By Gordon Tomb
While listing many of the barriers to abandoning fossil fuels for “green” energy, three writers in Foreign Affairs magazine skip over an important truth: the once ballyhooed but now moribund “energy transition” was and remains unnecessary and undesirable.
Instead, the article’s title, “The Troubled Energy Transition: How to Find a Pragmatic Path Forward,” suggests (1) that the so-called transition has legitimacy and (2) that it still somehow should happen. Both are false.
The writers are distinguished men: Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian; Peter Orszag, Chairman and CEO of Lazard; and Atul Arya, Chief Energy Strategist at S&P Global. Their 5,000-word essay discusses issues extensively, but the language is less than direct and misses the heart of many matters.
For instance, the authors compare the shift to “green” energy from fossil fuels with coal replacing wood beginning in the 18th century and culminating in the 1900s and with oil overtaking coal as a dominant fuel in the 1960s. Energy sources being supplanted, they note, continued to be used well into the transitions just as fossil fuels have remained in use – even growing in quantity – during today’s introduction of alternatives.
However, the article gives short shrift to energy density, or how much work can be extracted from a unit of an energy source. In past transitions, succeeding sources were required in far smaller quantities than forms being replaced to do the same amount of work – coal better than wood, oil better than coal, and uranium beating the pants off everything.
Regarding the supposed transition of today, the article simply says that “improved functionality and lower costs … are not yet present across much of the entire energy system.”
What that really means is that wind, solar, green hydrogen and so on are utterly useless for supplying large populations with reliable, affordable energy and that physics and chemistry offer no credible evidence of their ability to ever fill that role. Wind and solar, for example, require many times the land and material to produce the same amount of electricity as do coal and nuclear plants. Which is why green energy is failing even with massive subsidies.
About the difficulty of financing green dreams, the writers say, “Part of the problem is sheer costs: many trillions of dollars, with great uncertainty as to who is to pay it.” There is a lack of incentives for private investment, government-imposed carbon taxes are problematic, and the populations of neither rich nor poor countries can afford to pay for any of it.
Not stated is that previous transitions were driven by inventors, investors, engineers, mechanics and tradesmen who employed new fuels to work more efficiently with new machines and processes. New energy sources were developed organically, following the laws of nature and economics rather than the diktats of the deluded drunk on power derived from government sponsorship.
Boneheaded “climate” policies of national governments have made a mess of things. Energy has become more expensive and less available in places like Germany and California, resulting in predictable economic destruction. That is a truth that needs to be said loudly, over and over by more smart people.
The writers’ most fundamental failing is their pretense that moving away from fossil fuels to achieve “net-zero emissions” is a worthy mission only in need of “a pragmatic path forward.” Exactly the opposite is true.
Mountains of geologic and historical evidence and modern research of atmospheric physics show that:
- Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution have brought the gas to more optimum levels for plant growth. Crop production has improved, and global ecosystems have greened. We should be putting more CO2 into the air, not less.
- Modern warming is neither unusual nor unprecedented. Vikings grew grain on Greenland 1,000 years ago, and Romans raised citrus in northern England 2,000 years ago. Today, it’s too cold in both places to do either.
- Fearmongering about the “greenhouse” effect is based on exaggerations of the warming potential of CO2 and other gases and on flawed computer models that have been disproven repeatedly by real-world data. Because of a phenomenon of diminishing returns, even a doubling of CO2 from the current concentration would result in only modest, beneficial warming.
We won’t guess why such credentialed writers would overlook these well-established facts while perpetuating the false premise of a decades-long disaster in public policy. But there is no “pragmatic path forward” for a sham energy transition, and the authors should know better.
This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy, April 24, 2023.
Gordon Tomb is a senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia.
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Just as true today as in 2023.
The reason wind/solar/battery systems are not feasible is that they take more energy to produce, operate, and decommission than they will ever generate in their operational lifetime.
Whilst large-scale nuclear is one answer, the UK government is reluctant to go down that road as, recently, project costs have been getting out of control and the ultimate decomissioning costs cannot be calculated
That is a failure of Government
They cannot produce continuous output therefore cannot bring in a continuous revenue stream to cover cost of capital, operation, and return on investment. No business is feasible in these circumstances whatever the energy requirement.
“Fearmongering about the “greenhouse” effect is based on exaggerations of the warming potential of CO2 and other gases . . .”
True. Adding CO2 or any other gas (or gold or diamonds or breakfast cereal) to the atmosphere won’t make it any hotter.
What engineering knowledge do these eminent people have?
There is a fundamental and erroneous belief among far too many people that just because electricity can be generated from a particular generator that it is suited for large scale grid supply.
Practically and technically wind, solar etc are not suited and need considerable support at a high cost and complication.
We in the Australian mineral industry knew that in the 1979s when designing electricity supplies for large new mines in remote locations.
Geoff S
It appears that expert opinion replaced the scientific method and sound engineering practice in the academic world about half a century ago.
Testing of hypotheses and obsevation of results is avoided.
Just my observation and opinion.
Basic rule things will succeed if they are better than the thing the replace. Renewables are failing because they aren’t better and in fact they are a lot worse.
That’s basic rule number 1, Leon. Basic rule number 2 is “There’s no such thing as a free lunch in physics”.
And then there is the government rule: Say it will be so and throw lots of money at it.
Or in business/economics.
“The writers are distinguished men:”
This underlines one of problems faced from the beginning.
Even so called intelligent and learned people can earnestly believe in this nonsense.
Having said that, far less learned (but probably more intelligent) people have long since realised the truth. Which suggests these people may not be so intelligent, and we shouldn’t give them any sort of pass even if their beliefs are genuine
Either this or cognitive dissonance. A lot of people I’m sure suspect there is a question mark over the “settled science” but dare not question it lest their belief system collapses… or it could just be that they have investments of another sort
Of all the scams (and their have been a few in my lifetime) this one is particularly difficult to expose
The vast juggernaut that has built up over the decades has attracted travellers from all sorts of backgrounds, with all sorts of motivations, and is thus deeply embedded into the global collective psyche and entrenched in all the major institutions
Shaking it off by arguing on the basis of facts and evidence was never going to be possible
The other side simply has to employ hysterical shrieking, appealing to emotions, and beliefs that are dearly and in most cases sincerely held
There’s also been a total destruction of education systems. Skepticism and enquiry have gone out of the window, resulting in factory standard clones exiting universities speaking (ineloquently) with apparent high confidence about matters they do not understand in the least
This mix of ignorance and confidence is dangerous. There’s a lot of it around
“Even so called intelligent and learned people can earnestly believe in this nonsense.”
This is true. They have a lot of help in believing this nonsense because they are inundated with climate change propaganda every day, as are we all. Some people are more influenced by propaganda than others. Intelligence doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. One can be intelligent and still be fooled by lies and propaganda. I think belief in “human-caused climate change” is more of a societal “go along, to get along” kind of thing, rather than a measure of intelligence. People can fool themselves if they think it benefits them.
I agree Tom, but with one caveat
I guess I should have made clear that I’m talking about people who have actually looked into it, some aspect of it
Most people will just never bother, probably thinking they couldn’t possibly understand. and it’s perfectly understandable that they believe the official narrative. Although if they did look into it they’d realise that the jargon used by propenents is partly to hide the fact that the basic principles are horribly flawed, which you don’t need a PhD to see
On the other hand, the two referenced in this post have studied in great detail the economic and technical feasibility
It’s in these cases that I’m inclined not to give a free pass and put it entirely down to the unending propaganda
The greatest means of influencing public opinion is through fear and anger.
The greatest means of brainwashing is through repetition.
The idea that intermittent wind and solar can power the grid is so outrageous that only intellectuals believe it.
IMHO the essential point is that the energy transition is simply about control. A country that has control of its energy is in a strong position economically. North Sea gas in the 70’s onwards provided a relatively stable and prosperous U.K. The essential object of the Green movement is to take control. If they have control of energy by spurious claims of harm then it achieves the initial objective. It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that the arguments are split left and right. The haves and have nots perhaps.
Abundant non-polluting energy is an admirable dream but, and I have yet to see anyone making this point clearly, electricity is NOT energy. It is simply the means of distributing energy from other sources, and is not great at that. Filling a car with petrol takes a few minutes. There is simply no physical way in which electricity can be used to deliver energy at that rate. Turn around a plane in 30 minutes – are you serious?
The world of physics is an alien one to the Green planet.
So it’s ironic that those who claim to support the have-nots are driving up the cost of their energy supplies with their policies!
The old saying of “he who controls the money, controls” has been replaced with “he who controls the energy controls.” In practical terms, energy is interchangeable with money.
Vikings grew grain on Greenland 1,000 years ago, and Romans raised citrus in northern England 2,000 years ago. Today, it’s too cold in both places to do either.
The Romans also grew grapes and made wine extensively in the Vale of Evesham and the Severn Valley. They wouldn’t have done it if the climate was too cool and the resulting wine undrinkable!
Don’t you know, the Roman Warming Period was “localised”, because, err, the IPCC said that….., umm, I read in the Guardian…, err,…. because I don’t debate deniers!
Ps. This is pretty much the answer you’ll get from chatgpt
Don’t look behind the curtain. The show must go on.
From the article: “What that really means is that wind, solar, green hydrogen and so on are utterly useless for supplying large populations with reliable, affordable energy and that physics and chemistry offer no credible evidence of their ability to ever fill that role.”
That’s the bottom line.
In the image at the top- I don’t think that worker should be standing on the panels. I watched a 20 acre solar “farm” being built next to my ‘hood and never saw that. But I encourage them to do that if it’ll speed up the failure of the “farm”. 🙂
Look 97% of scientists agree that wind and solar are the answer to our energy and environmental needs. Also they say wind and solar provide cheap energy. This proves that 97% of scientists are either corrupted by the monies made available to them by the globalists or ignorant products of the DEI movement or both.
Those scientists are wrong on both counts: Wind and solar are not the answer to our energy and environmental needs, and they do not provide cheap energy. When they are added to the electric grid, they increase the price of electricity.
Wind and Solar and Subsidies and Special Pricing are the problem, not the answer.
Oh, (/sarc) you are so wrong. We pragmatics/skeptics/deniers are so out of step with the march of history that we cannot possibly envision the future.
Expert: knows more and more about less and less. Eventually knows everything about nothing.
Very well written, all to the point.
A friend sent me an essay that was about the most effective takedown of NetZero that I have seen (story tip):
https://quillette.com/2025/03/04/the-green-energy-delusion/
I wish I could write so clearly. The comments section is also instructive. Unfortunately, the debate will continue until reality finally intrudes in unmistakable fashion.
It was a great article. The only thing that I disagree with is his negative opinion of Hydroelectric Power. NO source of power is free from side effects except possibly properly designed and operated nuclear. IMHO fossil other than coal is too valuable to waste for power generation other than peaking. Its main use should be reserved for manufacturing and transportation due to its energy density, existing infrastructure and ease of use.
Oh yea, It should be used for heating also because of the high cost of electricity.
Nat gas is better for heating than oil.
FYI, using the climate alarmists vocabulary helps their credibility.
Not fossil fuels. Oil, nat gas, and coal are not fossils.
The terms we should insist on are hydrocarbon fuels and coal.
I sure hope that the guy standing on the solar panel in the picture at the top of this article, cleaned his shoes before going up there.
Sand embedded in the soles of his shoes is going to make a mess of that panel.
That may not be such a bad thing, form a certain point of view.
only in need of “a pragmatic path forward.”
That is a true statement.
W&S need a pragmatic path forward, not the idiocies we have been witnessing for decades.
The problem is, at least in the foreseeable future, there is no pragmatic path forward.
By the time a pragmatic path forward is created, the train will have long left the station and something better will have been developed.
Very nice Gordon. We need to move the conversation away from global warming and climate change. We must stay focused on CO2 and CO2 alone. Blaming temperature differences or storm intensity or frequency on climate change or global warming is as helpful as blaming auto death and injury on crumpled fenders. When we have an auto injury or death do we also have a crumpled fender! Yes almost always. Did the crumpled fender cause the death or injury? Of course not, an auto accident caused them. There can be many causes for the accident and honest investigation can determine the cause. My point is that CO2 can slow down the cooling of our planet mainly at night. It does not cause average global temperatures to rise or our climate to change. Can our climate change or become warmer or colder! Of course but there are far more powerful systems at work than CO2.
Lazard has only one goal: to front load rent-seeking.
It’s time the terminate the CO2 endangerment finding by Obama’s EPA. The overturning of the Chevron doctrine should be the sharp wooden stake into the heart of the “climate change” vampire regulations.
“There is a lack of incentives for private investment…”
The incentive for private investment is reward commensurate with risk. High risk needs high reward to attract investors. Transition to “green” energy is high risk with little reward evident, which is why heavy Government subsidy is required because private investors won’t take the risk, so risk is socialised across the tax paying population – who have no choice – in order that reward can be privatised.
But subsidies signal non-viable businesses, and investors know subsidies cannot last indefinitely.