On Sunday, WattsUpWithThat posted an article about the future of energy transition from fossil fuels to green energy. It’s not looking good.
The article reports:
It’s no secret that the Republican’s “Big Beautiful Bill” plans to axe large swaths of mandates and billions of dollars in subsidies directed at achieving a so-called “energy transition.” If that budget axe falls, it will be the proverbial third strike that puts to rest the idea that the U.S., never mind the world, will abandon fossil fuels. The other two strikes already happened.
Strike two came last month with the Great Iberian blackout. Preliminary forensics make clear that over-enthusiastic deployment of unreliable solar and wind power was the fulcrum that put 55 million people in the dark for days. Few politicians will want to risk allowing something like that to happen again, anywhere. And, as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation keeps warning, blackout risks are rising here, and for the same reason. Reliability used to be the core feature of electric grid designs, before the rush to push an energy transition in service of climate goals.
And strike one came a few weeks prior to the Iberian calamity with the release of a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) titled Energy and AI. That report sought to answer the question about how to reliably meet the surprising jump in power demands expected in the coming decade’s boom in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Answering that also answers, even if not intentionally, the same question about meeting society’s future demands.
The article concludes:
This doesn’t mean Big Tech or the IEA are backing off climate pledges. Nor does it mean the climate debate is settled. Nor will we see any diminution in transition fervor from the climate-industrial complex. Likely that fervor heats up as the Trump Administration attempts to deliver on its promise to defund the panoply of climate-energy programs marbled throughout federal agencies.
What it does mean is that whatever one believes about the science of the climate, the fact is that mandates and subsidies can’t change the physics of energy systems. Systems that can deliver reliable power at the scales necessary for robust growth remain anchored in precisely the fuels the transitionists want to abandon.
Fossil fuels are not perfect (although natural gas is close), but they have been the backbone of the world’s economy for generations. It is possible that one day green energy can discover the technology to make it as reliable and inexpensive as fossil fuel, but that has not yet happened. The best way to spur on the green energy research is to get the governments out of it and let the inventors and private investors make a profit.