A few months ago, I participated in a symposium entitled, “A Sustainable Energy State — How Remote Is the Possibility?” I prepared some talking points for the event and, heeding the injunction to re-use and recycle, turn them here into a MasterResource column.
The following reflections make three main points: (1) A “sustainable” energy system, as that term is commonly used, will likely not materialize in our lifetimes; (2) except for heavily-subsidized wind, solar, and biofuel energy, the current, largely fossil fuel-based energy system is already sustainable; and (3) the “sustainable energy” agenda imperils the improving state of the world and, therefore, is politically unsustainable.
Just around the Corner (Not!)
How “remote” is the “possibility” of a “Sustainable Energy State”? That depends, of course, on the meaning of sustainability. When environmental advocates call wind farms, solar power, or “next generation” biofuels “sustainable,” they imply that energy is sustainable only if it is carbon-neutral or non-emitting.…
Continue Reading[This is the second part of a series on peak-oil theorist and neo-Malthusian, the late Matthew Simmons (1943–2010). Yesterday, Robert Bradley examined the Simmons’s peculiar interpretation of the Club of Rome’s 1972 Limits to Growth.
Part III will look at Simmons’s failed bet with different parties that the average price of oil in 2010 would be $200 per barrel or higher.]
The death last year of Matthew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert and a well-known peak oil advocate, offers an opportunity to review his work and draw a cautionary lesson.
Punditry
The nature of punditry has changed in the modern age, and for the worst. The original pundits were geographical surveyors in India, mostly natives working for the British, mapping areas where few Europeans dared to go (and from which many failed to return).…
Continue Reading[Editor note: This (unpublished) review of “Revisiting The Limits to Growth: Could the Club of Rome Have Been Correct After All?” by Matthew R. Simmons (1943–2010) was written by Bradley in 2000.
Tomorrow, Michael Lynch will examine the Simmons’s peak-oil advocacy. A third post will described the failed bets that Simmons made with John Tierney of the New York Times and with Bradley on the average price of oil in 2010. (Simmons bet on $200 per barrel or higher averaged over 2010–and lost resoundingly.)]
Matt Simmons founded the investment banking firm Simmons & Company International soon after the 1973 energy crisis to cater to oil companies. He first stepped out in a very public way by questioning official inventory statistics for oil. But then he took a decidedly controversial turn (and one that befuddled his longtime industry friends). …
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