That may be true, but it also isn’t at all the problem being discussed by the article JoshuaZ linked to.
The (alleged) problem you describe: implementing “better” sources of energy may cost more energy than they ever deliver, so that by any reasonable criterion they make things worse rather than better overall.
The (alleged) problem the linked article describes: implementing “better” sources of energy, even if in the long-enough run they save much more energy than they cost, may cost more in the short term than we can afford to use.
(So the article is both more optimistic than you, because it doesn’t consider the possibility that “clean” energy sources might have negative net energy return; and more pessimistic, because it observes that even then introducing these energy sources may be a big problem because doing so may use more energy than we have available, or more than we are willing to use.)
Your assertion is of independent interest, though I think it would have been better without the my-team-is-better-than-yours element. My impression is that “people of a particular ideological persuasion” might not so much “studiously ignore” the problem as claim that in fact it isn’t real[1]. Can you suggest a somewhat-apolitical source of information on this that might allow people of any political persuasion to determine how real and how severe the problem is?
[1] Meaning not that they would claim it never happens, but that they would claim that if you make sensible choices of “clean” energy sources, and make appropriate allowances for economies of scale—e.g., 10 years ago there were a lot fewer solar panels being made than there are now—there are plenty of “clean” energy sources around that can reasonably be expected to return substantially more energy than is used in getting them running.
That may be true, but it also isn’t at all the problem being discussed by the article JoshuaZ linked to.
The (alleged) problem you describe: implementing “better” sources of energy may cost more energy than they ever deliver, so that by any reasonable criterion they make things worse rather than better overall.
The (alleged) problem the linked article describes: implementing “better” sources of energy, even if in the long-enough run they save much more energy than they cost, may cost more in the short term than we can afford to use.
(So the article is both more optimistic than you, because it doesn’t consider the possibility that “clean” energy sources might have negative net energy return; and more pessimistic, because it observes that even then introducing these energy sources may be a big problem because doing so may use more energy than we have available, or more than we are willing to use.)
Your assertion is of independent interest, though I think it would have been better without the my-team-is-better-than-yours element. My impression is that “people of a particular ideological persuasion” might not so much “studiously ignore” the problem as claim that in fact it isn’t real[1]. Can you suggest a somewhat-apolitical source of information on this that might allow people of any political persuasion to determine how real and how severe the problem is?
[1] Meaning not that they would claim it never happens, but that they would claim that if you make sensible choices of “clean” energy sources, and make appropriate allowances for economies of scale—e.g., 10 years ago there were a lot fewer solar panels being made than there are now—there are plenty of “clean” energy sources around that can reasonably be expected to return substantially more energy than is used in getting them running.
I am not a team player :-D this was just a your-team-doesn’t-want-to-look-there element :-)
I don’t have links handy, sorry. I also suspect the research in this sphere is heavily politicized, so extra caution is warranted.