Until the 18th century, energy was what we now call “renewable.” The fuels for cooking, heating, making clay vessels and metalworking were dirty: animal dung, firewood, brush and grass. Mechanical energy for transportation, plowing, milling, pumping water, sawing lumber and metalworking, used flowing water, wind or human and animal muscle power.
We may have a romantic view of that lifestyle, but it was not fun, clean or healthy. Famines were common. Draft animals were mean and dangerous, and defecated everywhere. Human labor was often serfdom, indentured servitude or slavery. Fossil fuels ultimately helped reduce the demand for and profitability of these forms of human labor.
Energy feeds every aspect of modern society — shelter, manufacturing, transportation, health, communications, comfort, agriculture, etc. The average American uses energy equivalent to 600 full-time “energy slaves” (Jaffe and Morningstar, MIT).
Each energy transition from wood to peat to coal to oil and gas took about 50 to 100 years. (See Richard Rhodes’ fine book, “Energy.”) Replacing the enormous capital stock of electricity generators in a far shorter period is fanciful, to put it politely. However much we want to stop burning stuff for energy, it defies common sense to dismantle unpopular electricity generators before we have better ones actually operating.
Until recently, federal, state and local government policies have ignored such common sense. For a long time, our electricity priorities were: (1) reliability, (2) affordability and (3) environmental. In many places this has been reordered as (1) environmental, (2) affordability and (3) reliability. Because of this, Americans now suffer from large price increases, emerging shortages and electric grid emergencies. The return to reliability will not be cheap.
During Winter Storm Uri in Texas in 2021, millions were without electricity, and more than 200 died of exposure; plus, several hundred more trying to keep warm using fires, generators, etc.
The next transition will be to nuclear fission, now ready for prime time, perhaps followed by fusion. Time to get started.
