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Energy and the Green New DealThe complex challenge of powering societiesJanuary 28, 2020

Image: Fiona Paton CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Tim Crownshaw

Nothing happens without energy. Literally. Lacking energy, there can be noheat, food, motion, information, or life. Commonly defined as ‘the capacity todo work’, energy has always been central to human societies, whether derivedmechanically from moving wind or water, chemically from wood, oil, coal orother combustible fuels, or thermally from the sun. This is more than anabstract footnote—there are deep links between available energy and the verystructure of civilizations, including their types of social organization and levelsof complexity, as noted by anthropologist Leslie White [1]. While thisrelationship is obviously not deterministic, there are social, technological, and

Uneven EarthWhere the ecological meets the political Search

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economic arrangements, such those we enjoy in privileged parts of the globalNorth today, which are likely unattainable at significantly lower levels ofenergy consumption.

Much discussion and research in recent years has focused on the prospects fora global transition to renewable energy, motivated by growing awareness of theexistential threat posed by global climate change as well as localizedenvironmental issues attributable to the production and consumption of fossiland nuclear energy. The Green New Deal (GND), the subject of this essay, isthe latest in a long line of ambitious plans aimed at accelerating this process, inaddition to its social and economic goals. However, many of these energytransition plans are conceived teleologically: they start with the outcomes theyseek to achieve, then fill in the gaps with implied (but uncertain) socio-technological capabilities. In the process, they typically sidestep irreducibleuncertainties and fail to properly engage with the considerable challengesinvolved in fundamentally transforming our energy system. It must be askedwhether the GND commits these same errors. Avoiding them requiresrecognition that the transition to renewable energy is not simply the eventualoutcome of the right set of policy settings, but what systems scientists wouldcall a complex, path-dependent, socio-metabolic process. In other words, thetransition will be far more constrained in terms of what we can achieve than weoften like to think and will necessarily transform the basic configuration of oursocieties [2, 3].

Many of these energy transition plans

are conceived teleologically: they start

with the outcomes they seek to achieve,

then fill in the gaps with implied (but

uncertain) socio-technological

capabilities.

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That we must one day rely solely on renewable energy is true by definition. Thefossil and nuclear fuels are depleting resources and their use entails ecologicalharm on an immense scale. Therefore, this use will eventually becomeinfeasible, unacceptable, and uneconomic. But how we get from here to there isradically uncertain. There is no guarantee that we will complete the transitionwhile maintaining an industrial socio-metabolic regime (our current pattern ofmaterial and energy use and associated societal configuration). In fact, thisappears highly unlikely [2, 3].

Alternative narratives

For most people in the developed world, modern energy services are soubiquitous and ingrained in our daily lives that they have been rendered largelyinvisible (at least until they are interrupted). Nevertheless, understandingenergy is critical to accurately discerning where we are going as a society andwhat we can hope to achieve. This understanding suffers from what MarioGiampietro has called a “clash of reductionism against the complexity of energytransformations” [4].

Energy is typically understood in loose terms as something produced andtransported by large and highly visible infrastructures (of which there are‘good’ kinds and ‘bad’ kinds, defined by one’s perspective). It is generallyperceived that energy is used for various crucial purposes, such as movingpeople and things around, heating and cooling homes and workplaces,powering appliances and devices, and producing consumer goods. Beyond this,various emotionally charged and frequently oversimplified narratives comeinto play, which inform expectations of what lifestyles and society at largeought to look like. While the range of perspectives and positions on energy isvast, they can be broadly grouped into two opposed narratives:

Narrative one sees energy presenting an urgent moral duality: oil derricks,pipelines, smog-covered cityscapes, and corporate interests on one side and climatesaving technologies, eco-friendly behaviours, and new political movements on theother. In this strain of thought, we already have the requisite technology to carry outthe transition to renewable energy and the only serious barriers are political innature. Nowhere is the first narrative more clearly depicted than in US

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congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent ‘A Message From The Future’video.Narrative two considers fossil fuels to be miraculous, prosperity-building, and geo-politically important resources, which should not be disregarded in favour ofunproven, unreliable alternatives. As for climate change, positions can range from“the science in not settled” to “no problem, we’ll have the tech for that”. Thisnarrative is captured in PR communications from major oil companies (and evenmore transparently depicted here), frequently loaded with promises of jobs,technological breakthroughs, and nostalgia for an era of pioneering industrialvitality.

Neither of these narratives is totally correct, but neither is totally wrong either.The first rightly highlights the social and ecological imperatives we face andhow some forms of energy production are significantly less harmful thanothers, but tends to downplay the challenges and implications of transformingthe entire energy basis of modern economies. Meanwhile, the secondaccurately identifies the unique qualities of fossil energy resources and theirrole in reaching our current level of development, but fails to identify that thesehave a limited lifespan, both in terms of their physical abundance and theextent to which we can use them without unacceptable consequences. It is onthis fraught ideological landscape that the GND must vie for influence againstcompeting visions of our energy future.

The Green New Deal

The GND (a clear allusion to Roosevelt’s depression-era New Deal) burst ontothe US political scene in 2018, emerging from the youth-led ‘SunriseMovement’ and subsequently championed by freshman congresswomanAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and a growing list of progressivepolitical figures. Its supporters now include Joseph Stiglitz, Ban Ki-Moon, PaulKrugman, US senators (Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and EdMarkey), and numerous organizations (including Greenpeace, Friends of theEarth, Sierra Club, 350.org, the New Economics Foundation, ExtinctionRebellion, and the United Nations Environment Programme). The concept hasquickly spread internationally to Canada, the UK, Australia, and the EuropeanUnion due in large part to the advocacy of respective green parties in theseplaces. A recent Yale survey found a strong majority in the US (81% of those

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surveyed and even 64% of republicans) ‘strongly support’ or ‘somewhatsupport’ the various proposals associated with the GND. With this impressivemomentum, the time has come to translate zeal into workable policy.

In the US, the GND is often described with the tagline “decarbonization, jobs,and justice.” Policy proposals center around a green industrial revolution—arapid, large-scale transition to renewable energy alongside vastly expandedpublic transportation and building retrofits for energy efficiency within a 10-year timeframe. The plan is to achieve near carbon-neutrality of the USeconomy and improved environmental quality through immense publicspending initiatives, funded primarily via redistributive measures designed totackle inequality. The draft text of the GND House Resolution includes the aimto “virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity,wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in thetransformation.” Variations often include increased minimum wages, universalhealth care, improved access to education, shorter working hours, anddemocratized workplaces. For a more complete description of the origin storyand details of the GND, see this article or this one.

As the GND ultimately hinges on

energy transition, the feasibility of its

assertions in this area are crucial.

Although it’s not hard to see the appeal, no one would deny that this is animmense task. In fact, there is already a chorus of critical voices from rightacross the political spectrum on questions of cost, timeframe, technicalassumptions, and policy design. As the GND ultimately hinges on energytransition, the feasibility of its assertions in this area are crucial. To go anyfurther, we need to cover some energy basics.

Energy primer

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The global energy system is by far the largest, most technologically advancedcollection of built capital, supporting infrastructure, expertise, andorganizational capacity that has ever existed. Despite the hype aroundrenewables, the global energy system is still 96% non-renewable, while solarand wind—the two renewable energy sources with the greatest growth potential—supplied just a little over 1% of total world energy in 2018 [5].

Firstly, it is important to understand that each type of energy production cansatisfy only some types of energy demand: energy resources and the flowsderived from them are not interchangeable. Instead, the energy systemcomprises a series of distinct flows spanning four basic stages, from primaryresources through to delivered energy services:

Figure 1: Flows of energy travelling through four stages of the energy system

To provide a bit more specificity to this picture, the table below shows commonexamples of each of the four stages and sequences of flows between them:

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If fully enumerated, this would look more like a complex, multi-nodal networkrather than a straight line, but this simplification serves to highlight some keyfeatures:

Changes at one stage require corresponding changes at all other stages in order toavoid supply bottlenecks or unused excess capacity. Each new increment of supply(primary resources plus secondary conversion) must be met with a correspondingincrement of demand (end-use capital plus energy service demand) and vice versa.This means that investments needed to change the system are often larger than theyfirst appear—investments in one part of the system require correspondinginvestments in others—and the ways societies use energy must evolve as supplychanges.The common lay concept of ‘energy’ as a homogeneous, aggregate quantity is afiction. The various flows within the energy system are non-equivalent and non-substitutable (at least not directly). For example, gasoline is produced by a refineryand fuels your car, but this is not interchangeable with the electricity generated by agas-fired turbine powering your laptop. In particular, the flows of ‘energy carriers’between the second and third stages—consisting of electricity, liquid fuels, andheating fuels—must be considered separately, otherwise we risk overlookingconstraints integral to the system.

The non-equivalence of energy carriers is an essential concept, analogous tothe metabolism of living organisms requiring fats, proteins, and carbohydratesto survive. For most animals, diet can change with food availability, but thereare limits to this. Humans can substitute one food group for another, at leastfor a period of time, but beyond certain boundaries severe physiologicalconsequences begin to occur, including starvation and death. The energysystem functions basically the same way. The composition of supply or demandcan’t be changed arbitrarily and to the extent that it can be changed, thistypically requires expensive and time-consuming adjustments at other stagesin the energy system.

Energy for energy

Aside from the flows ultimately ending up as final energy services (or waste), alarge part of the output of the energy system must be directed back into its ownconstruction, operation, and maintenance. These flows represent the

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metabolism of the global energy system. As shown in Figure 2, energy carriersare utilized in an ‘autocatalytic loop’ (energy invested to produce energy) and a‘capital hypercycle’ (energy invested to maintain the means of turning energyinto services).

Figure 2: Energy carrier flows required for the construction, maintenance, and operation of the global energy system

Our current economic structure and resource dependencies ensure that we’llburn a lot of fossil fuels to carry out a major shift towards renewable energy—acost of the transition that we can’t afford to ignore. Among other things, thiscomplicates discussions around the pace of the transition; it is not necessarilytrue that faster is better as large, short-term increases in fossil fuel demand fora renewable energy buildout may lead to significant excess capacity, wastingresources and frustrating the transition further down the line. Generallyspeaking, an ‘optimum’ timeframe in terms of what would limit greenhouse gasemissions or ecological impact will not likely align with the deadlines proposedto date by the advocates of rapid transition. Vaclav Smil notes that energytransitions on this scale typically occur over multiple decades or centuries, notyears [6].

The manufacturing of silicon wafers in

solar PV panels and advanced metal

alloys in wind turbines requires a lot of

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high temperature heat, currently

provided primarily by burning natural

gas or coal.

Examining the energy system’s own metabolism also raises questions ofresidual non-renewable energy dependence that may be difficult to eliminate.The energy system’s autocatalytic loop and capital hypercycle are comprised ofa mixture of energy carriers, meaning any attempt to shift the system towards arenewable basis will likely run into limits (due to energy carriers required tosupport the energy system not likely to be produced at scale via renewablemeans). For example, the manufacturing of silicon wafers in solar PV panelsand advanced metal alloys in wind turbines requires a lot of high temperatureheat, currently provided primarily by burning natural gas or coal. Will it bepossible to run solar PV panel and wind turbine production lines using solar-and wind-generated electricity in the future? We don’t know, but there arereasons to be skeptical [7]. How about all of the remote access roads,transmission towers, substations, and supply depots required to create arenewable energy infrastructure? And the rare-earths, lithium, copper, iron,coltan, cadmium, and vast quantities of other minerals needed for therenewable energy buildout? It is hard to see how all of this can subsist onrenewable energy flows alone.

Electricity

And then there’s electricity. Electricity is not like the other energy carriers inone critical sense: it is not a physical substance that can be produced and setaside for later use. In effect, this means supply must match demand at all timesin order to maintain the stable, functioning electrical networks that distributeelectricity to end users. Demand is stochastic—it changes as industrialproduction ramps up and down, and more erratically as households turn on oroff light switches, run appliances, or do anything else that uses electricity.Consequently, supply must be ‘dispatched’ to meet demand on very shorttimescales as any temporary gap leads to changes in system frequency and

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large gaps can cause blackouts and damage vital electrical equipment(illustrated below).

Figure 3: The supply-demand ‘seesaw’ directly affects the frequency and stability of electrical networks (image source)

The key problem with most renewable electricity production (includingproduction from solar and wind) is that it is intermittent and can’t be countedon when it is required most. Electricity systems needs to retain the ability tomeet demand when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. There areways to maintain this ability as the share of renewables increases, such asbuilding enough spare dispatchable generation capacity to act as a backup(often gas- and coal-fired) or building storage and additional transmissioncapacity. All have significant costs, in both energetic and monetary terms, andface their own social and technical limitations. For example, while there ismuch discussion around building better batteries to unlock renewables, this isstill an exceedingly expensive option that is suitable only for shorter timescales,not the summer to winter supply-demand gaps creating most of the need forsystem flexibility [8]. Returning to our diet analogy, pinning all of our hopes onstorage is a bit like asking a someone to put on 300 lbs every fall to survive thewinter months with very little food. We wouldn’t expect a human being to becapable of this for very long and the odds of the energy system pulling off theequivalent feat are not much better.

This difficulty only increases as renewables provide a larger share of totalelectricity. Figure 4 below shows how the mitigation investment required tomaintain stable electricity grids increases non-linearly as the share of

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intermittent renewables grows [9, 10]. Technical and economic limitations inthe electricity sector will manifest during any large-scale transition torenewable energy. Aside from a few fortunate regions with abundantdispatchable renewable energy resources (geothermal in Iceland, hydropowerin Nicaragua, etc.), with current technology, this ceiling is far below theaspirational 100% renewable goal of the GND. The importance of theseelectricity system barriers is underscored by the fact that the provision of manyof our energy services will need to be electrified in order to align with thegrowth of renewable energy.

Figure 4: The level of mitigation necessary to maintain stable electricity networks increases exponentially as intermittentgeneration rises

A story of limits

The crux of the problem is this: renewable energy typically produces forms ofenergy that are poor substitutes for the energy required to manufacture,transport, install, and operate renewable energy, at least without majorinvestments into each stage of our energy system, significantly reducing oreven erasing the net energy delivered. As such, these energy sources aredependent on the existing system and function less as a replacement for thefossil fuel economy and more as a temporary extension of it. The empiricalevidence agrees—renewable energy investment does a poor job of displacingfossil fuels [11]. Of course, there are exceptions (such as traditionally producedbiomass), but these have nowhere near the potential scale required to runtoday’s enormous globalized, industrialized economy.

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Wherever the existing limit lies on the path to a 100% renewable energysystem, we can and should push this limit through changes to consumptionbehaviours on the part of both industries and households, through things likeshared utilization of end-use capital and energy services (think communalkitchens), a shift away from currently preferred but inefficient types of end-usecapital (e.g. prioritizing public transit and micromobility over cars), greateralignment of demand to match intermittent supply, and overall demandreduction. However, it is precisely these kinds of changes which are moredifficult to motivate, especially among those following the second narrativedescribed above who may assume that high-energy, fossil-fuelled lifestylesrepresent ‘the good life’. Even at the extremes of practical behaviour change,the 100% target may still be unattainable.

Leaving aside the narrow concept of limits, a fundamental change in ourenergy basis and socio-metabolic regime would mean becoming a verydifferent society from the one we know today. It is tempting to opine on oursociety’s wasteful habits and ask how much energy we really need, but theanswer depends largely on the type of society we want to live in. Do we want tobe able to build smartphones? How about MRI machines and water treatmentplants? We may not be able to pick and choose what we want to keep fromvarying levels of socio-technical complexity (while it is certainly worthdiscussing what we might want to keep and what we can afford to lose). Thereis no demonstrated historical tendency for complex societies to voluntarilydownshift their energy consumption on a large-scale [12].

When politicians and activists say “we

have the technology” they vastly

understate the challenges, potential

barriers, and ultimate consequences

involved in the transition.

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The main point here is that the prospects and implications of shifting towardrenewable energy extend far beyond present-day cost-benefit calculations,political maneuvering, or waging war on climate change. When politicians andactivists say “we have the technology” they vastly understate the challenges,potential barriers, and ultimate consequences involved in the transition.

Raised stakes and political pushback

By forcing extensive change into an expedited timeframe, the GND raises thestakes and reduces the margin for error in the transition to renewable energy.If such a policy package were embraced, people everywhere would be subject todramatically increased risks of misallocation of resources, misalignment ofcapacity between the various stages within the energy system, and ofconsequent economic and social fallout. The calls for radical action motivatingthe GND stem from a sense of desperation in the face of increasingly direpredictions regarding converging climate and ecological crises. Thatdesperation is certainly justified, and yes, time is not on our side, but we mustnot dismiss the existential risks of a poorly executed GND.

The GND makes some very big promises and displays unmistakeable utopianelements. The problem is not so much the aspirational decarbonization goals,but the assurances of prodigious social benefits assumed to be attainablethrough or while pursuing them. Universal modern healthcare and highereducation, job guarantees, raised minimum income, the elimination of povertyand inequality, significantly increased taxation of the wealthy—these goalsproved elusive even during the period of greatest stability and economicsurplus the world has ever seen. To achieve them during what will likely be aperiod of profound and growing ecological disruption, climate instability, andsocial unrest is rather optimistic to say the least. We will need to walk a longtightrope, balancing the pace of change, unforeseen challenges, impacts oncommunities, and necessary sacrifices. Perhaps the most dubious aspect is theoverall ethical shift underscoring the kind of social cohesion necessary toachieve the GND in developed nations, from hyper-consumerism toenvironmental stewardship and the voluntary curtailment of discretionaryconsumption—essentially expecting everyone to spontaneously drop anydifferences of opinion and embrace the first narrative.

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Owing to the existence of embedded conflicting perspectives, the GND willalways have its opponents. Assuming we go ahead with it, any unintendedconsequence or local failure (of which there will be many) will be met with abacklash that risks eroding public confidence in the GND. This is a dynamicheightened in direct proportion to the level of ambition the GND embodies; themore utopian the stated goals, the starker the underwhelming reality, and thegreater the negative reaction will be. How would we maintain broad politicalsupport for the GND, given the inevitability of broken promises? It may be thatsome of these promises need to be tempered against the requirement forachievable goals. A prime example can be seen in the German Energiewende, aplanned national energy transition initiated in 2010 aimed at phasing out coaland nuclear energy. Promises of clean, renewable, reliable, and affordableenergy clashed against the reality of Europe’s highest power prices andunconvincing progress on decarbonization [14]. This failure dampened publicenthusiasm and made other countries hesitant to follow Germany’s example.The GND must learn this lesson—to promise more than you can deliver is toensure failure.

There isn’t one unique, unambiguous

end point to travel toward in response

to the challenges we face.

One might reasonably ask whether too much ambition is really a weakness.Isn’t it better to have highly aspirational goals, even if they aren’t achieved, ifonly to carry us further than we would have gone otherwise? Well, notnecessarily. It is important to note that there isn’t one unique, unambiguousend point to travel toward in response to the challenges we face. Time and ourcapacity for change are both limited. A last-ditch, herculean attempt to rebuildmodernity anew would forestall the pursuit of other more credible andbeneficial models of development.

First things first

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So is the GND a good idea? Unfortunately, not in its present form. Givencurrent levels of understanding of the complexities and trade-offs involved in atransition to renewable energy, and inflated expectations of future energyconsumption, it would almost certainly result in a catastrophic failure.However, if guided by 1) an accurate and realistic understanding of the role ofenergy in society and 2) a willingness to honestly confront the profound socio-economic implications of a shift to a renewable energy basis, a reformulatedGND might be able to point our global system toward a more sustainableparadigm.

Here are some additional principles for a truly transformative GND that Iwould propose:

1. Energy literacy: energy transition is at the heart of the GND and its currentassertions in this area are highly questionable. As such, there is a pronounced needfor energy literacy, both in policy formulation and post-implementation generaleducation. This energy literacy is needed to disarm simplistic narratives and enabletransformative thinking.

2. Demand side adaptation: to help bridge the gap between ambition and feasibilityand unlock energy transition to the extent possible, the GND must embrace a radicalrethinking of expectations for energy consumption. This must include overalldemand reduction, but also greater demand flexibility, shared utilization of energyservices, and shifting away from inefficient modes of energy service provision. Supplyside interventions won’t cut it, we need to talk about the energy we use as a society.

3. Evolving timeline: a complex, socio-metabolic process cannot be forced toconform to arbitrary deadlines and attempting to do so serves only to lock inunintended, suboptimal outcomes in terms of what we really want to achieve. TheGND must abandon its stated 10-year timeframe and instead incorporate aninformed, contingent, and evolving target for the pace of the transition.

4. Political realism: assuming a forthcoming, sweeping alignment of perspectives onenergy and social issues and subsequent unilateral action, as if in a political vacuum,is simply wishful thinking and must be rejected. The GND’s overall strategy mustremain mindful of contrary narratives and the political pitfalls of excessive ambition.There should also be more discussion on who—from movements like ExtinctionRebellion to environmental justice groups—can build the necessary political powerfor a truly transformative GND and how.

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5. Epistemic openness: new approaches are needed to navigate radical uncertaintyand conflicting socio-technical narratives regarding energy transition. The GNDmust engage fields like Post-Normal Science—an approach to scientific decision-making for issues where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high anddecisions urgent” [15, 16]—as antidotes to reductionism and ideological echochambers.

As a parting thought, ‘deal’ may not be the appropriate language given anoverwhelming level of uncertainty. How can a deal be made and subsequentlyserve as the benchmark of success when the most relevant details are not yetknown? In place of the GND, we might be better served by scaling back ourambition and embracing a Green New Direction. This alternative couldpreserve many of the same essential goals, but would need to forgo the use ofenticing promises to motivate action and instead do the hard work of buildingsolidarity and commitment to collectively face an energy future which will bemore complex, more unpredictable, and more challenging than anything we’vepreviously encountered.

References1. White, L.A., Energy and the evolution of culture. American Anthropologist, 1943.

45(3): p. 335-356.2. Krausmann, F., et al., The Global Sociometabolic Transition. Journal of Industrial

Ecology, 2008. 12(5-6): p. 637-656.3. Haberl, H., et al., A socio-metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges

for another Great Transformation. Sustainable Development, 2011. 19(1): p. 1-14.4. Giampietro, M., K. Mayumi, and A.H. Sorman, Energy analysis for a sustainable

future: multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism. 2013,London, UK: Routledge.

5. BP, BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2019. 2019, BP. p. 64.6. Smil, V., Energy transitions : history, requirements, prospects. 2010, Santa

Barbara, CA: Praeger.7. Moriarty, P. and D. Honnery, Can renewable energy power the future? Energy

Policy, 2016. 93: p. 3-7.8. Carbajales-Dale, M., C.J. Barnhart, and S.M. Benson, Can we afford storage? A

dynamic net energy analysis of renewable electricity generation supported by

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Previously: Swedish colonialist neutrality Next: January readings

energy storage. Energy & Environmental Science, 2014. 7(5): p. 1538-1544.9. Heard, B.P., et al., Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of

100% renewable-electricity systems. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,2017. 76: p. 1122-1133.

10. Trainer, T., Can renewables etc. solve the greenhouse problem? The negative case.Energy Policy, 2010. 38(8): p. 4107-4114.

11. York, R., Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? Nature ClimateChange, 2012. 2(6): p. 441-443.

12. Smil, V., Energy in world history. 1994, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.13. Cai, T.T., T.W. Olsen, and D.E. Campbell, Maximum (em)power: a foundational

principle linking man and nature. Ecological Modelling, 2004. 178(1): p. 115-119.14. Schiffer, H.-W. and J. Trüby, A review of the German energy transition: taking

stock, looking ahead, and drawing conclusions for the Middle East and NorthAfrica. Energy Transitions, 2018. 2(1): p. 1-14.

15. Funtowicz, S.O. and J.R. Ravetz, Science for the post-normal age. Futures, 1993.25(7): p. 739-755.

16. Tainter, J.A., T. Allen, and T.W. Hoekstra, Energy transformations and post-normalscience. Energy, 2006. 31(1): p. 44-58.

Tim Crownshaw is a PhD Candidate in the department of Natural ResourceSciences at McGill University in Canada and a student in the Economics forthe Anthropocene (E4A) research partnership. He studies global dynamictransition pathways from non-renewable to renewable energy resourcesusing quantitative, systems-based modelling approaches.

Posted in GND series, GND seriesTagged climate change, climate change mitigation, climate justice, complex systems,complexity, decarbonization, decarbonize, degrowth, ecological politics, electrification,energy transition, environmental justice, GND, green new deal, just transition,pluriversality, pluriverse, post-development, renewable energy, renewables, techno-fix,techno-utopianism, technologism, transition

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