this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
14 points (100.0% liked)
Green Energy
4151 readers
23 users here now
Everything about energy production and storage.
Related communities:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not changing, look at the industrial fabrication and supply chain for solar PV and wind. None of that is powered by renewable electricity.
Renewable infra are a fossil multiplier (but not by much), but the total fraction of fossil in primary energy use is effectively constant, because use of fossil fuels is also increasing.
What I see is a system that's steadily shifting from direct fossil fuel use to electricity, and with that, reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned. We're not done making the change, but it has definitely started
Thing is, there is no energy transition. Renewable infrastructure, built using fossil fuels is stacked on top of rising fossil energy use https://i0.wp.com/ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/World-energy-fossil-fuels-vs-add-ons.png?ssl=1
That's what the beginning looks like. We're just at the cusp of where renewables growth gets to be fast enough to start winding down fossil fuel use at a global level and not just for a few big territories or countries
We're already past primary energy use peak per capita, and we're distinctly past net energy use. At the same time, extraction of increasingly dilute mineral resources necessary for technology requires progressively more and more energy.
So I would expect we start losing fossil inputs quickly, since increasingly unable to extract them, while the renewable infrastructure will not have grown sufficiently, and then starting to decline, since we cannot sustain them with renewable energy alone.
At the same time we're going to lose a lot of population (excess deaths of several billions this century), so at least whatever resources are left will last longer than at the current use rate.