A new report from Ember-climate.org, which describes itself as “an independent energy think tank that aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy” touting that renewable energy provided 30% of electricity generation in 2023 is getting a lot of attention, with reports in The Guardian, Associated Press, and Reuters, and CNN.
“A permanent decline in fossil fuel use in the power sector at a global level is now inevitable,” the report by Ember declares.
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It didn’t make a ton of news in the United States media, but a new study published by the International Energy Agency in mid-October emphasizes the enormous potential roadblock to a successful energy transition posed by a projected need to refurbish and double capacity on global electricity grids.
The study, titled, “Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions,” advises governments that investments in expanding and refurbishing power grids must “nearly double by 2030 to over USD 600 billion per year after over a decade of stagnation at the global level, with emphasis on digitalising and modernising distribution grids.” That level of new investment in just this single piece of the overarching plans for a complete re-tooling of the global energy system is not currently a part of existing policies around the world. Given that most developed countries are already saddled with overwhelming public debt and the lack of means in developing countries, the prospect for a doubling of current grid investments seems dubious at best.
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The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. They are expensive, unreliable, and deeply problematic environmentally in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a larger context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.
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