There are technologies that decouple human well-being from its ecological impacts. There are politics that enable these technologies. Join us on our search to uncover hope in this time of planetary crisis.
It is extremely important that whenever you consider scaling a technology, especially a key sector like energy or food production, to the entire world, that the new form has more positive effects/impacts than negative. This is not at all clear, particularly when you look at the entire life cycle costs (both monetary and environmental), of "renewable" energy sources particularly wind and solar. If the various progressive regimes around the world continue their head-long plunge into these energy types, we will see a huge negative impact on the environment that will make that of fossil fuels look like nothing. The land use, mining for the various materials needed, and especially the disposal of millions of depleted solar panels and worn out wind turbines are going to be a huge problem for future generations. Cheap, repeatable, safe nuclear is the clear answer.
Hearing a French man, am baffled why there is no comment on the real transition to Nuclear that France itself achieved, only country in the West to have 60-80% of its electricity generated by Nuclear! It's one thing to note electricity is only 20% of the primary energy but to completely ignore this successful transition by a Frenchman himself was surprising though. He does elaborate that atomic power/nuclear has been the exceptional route to achieve transition if ever (though longer than the Net Zero horizons projected today) But at that time of these projections, solar wasn't even a thing. PVs were not conceived to become as efficient as they are now. "Techno Fix" via solar is indeed a thing now & we can achieve many things via solar PVs including desal, H2 that were mentioned to be possible with Nuclear. Intermittency is sure an issue but it's the only viable distributed low cost tech. Not nuclear. Entire West going the France route would have been the best thing to happen to humanity (as West are massive users of energy) alas this didn't happen due to the anti nuclear lobbying.
😁Good day from Goonellabah, NSW, Australia. Australia will provide all the energy needed for Asia. Embarking on a significant six-month journey, I'll circumnavigate Australia in two CYBERTRUCKs and a Tesla Semi, covering a substantial 22,000 kilometres. This journey is set to commence at the beginning of February 2025. Elon shall help me. - 🤗Ian Cleland
Stupidity : take a look at the IEA graph of the energy mix. Even if our needs grow exponentially, the part of fossil fuels WILL GO DOWN and renewable WILL GO UP. This is the transition and nothing else.
Great interview. Very grateful after Mark Mills, an old school denialist. No matter what Mills claims, he did tons of damage in the early 90 s by promoting false statistics.
There is big difference between the current climate alarmist government mandated subsidized transition taking place today, when clearly all past transitions were market & innovation driven. The UK is subsidizing blue hydrogen & carbon capture to the tune of $22,000,000,000.00. Canadian Government is subsidizing solar installations at 60° North Latitude. Canada is subsidizing battery manufacturing, Volkswagen, Stellantis & Northvolt to the tune of $55 Billion. Those are insanely big numbers, in realty, Canada will subsidize an electric car sold in Germany to the tune of $2,000. Thanks Canada. These are all dangerous and foolish times. Almost everything about our current transition is fake, it will reduce the quality of life everywhere on earth, Banning Coal & Gas power plants will trap a >billion people in perpetual poverty. You cool with that, at least it's out of sight. East Asia is building 600 coals plants to power the insatiable consumerism demand along with the demand for power hungry solar panel manufacturing which will be needed in perpetuity. The western "Greenies" are content as long as CO2 is not produced in "my" country, We at least can look to China for how to do Nuclear, as the rest of the world is trapped in a regulatory chokehold.
I m a lay person, but I never thought about this energy replacing that. I think of available n future energy as portfolio in which the composition should be produced locally according to available local material, not transporting it here and there across the ocean, and the total risk of the portfolio is the total emission allowed.
AUSTRALIAN ENGINEER HERE: This is so frustrating because engineers have been trying tell explain these concepts for decades. All Chris Keefer has shown is that he's no better than many other media clown, which is a shame because this video is so good. To say or claim the Energy Transition is a myth is utterly *WRONG* because we are in a transition and its a transition that was always going to happen *because as Jean-Baptiste explains there have been OTHER TRANSITIONS through history we are just in the midst of another one.* A more accurate title to this video should have been something like: _"How the Energy Transition has been Misunderstood!"_ or _"History explains how the Energy Transition is being Misunderstood!"_ What Jean-Baptiste has gotten *100% RIGHT* is that when these transitions occur at large scales (like happened with the industrial revolution) then large changes happen in the ways we use things. Before the industrial revolution nobody chopped down trees to make railway sleepers, but with the advent of the steam locomotive then railroad sleepers were needed. Plus the earliest steam locomotives used wood as the fuel. But that was followed by transitions to coal fired boiler in the steam locomotives which was then followed by a transition to diesel powered locomotives. *There is nothing new about energy transitions as they have been happening again and again all through history and every time they happen we use existing resources and materials in new ways.*
@@wackJackle OK - WHAT POINT did I miss? Because what I am really tired of are wack brains like you who make idiotic claims. Look at the title of the video and then go listen how Jean-Baptiste goes on to explain transition after transition. AND FYI - Chris is NOT and engineer he a doctor. Jean-Baptiste is NOT an engineer he's a Historian. I am an engineer and like many engineers I am damn farking tired of non-engineers explaining engineering and GETTING IT WRONG.
An excellent interview once again thank you, but more than that: I am so impressed by, not only the quality of your guests and their depth of knowledge and understanding, but by the path that you're leading the narrative as a continuum with not-so-diverse inputs. Awaiting your next, cheers.
I think it is a mistake to assume that the basis of energy is 'transition' of one source to another. The main stumble block is that it assumes linearity in a changing world. My own assumption is that putting in big funds because you believe in the green transition will leave you overly vulnerable to shocks in the system. 10 years ago the green dream seemed very much alive. We can now see the cracks clearly appearing. I would hold off big investment at the moment. We ARE in a transition moment, just not the one everybody assumed..
History of energy and material symbioses Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Researcher at CNRS and EHESS. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MRRs5n1GAcw.html
did I hear using a lot more oil and energy is a good thing?....or did he mean less? 38:05... also according to Antonio Turiel uranium is running out (we have hit peak uranium)... so not much of a alternative either....
his comment "money is limited" is retarded...why should i believe anything he says when he dosent even nuderstand what money is.....he needs steve keen to educate him on what money is before having opnions on energy .....
When my father was born, there were 2 billion humans on earth. Less than 100 years later, there are over 8 billion. Hmmm. The most fool-proof transition is a vasectomy.
This week England closed it's last Coal plant. Germany plans to end the usage of coal for the production of electricity in 2038. No modern house is heated with coal.
It looks like the book is not available in english. Is there a plan to publish it in english anytime soon? If not, is there a way to get an e-book that's not DRL locked so I can put it through translator software. I respect that the author should receive a fair royalty for his work.
In the historical sense, he is correct, there has been no energy transitions, there has only been increasing exploitation. One way or another, that will change. We are actually past 6 of the 9 measurable planetary boundaries. There is more tonnage of human made stuff on the planet than there is live biological material. We either change the extremely simplistic stories we tend to tell ourselves to stories that are more complex and uncertain that demand greater responsibility from all of us, or we will cease to exist as we create conditions that we can no longer survive in. Many species have that sort of exploitation curve for new energy sources. Are we, as a species, able to see that market based incentives are now sending us in directions that are not survivable? Can we see the myth that markets can solve all problems for the simplistic nonsense that it is? Can we, as a species, accept that freedom is a fundamental part of being human, and that freedom without appropriate levels of responsibility is always and necessarily destructive? Can we accept that any real expression of freedom results in diversity, and that we need to accept and respect any and all diversity that is not an actual and unreasonable threat to existence? Can we accept that hegemony at any level is anathema to freedom? Are we able, as individuals, to look deeply enough into the process of evolution to see that it is much more than competition, and that every new level of complexity to emerge is based in, and sustained by, a new level of cooperation (necessarily), and that maintaining cooperation is hard (really hard) as it demands evolving ecosystems of cheat detection and mitigation systems (all levels, all domains); and to a good first order approximation most of todays legal, political, economic and educational systems can be characterized as being dominated by cheating strategies? He is right that the energy transitions of the past have not involved using less of the old energies, just much more of the new ones, but it would be wrong to apply that to the necessities of our current situation. He is correct that there is no simple economic, business as usual, path in the current system to a survivable outcome; yet to my mind that means only that the current system has to change, which is possible, as survival overrides all else. It is beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt in my understanding that the wars currently under way in the middle east and Ukraine are, for the most part, the result of economic interests within the USA. We are in a very complex time. All understandings are wrong. The more certain someone is of anything, the lower the probability that their understanding is a reasonable approximation in context. Reality is, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, sufficiently complex and fundamentally uncertain that no entity (human or AI) can deal with that complexity in anything remotely approaching real time - thus all models are wrong (they are necessarily simplifications), and some are more useful in the specifics of particular contexts, than others. That seems to be the reality of our existence, we learn to accept it, however uncomfortable that makes us feel, or we cease to exist. We do, in fact, seem to be that close to a large set of existential level boundaries. We have months, not years, to sort this out, in a fundamental strategic sense. Implementation will take decade, but unless it actually starts very soon, there will be no real paths left. It does seem, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, to be of this order of criticality; and existential risk has dominated my thinking for 62 years, since living through the Cuban missile crisis.
This is a high-quality podcast, Chris. I was introduced to your work via Nate Hagens (I may have already mentioned that 🤷) Thanks for doing what you do and please keep the episodes coming. 🙏
Fressoz's insights are powerful and important. Just a couple of nuances however. One very minor; this is not the first time that the "oil saved the whales" meme has been debunked. Rhodes did it, too, among others. More importantly, although it is crucially important to show that the use-of-materials case must be seen in the larger context suggested, when we look at the isolated topic of thermal input to particular technologies, especially electricity production, transitions can and do occur. Nuclear can still do a lot to help us.
Switzerland I think has (or had) an action to provide peolpe in poorer countries with Stoves that save wood by the way of the design of the stove. I think this considering wood energy for these people still important.
Wow, this is a fascinating discussion. It will be generations before we stop using fossil fuels in my opinion. Today with use something like 80% fossil fuels to meet our energy needs. 30 years ago it was 84%. We’ve spent trillions of $ over that period to reduce FF usage by 4%. That’s not a transition that’s a slight reduction.
@@louiswilliamterminator2887 I agree, we are using more FF than 30 years ago, but as a share of total energy mix its a slight reduction (more renewables now). I didn't do a very good job of wording that I guess. Apologies.
Muscle shovel and wheelbarrow energy. Definitely worth pondering while we await cold fusion energy in every kitchen, basement-heater and home elec generator.
The Sun's 🌞 Energy is the Main Power of the future. Converted toHeat ,Steam, Electricity, Hydrogen fuel, And Desalination . More Investment dollars will flow to this sector to produce a Safe Tomorrow 🌞😎👍🌞
"Wood energy is a serious thing" - okay, but what does this mean? The podcast is a series of partially interesting facts but remains on a superficial level. Hence, it serves the purpose of climate change deniers by just confusing up uninformed listeners.
7:10 please realise that the use of wood for pit-props is NOT the same as the use of wood for fuel ! Some of those pit-props are still standing, while all the then firewood was burnt within days. Also in general, the idea of energy transition does not preclude some peripheral uses of the previous energy sources. It just means that the apparatus installed is for a particular type of fuel. You cannot easily burn heavy oil in a coal fired steam locomotive, and a coal carrier, loaded with coal, if it runs out of heavy oil in the middle of the sea, would be stranded and helpless.
