Where Is Energy Transition? - A Historian’s Critique of Global Energy Use

By examining the history of global energy use, the historian, Mr. Fressoz, shows a hard truth that is technology revolutions, policy interventions, economic globalization result in an ever-increasing growth of energy use on a world scale. The energy transition from fossil fuels to low carbon energy sources, which is long regarded as a gradual systematic change to address climate change, is far from forming even though the projections of the global average temperature rise by 2100 set new levels of alarming year after year.  In the book, More and More and More: An All-consuming History of Energy, by analyzing the global energy use and technology changes in the past two hundreds years, Mr. Fressoz provides three main critiques on energy transition.  

First, the concept of Material Stagism is a big problem when people talk about the evolution of energy use. The concept means each type of major energy sources, from wood, coal to oil, hydropower, and nuclear, playing a substitutional role in the mix of energy system. In historic periods of energy development, the type of energy source dominating the energy sector shifts or substitutes. There has been an accepted thought that the English industrialization in the 18th century witnessed a trend that coal substituted wood and grew into a dominating energy source in England. In the most time of the 20t century, oil and natural gas replaced coal and made the biggest share of the energy supply. The substitutions look quite apparent in specific sectors or econmies. For instance, in the power generation sector, the major fuels to generate electricity have been shifted from coal to natural gas or nuclear in some high-income countries, like England and France throughout a long span of time. But from the perspectives of economy-wide or global energy use, the trend of energy substitution may look far from sound. Some sources, which are substituted in one sector, may be used in higher volumes in another sector. For example, coal is used less in power generation but more in heavy industries. Another example is wood. In the past two decades, in Europe, while wind power and solar energy have increased their part in the energy system, the consumption of wood, pellets and wood residues grows in large. In the U.S., the use of firewood for residential usage has declined since 1980s but the industrial energy use of wood stays at a high level. (See the figures in the page 115 of the Book). Looking at the global energy use, the reduced use of one energy source in some places of the world is just matched up by its higher use in the other parts of globe. China’s rapid economic growth in 1990s and 2000s were powered by the phenomenal expansion of coal mining and coal fired power industry. At the global level, coal is still an energy source as strong as oil in the past one hundred of years.

In addition, the significant changing picture of the energy mix in one country, such as fossil fuels replaced by nuclear and renewables, does not guarantee that the economy has lighter reliance on more carbon intensive energy sources. Apart from the sectoral divergency, the country may import more products from other countries which are still dependent on high carbon energy system. There is no such linear substitution that existed in the history of the use of world energy materials. If the industrialization in the West makes the energy expansion possible in 18th and 19th centuries, China’s rapid development continues to demand more energy supply in the past 30-40 years. It would be no surprise that India could sustain the vast appetites to energy production from now to 2050s. Who can be the other big energy users in the global arena apart from India? Africa? Southeast Asian countries? When billions of people are still in energy poverty, how could we ensure that China’s energy and economic growth story might not be repeated by India and other developing nations?

Second, Mr. Fressoz points out that scholars and policy makers offer no convincing historical evidence to support their argument on energy transition. In other words, in the history of global energy use, there has not been a definitive transition from one type of energy dominance to another one, but an all-consuming energy pathway. The rise of nuclear in 1960s and renewable energy in 1990s has not delivered a global energy system with non-fossil fuels playing the key part in the past half-century. Those technologies still keep the promise of fossil-free energy future out of touch. For technocrats, technological innovations, from nuclear to renewables, from carbon capture and storage to direct air capture, may be used to address the diminishing carbon budget eventually. Of course, it is assumed that the cost of deploying low carbon technology in scale will become affordable for most economies sooner or later. However, if we assume that the global carbon emissions must go to net zero by 2050, the annually added low carbon energy capacities and investment lag far behind what are needed. The reality is that the existing fossil fuel energy capacities and expanded demand on all kinds of energy-intensive related products, from steel to cement to nitrogen fertilizers, among emerging and developing economies, still dominate the global energy system. Since 2005, China and Germany have been the two leaders of renewable energy development in the world. Ironically, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for China, the share of fossil fuels in the primary energy use barely changes, 89% (2005) vs. 91% (2023); for Germany, the number is 86% (2005) vs. 87% (2023).  

Mr. Fressoz’s third critique on energy transition is that the scenario analysis on global carbon emissions trajectories until 2100 not only becomes too technical but also continues to generate “weird” technological proposals. Driven by the mitigation focused policy thinking and modelling, the discussion has been heavily focusing on how to manage the global carbon budgets by adding more low carbon energy capacities, rather than facing the elephant in the room, the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix across the top economies moving to nowhere. Another naturally important part of the climate policy discussion, adaptation, should have gained more attention.  

As a historian, Mr. Fressoz uses a variety of compelling evidence to demonstrate how difficult it is to change the energy mix in the global level, which is still dominated by fossil fuels. Though he does not prescribe any policy recommendations on improving the climate policy, Mr. Fressoz has done an excellent job in showing a long-awaited historic critiques on the evolution of climate and energy policy. The history of global energy use in the past two hundreds of years makes the pioneering efforts by Germany and China in scaling up the use of renewable energy in the past twenty years a footnote of fossil fuels dominance. While the pressing demand for energy supply to power economic growth among developing countries keeps high, an energy future with all-consuming pathway may lock in. Shall we come back to a basic question? If the history of energy use does not show an energy transition trajectory, how can we revise the mainstream thoughts on climate change? 

The Book title is More and More and More: An All-consuming History of Energy. The author is Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. The Book was published by Allen Lane in 2024.