As far as I can tell, the core thesis is “We can’t depend on renewable energy to keep improving such that it can sustain our ever-growing needs, which are massive. We better stick with coal and oil instead.”
As much as I actually agree with the idea of being sensible about what the quantitative possibilities of individual renewable technologies are, there’s a pretty obvious flaw in the logic…
He is full aware that we’re in the tail end of the fossils age, so his message is probably “we’re screwed”.
I mean, I don’t disagree with that message. But using that as an argument against switching to renewable energy is just silly. The reality is, if a large human population is going to stay around on the planet in the coming decades, we will do some combination of reducing our consumption and switching to renewables, whether that comes about by choice or because we got forced to when we ran out of everything else.
Sticking with nonrenewables as the “realistic” choice is going to be undone by the reality in the very-easily-forseeable future.
I agree. But we’re certainly facing a considerable, involuntary reduction in our numbers as well.
That’s fine as long as people can admit to themselves that energy throughput with renewables is going to be a fraction of what it was in the age of abundant fossil fuels. And the problem I see is that most people touting green energy are either unrealistic or mendacious about this. We still haven’t got past the phase of people thinking they will keep their consumer and commuter friendly lifestyles in the coming decades.
