will result, thanks not only to the 1950s-style polluting of America’s air, waters, and urban environment, but to the devastating hand it will lend to a globally warming world.

Carla Skandier points out that public ownership of the fossil fuel industry is necessary to combat global warming.

by Stan Cox

Hurricane Irma passes by the eastern end of Cuba (NOAA)

At the People’s Climate March back last spring, all along that vast river of people, the atmosphere was electric. But many of the signs and banners were far too focused on electricity. Yes, here and there were solid “System Change, Not Climate Change” – themed signs and banners. But far too many of the slogans on display asserted or implied that ending the climate emergency and avoiding climatic catastrophes like those that would occur months later—hurricanes Harvey and Irma and the mega-wildfires in the U.S. West—will be a simple matter of getting Donald Trump out of office and converting to 100-percent renewable energy.

The sunshiny placards and cheery banners promising an energy cornucopia were inspired by academic studies published in the past few years purporting to show how America and the world could meet 100 percent of future energy demand with solar, wind, and other “green” generation. The biggest attention-getters have been a pair of reports published in 2015 by a team led by Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, but there have been many others.

Despite a growing body of research that has debunked overblown claims of a green-energy bonanza, Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and other luminaries in the mainstream climate movement have been invigorated by reports like Jacobson’s and have embraced the 100-percent vision. And that vision is merging with a broader, even more spurious claim that has become especially popular in the Trump era: the private sector, we are told, has now taken the lead on climate, and market forces will inevitably achieve the 100-percent renewable dream and solve the climate crisis on their own. In this dream, anything’s possible; Jacobson even believes that tens of thousands of wind turbines installed offshore could tame hurricanes like Katrina, Harvey, and Irma.

The 100-percent dream has become dogma among liberals and mainstream climate activists. Serious energy scholars who publish analyses that expose the idea’s serious weaknesses risk being condemned as stooges of the petroleum industry or even as climate deniers. Jacobson has even suggested that he might take legal action against NOAA scientist Christopher Clack and twenty coauthors whose critical evaluation of his work was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June.

Jacobson’s team and others cling to the idea of 100-percent conversion because they (rightly) want to eliminate fossil and nuclear energy, and they foresee that any future supply gap left by a shortfall in renewable generation is going to be filled by those dirty sources. That is indeed stated or implied by many of the opposing analyses, including the Clack study. But the two sides also share other basic assumptions. They both have tried to design scenarios that satisfy all future demand for energy solely through industrial production, technological improvements, efficiency, and markets, without any strict regulatory limits on the total quantity of energy consumed in production and consumption. The 100-percenters believe such a scenario is achievable while their critics conclude that it is not, but they agree on the ultimate goal: a permanent high-energy economy.

That part of the dogma, not the “100-percent” part, is the problem. America does need to convert to fully renewable energy as quickly as possible. But juxtaposing the 100-percent scenarios that promise a permanent high-energy economy with critiques showing such projects to be futile should lead us to a different vision altogether: that, at least in affluent countries, it would be better simply to transform society so that it operates on far less end-use energy while assuring sufficiency for all. That would bring a  100%-renewable energy system within closer reach and avoid the outrageous technological feats and gambles required by high-energy dogma. It would also have the advantage of being possible.

Waking up from the dream

The pursuit of the 100-percent dream didn’t start with the 2015 Jacobson et al. papers, and critiques of it didn’t start with Clack et al. For example, there was a 2015 paper by Peter Loftus and colleagues that critically examined 17 “decarbonization scenarios.” Then earlier this year, a study by a group of Australian researchers led by B.P. Heard rated the feasibility of 24 published studies describing 100-percent renewable electricity scenarios.

The Heard group concluded that among the research papers they evaluated (which included several with Jacobson as lead author), none “provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met.” They found a wide range of technical flaws in the proposed systems. Most scenarios assumed unprecedented and deeply unrealistic improvements in energy efficiency (in terms of kilowatt hours consumed per dollar’s worth of output). Because the chief renewable technologies, wind and solar, fluctuate continuously in their output and regularly drop to zero output, they must be backed up with large supplies of “base load” electricity if all demand is to be met without interruption; no studies managed this without ecologically destructive levels of biomass burning or wildly unrealistic estimates of hydroelectric output. Scenarios did not account for the overcapacity and redundancy that will be needed if a high-energy economy is to function in an increasingly unpredictable global climate. (This year, the people of Texas, Florida, and the West in particular can attest to the deep impacts of that unpredictability.) Studies did not account for the expected four- to five-fold expansion of the power transmission infrastructure that will be required to accommodate renewable energy. And they did not address the difficulties of maintaining voltage and frequency of alternating current within extremely tight limits (a necessity in technologically dependent societies) when a large share of the supply is from wind and solar. This all adds up, writes the Heard team, to a systemic “fragility” that will render futile all attempts to deliver the promised output of electricity when it is needed.

The Loftus group found several of the same weaknesses in the studies they examined. But they singled out scenarios in papers by Jacobson and Delucchi, the World Wildlife Fund, and Worldwatch. Those scenarios had in common two assumptions that Loftus and colleagues regarded as out of the realm of reality: efficiency improving at as much as 3 to 4 times the historic rate, and buildup of renewable generation capacity at many times the rate at which today’s total electric generation capacity was built up in past decades. They concluded that it would be “premature and highly risky to ‘bet the planet’” on the achievement of scenarios like those.

Unrepealable limits

In their PNAS publication, the one that prompted Jacobson to hint at a lawsuit, Clack et al. critically examined two Jacobson papers from 2015, one of which was a widely hailed “roadmap” for plentiful, 100-percent renewable energy in all 50 United States. In addition to “modeling errors,” much of the Clack critique is aimed at the assumed ubiquitous deployment of technologies that either don’t yet exist or are only lightly tested and can’t be scaled up to the huge scales envisioned. They include underground thermal energy storage for virtually every building in the country, a full air transportation system run entirely on hydrogen(!), wind farms covering 6 percent of the entire land surface of the 48 contiguous states, an outrageous and unrealistic increase in ecologically harmful hydroelectric power, and a buildout of electricity generation capacity that hurtles along at 14 times the average rate of capacity expansion in the past half-century.   

But even if it were physically possible to achieve all of those scaleups, and even if Congress found a way to repeal and replace Murphy’s Law, the full-blown 100-percent dream could not be realized. In a series of papers published since 2010 (e.g., a 2016 paper in Energy Policy), Patrick Moriarty and Damon Honnery of Monash University in Australia have identified several crucial factors that will limit the total global output of renewable electricity. For example, renewable technologies exploit the windiest or sunniest locations first, and, as they expand, they move into less and less productive territory. There, their construction and operation will require as much energy input as before, but their output will be lower.  Furthermore, because of inherently intermittent generation, much of the electric power from wind and solar will have to be stored using batteries, hydrogen, compressed air, pumped water, or other means. It will then have to be reconverted to electricity and transmitted from often remote regions to places where people and businesses are concentrated. The result is a severe shrinkage of the net energy available to society, because much energy is expended or lost during both conversion and transmission. Finally, all production of wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and especially hydroelectric energy has an ecological impact on the landscapes where it occurs. So if we are to halt our degradation and destruction of the Earth's natural ecosystems, it will be necessary to declare large areas off-limits to the energy sector.

Moriarty and Honnery show that given all of these factors, expansion of renewable energy will hit a brick wall, a point at which as much energy is required to install and operate electric facilities as they will end up generating in their operating lifetimes. But even before that point is reached, it will have become pointless to expand generation capacity that has lower and lower net output. They conclude that as a result, future renewable output “could be far below present energy use.”

What are we hoping  for?

A generally overlooked but crucial point about high-energy, 100-percent renewable proposals is that they seek to meet future demand patterns in a way that would leave in place today’s great distortions in access to energy and other resources. The American economy would carry on uninterrupted with its overproduction, overconsumption, and inequality, while billions of people in poorer regions and countries would not get the access to energy that’s required for a minimally good quality of life.

The 100-percent scenarios themselves, as well as the critiques of them, hold one especially valuable lesson. Unintentionally, they show in stark terms why rich countries need to start planning to live in the renewable but lower-energy world envisioned by Moriarty and Honnery rather than the high-energy world that the mainstream 100-percent scenarios envision. The world that the latter scenarios would create, one focused on maintaining current profligate consumption levels, would not be a green and pleasant one. Herculean quantities of physical and mental labor power will have been expended, boundless physical resources (including vast tonnages of fossil fuels) will have been consumed, and countless entire ecosystems across the Earth’s surface will have been sacrificed to generate more electricity. All of that would make for a pretty grim world. With society having zeroed in singlemindedly on acquiring enough energy to keep driving, flying, and overproducing as much as we want, there’s no reason to expect that other problems, including enormous distortions in economic and political power and quality of life, along with racial and ethnic oppression, would have been solved.     

Some in the climate movement believe in the 100-percent dogma and the dream it holds out: that the (affluent) American way of life can keep running forward in time and outward in space without breaking stride. There are others who know that to be an impossibly rosy vision but urge the movement to limit public discussion to such green dreams, because talking about a regulated, low-energy economy would crush hope and enthusiasm at the grassroots.   

But the debate about hope ignores the relevant question: what are we hoping for? If our hope is to deploy solar and wind capacity that maintains indefinitely the current throughput of energy in the world’s affluent societies, then, yes, the situation is hopeless. But there can be other hopes that, although they’re looking dim for now, are at least within reach: that greenhouse warming can be limited sufficiently to allow communities around the world who are currently impoverished and oppressed to improve their lives; that access to food, water, shelter, safety, culture, nature, and other necessities becomes sufficient for all; or that exploitation and oppression of humans and nature be brought to an end.

There’s always hope, as long as we don’t confuse dreams with reality.

Stan Cox is on the editorial board of Green Social Thought and co-author, with Paul Cox, of  How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe’s Path, From the Caribbean to Siberia.