It seems like what you’re calling “progress studies” is what was called “modern history” until about 1960 and is derisively termed “Whig history” in the field these days. The basic premise is that material wealth went exponential in Europe starting around the 17th century, that this process (called “progress”) gave Europe the means to travel to and dominate the rest of the world, and that the central questions of modern history are what happened to initiate this “progress”, how it works, whether it will continue, and what forms it will take. Despite the change in academic fashions, these questions remain crucially important.
I tend to agree with what you call the “materialist” position. A barrel of oil has more energy than a decade of manual labor; without fossil fuels it is expensive to smelt metals and all but impossible to make useful semiconductors. Progress as we know it today is entirely dependent on metal (e.g. wires) and semiconductor-based computers. In principle nuclear power may be sufficient, but that’s an open question at this point.
The “materialist” position is very short-sighted. There’s more than enough energy in both nuclear and solar. We have the technical foundations to run the world on nuclear just as effectively as fossil fuels, and nuclear sources are more abundant (in total usable energy) than fossil fuels, so there’s really no open question about nuclear. It’s purely a matter of supply and demand now (i.e., as fossil fuels become more expensive / get a worse reputation, we will naturally transition to nuclear)
As for solar, again, more energy reaches the Earth in the form of sunlight each year than the entirety of humanity uses each year (and that’s not even counting the sunlight that doesn’t reach Earth. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of the sun’s light reaches the Earth, so if we are able to utilize the entirety of the sun’s energy, we have billions of times as much energy as we have now). We’re right on the knife’s edge of solar technology being viable, so it generally only gets deployed where it makes the most sense, but as solar technology gets cheaper, we will see solar be deployed in more creative and flexible ways, and will make up a larger and larger portion of our energy use
Everything you’re saying fits the common narrative; I just think there’s a roughly 80 percent chance that it’s wrong.
I invite you to look at the Sankey diagrams for the US last year (2019). Despite decades of hard subsidies, solar power generated only 1.04 percent of the energy we used. Spain scaled up solar as much as they could, and despite significant advantages (sunny climate, lack of hurricanes) they only managed an EROEI value of 2.45 (for comparison, some estimates put the minimum EROEI for civilization as we know it at about 8-10, although optimists go as low as 3). Solar power has been ten years away for at least fifty years now, and it’s starting to look like it always will be.
Nuclear power is more realistic, as you noted—it generated 8.46 percent of our energy last year. Still, the ability to scale that up to 100% is questionable. Fission power requires rare earths, and they’re called rare for a reason. Fusion is great at generating neutrons* and high-level radioactive waste (when the neutrons impact the environment), but I’ve never heard of it coming anywhere near breakeven (EROEI=1) in energy terms (unless you count solar).
*There are aneutronic reactor proposals, but they’re pretty unrealistic even by fusion energy standards.
Everything you’re saying fits the common narrative; I just think there’s a roughly 80 percent chance that it’s wrong.
I’m happy to bet on this. I propose the following operationalization:
Solar energy will be said to be successful if there is at least one year prior to (or including) 2040 where the total solar energy generated (excluding indirect pathways [which includes fossil fuels and wind], but including all forms of directly turning sunlight, or the sun itself, into human-usable energy, including by photosynthesis-based agriculture) is equal to the entirety of energy consumption in 2017 (113,000 TWh according to wikipedia).
If solar energy is “successful” according to this criterion, then you would pay me $30, if not, then I would pay you $15 (this ratio should be more than fair if you believe there is an 80% chance my analysis is wrong—especially since there are scenarios where my analysis is still valid, but the bet resolves in your favour)
Since my side of the bet implies that the internet is not likely to exist by 2040 and I’d never find you if I won, this bet is not appealing. It is not possible to take a short financial position on civilization. However, if settlement could be arranged and the stakes weren’t chump change, in principle I’d take the bet.
If you believe that your side of the bet is highly correlated with civilizational collapse, an alternative would be for me to pay you $X upon agreeing to the bet, and then for you to pay $3X (= X + 2X) conditional on the bet resolving in my favor. Realistically, the amounts would be adjusted for the risk of not collecting, plus economic growth and inflation, so not exactly a 3x ratio.
As for stakes, what stakes would you consider to be “not chump change”?
The current profile of where our energy comes from has nothing to do with the long term prospects. There’s a lot of progress to be made with solar, especially regarding the price of modules (but also in light-to-electricity efficiency), while we’re already near the peak of what we are able to accomplish with fossil fuels.
Edit: I’d also be remiss if I didn’t emphasize what the 2.45 EROI (Energy return on investment) means—assuming that it is accurate and representative of the actual situation (which the nature of the source you provide doesn’t inspire confidence that it is correct). That means for every joule of energy used to manufacture and install a solar panel, 2.45 joules are returned over the lifetime of the installation (nb: it’s not clear to me that the source measured lifetime energy output). That means that in terms of energy, the panel represents a net gain, and even using nothing but solar panels as a source of energy, and assuming the figure you cite is correct, a civilization can easily bootstrap itself from a small civilization to a great, powerful civilization- and certainly being forced to fall back on a 2.45 EROI is far from causing a collapse of civilization as we know it (as some of your comments have implied). For things to get dicey, EROI would have to fall below 1 (arguably a value very close to 1 would cause a lot of turmoil, which might lead to destruction of value-generation, leading to a long-term decrease in welfare, but 2.4 is more than enough to recover from short-term setbacks)
The only reason why a 2.45 EROI would seem disappointing is from an economical perspective- oil rigs provide an EROI around ~10, so (ignoring externalities and potential benefits that may not be easily measured in terms of energy) it would be a stupid idea to invest in an energy source that offers 2.45 EROI when you have a 10x return available instead. But of course, externalities are a thing, and the externalities caused by fossil fuels are worse per joule than the externalities caused by solar; and the EROI of solar is expected to only go up, while the EROI of fossil fuels will be going down as they become more scarce- so at some point, there will come a point where the EROI of solar will be a good deal (and remember, 2.45 is still a good deal if the alternative is nothing- good enough to continue to improve the quality of our lives, build colonies on other celestial bodies, radically improve our transportation networks, and solve world hunger)
We’ve been trying to make solar work for a very long time. I can remember when there were solar panels on the White House roof (Reagan had them removed). Things that have underperformed for decades almost never take off.
Things that have underperformed for decades almost never take off.
That is pretty much the exact opposite of how technology actually works.
“We’ve been trying human flight since Da Vinci, but after decades of trying, we can conclude humans will never fly”
“We’ve been trying to cure smallpox for decades, but it’s still endemic, so we will never eradicate smallpox”
“We’ve been trying to turn lead into gold for centuries, so it must not be possible” (granted, this one is only physically possible now, I don’t think it’s economically viable, but my point stands)
In each of those cases, what worked was a fundamentally new approach. We didn’t breed leeches to the point where they could cure smallpox. Photovoltaics have been around since the 50s; if they were going to work at scale they’d have worked by now.
I think we’ve uncovered the basic disagreement and further discussion seems pointless.
It seems like what you’re calling “progress studies” is what was called “modern history” until about 1960 and is derisively termed “Whig history” in the field these days. The basic premise is that material wealth went exponential in Europe starting around the 17th century, that this process (called “progress”) gave Europe the means to travel to and dominate the rest of the world, and that the central questions of modern history are what happened to initiate this “progress”, how it works, whether it will continue, and what forms it will take. Despite the change in academic fashions, these questions remain crucially important.
I tend to agree with what you call the “materialist” position. A barrel of oil has more energy than a decade of manual labor; without fossil fuels it is expensive to smelt metals and all but impossible to make useful semiconductors. Progress as we know it today is entirely dependent on metal (e.g. wires) and semiconductor-based computers. In principle nuclear power may be sufficient, but that’s an open question at this point.
The “materialist” position is very short-sighted. There’s more than enough energy in both nuclear and solar. We have the technical foundations to run the world on nuclear just as effectively as fossil fuels, and nuclear sources are more abundant (in total usable energy) than fossil fuels, so there’s really no open question about nuclear. It’s purely a matter of supply and demand now (i.e., as fossil fuels become more expensive / get a worse reputation, we will naturally transition to nuclear)
As for solar, again, more energy reaches the Earth in the form of sunlight each year than the entirety of humanity uses each year (and that’s not even counting the sunlight that doesn’t reach Earth. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of the sun’s light reaches the Earth, so if we are able to utilize the entirety of the sun’s energy, we have billions of times as much energy as we have now). We’re right on the knife’s edge of solar technology being viable, so it generally only gets deployed where it makes the most sense, but as solar technology gets cheaper, we will see solar be deployed in more creative and flexible ways, and will make up a larger and larger portion of our energy use
Everything you’re saying fits the common narrative; I just think there’s a roughly 80 percent chance that it’s wrong.
I invite you to look at the Sankey diagrams for the US last year (2019). Despite decades of hard subsidies, solar power generated only 1.04 percent of the energy we used. Spain scaled up solar as much as they could, and despite significant advantages (sunny climate, lack of hurricanes) they only managed an EROEI value of 2.45 (for comparison, some estimates put the minimum EROEI for civilization as we know it at about 8-10, although optimists go as low as 3). Solar power has been ten years away for at least fifty years now, and it’s starting to look like it always will be.
Nuclear power is more realistic, as you noted—it generated 8.46 percent of our energy last year. Still, the ability to scale that up to 100% is questionable. Fission power requires rare earths, and they’re called rare for a reason. Fusion is great at generating neutrons* and high-level radioactive waste (when the neutrons impact the environment), but I’ve never heard of it coming anywhere near breakeven (EROEI=1) in energy terms (unless you count solar).
*There are aneutronic reactor proposals, but they’re pretty unrealistic even by fusion energy standards.
I’m happy to bet on this. I propose the following operationalization:
Solar energy will be said to be successful if there is at least one year prior to (or including) 2040 where the total solar energy generated (excluding indirect pathways [which includes fossil fuels and wind], but including all forms of directly turning sunlight, or the sun itself, into human-usable energy, including by photosynthesis-based agriculture) is equal to the entirety of energy consumption in 2017 (113,000 TWh according to wikipedia).
If solar energy is “successful” according to this criterion, then you would pay me $30, if not, then I would pay you $15 (this ratio should be more than fair if you believe there is an 80% chance my analysis is wrong—especially since there are scenarios where my analysis is still valid, but the bet resolves in your favour)
Since my side of the bet implies that the internet is not likely to exist by 2040 and I’d never find you if I won, this bet is not appealing. It is not possible to take a short financial position on civilization. However, if settlement could be arranged and the stakes weren’t chump change, in principle I’d take the bet.
If you believe that your side of the bet is highly correlated with civilizational collapse, an alternative would be for me to pay you $X upon agreeing to the bet, and then for you to pay $3X (= X + 2X) conditional on the bet resolving in my favor. Realistically, the amounts would be adjusted for the risk of not collecting, plus economic growth and inflation, so not exactly a 3x ratio.
As for stakes, what stakes would you consider to be “not chump change”?
I’m not a gambler by temperment, so I’m just not very interested in betting.
The current profile of where our energy comes from has nothing to do with the long term prospects. There’s a lot of progress to be made with solar, especially regarding the price of modules (but also in light-to-electricity efficiency), while we’re already near the peak of what we are able to accomplish with fossil fuels.
Edit: I’d also be remiss if I didn’t emphasize what the 2.45 EROI (Energy return on investment) means—assuming that it is accurate and representative of the actual situation (which the nature of the source you provide doesn’t inspire confidence that it is correct). That means for every joule of energy used to manufacture and install a solar panel, 2.45 joules are returned over the lifetime of the installation (nb: it’s not clear to me that the source measured lifetime energy output). That means that in terms of energy, the panel represents a net gain, and even using nothing but solar panels as a source of energy, and assuming the figure you cite is correct, a civilization can easily bootstrap itself from a small civilization to a great, powerful civilization- and certainly being forced to fall back on a 2.45 EROI is far from causing a collapse of civilization as we know it (as some of your comments have implied). For things to get dicey, EROI would have to fall below 1 (arguably a value very close to 1 would cause a lot of turmoil, which might lead to destruction of value-generation, leading to a long-term decrease in welfare, but 2.4 is more than enough to recover from short-term setbacks)
The only reason why a 2.45 EROI would seem disappointing is from an economical perspective- oil rigs provide an EROI around ~10, so (ignoring externalities and potential benefits that may not be easily measured in terms of energy) it would be a stupid idea to invest in an energy source that offers 2.45 EROI when you have a 10x return available instead. But of course, externalities are a thing, and the externalities caused by fossil fuels are worse per joule than the externalities caused by solar; and the EROI of solar is expected to only go up, while the EROI of fossil fuels will be going down as they become more scarce- so at some point, there will come a point where the EROI of solar will be a good deal (and remember, 2.45 is still a good deal if the alternative is nothing- good enough to continue to improve the quality of our lives, build colonies on other celestial bodies, radically improve our transportation networks, and solve world hunger)
We’ve been trying to make solar work for a very long time. I can remember when there were solar panels on the White House roof (Reagan had them removed). Things that have underperformed for decades almost never take off.
That is pretty much the exact opposite of how technology actually works.
“We’ve been trying human flight since Da Vinci, but after decades of trying, we can conclude humans will never fly”
“We’ve been trying to cure smallpox for decades, but it’s still endemic, so we will never eradicate smallpox”
“We’ve been trying to turn lead into gold for centuries, so it must not be possible” (granted, this one is only physically possible now, I don’t think it’s economically viable, but my point stands)
In each of those cases, what worked was a fundamentally new approach. We didn’t breed leeches to the point where they could cure smallpox. Photovoltaics have been around since the 50s; if they were going to work at scale they’d have worked by now.
I think we’ve uncovered the basic disagreement and further discussion seems pointless.