In 2020, Jeff Gibbs’ documentary Planet of the Humans fell out of
the sky. It aimed a spotlight on the
many ways in which solar and wind power were neither green nor renewable — no
free pony. In response, many “green”
activists explosively soiled their britches and demanded that the film be
banned. Millions watched it. Similarly, in 2021, Derrick Jensen and team
published Bright
Green Lies, which was soon followed by a documentary based on the
book.
These two projects were righteous fire-breathing exposés of
the deceptions regularly made by folks promoting “green” technologies. Passionate preaching can often get some folks
to listen. Sometimes it inspires minds
to change. Other folks prefer to have
deeper understanding before revising their views. Alice Friedemann’s book, Life After Fossil Fuels,
will appeal to them.
Without rage and condemnation, she calmly and carefully described
why she thinks we would be wise to end our addiction to fossil fuels as soon as
possible. She evaluated the
alternatives, and concluded that most are not free ponies. Importantly, she carefully explained the benefits,
limits, and faults of the various options, and meticulously cited the sources
of her information — literally hundreds of them.
Readers are introduced to the notion that alternative energy
is not the magic key to a sustainable utopian wonderland. The status quo is a high speed, ridiculously
luxurious, one-way path into dark and treacherous realms. We’ve been living like scruffy back alley gods
on drugs. The good news here is that no “green”
solution can permanently keep the massively destructive status quo on life
support — it’s going to end up where it’s headed. “We are nearing the end of a one-time binge.” Indeed!
So, my eyes began tap-dancing across page 1, and I was soon scrolling
through a thrilling 86-page joyride. Friedemann
presented an informative and embarrassing birds-and-bees discussion of the
horrific unintended consequences of our childlike obsession with living like
crazy dysfunctional grownups. I cheered
with excitement with each new chapter. It
was so refreshing to experience such a sumptuous feast of clear and coherent bullshit
free information.
Readers are introduced to the important notion of EROI (energy
returned on energy invested). Each year
it’s taking more and more energy to find, extract, process, and distribute fossil
energy. Imagine having a job that paid
$100 per day, but the bridge toll for getting to work was $99. For this reason, enormous amounts of fossil
energy will remain in the ground forever, thank goodness! About 65 percent of buried oil is technically
or economically unrecoverable.
The fracking industry is drilling like crazy, while more and
more unlucky tycoons land with a splat in the tar pits of bankruptcy. The richest discoveries were drilled and
drained first. “Globally, new oil
discoveries have fallen for 6 years, with consumption of oil six times greater
than discoveries from 2013 through 2019.”
Trouble ahead.
In manufacturing, would it be possible to eliminate fossil
energy by switching to wood-based fuel?
Take a wild guess. Can we
continue producing mountains of food when energy-guzzling synthetic fertilizers
have become fond memories of the good old days?
Can industrial agriculture continue when energy-guzzling farm equipment
runs out of affordable fossil energy to guzzle?
Will high speed horse carts haul fresh California veggies to Minnesota?
Can industrial civilization exist without energy-guzzling
fleets of ships, planes, trains, and trucks?
“In the U.S., trucks deliver 80% of goods over 4.1 million miles of
roads, with 80% of towns completely dependent on trucks.” Can transportation systems shift to electric
power? “A truck with a driving range of
600 miles needs a battery pack weighing 35,275 pounds and can carry just 10,000
pounds.” Oh, and cold weather reduces
driving range by 35%.
“All contraptions that produce electricity need high heat in
their construction. They all need cement
made at 2600°F.” There is no known way
to make concrete with electricity. Making
steel for wind turbines requires 3100°F (1700°C). “Solar panels require 2700° to 3600°F (1500°
to 2000°C) of heat to transform silicon dioxide into metallurgical grade
silicon.” Nuke plants still on the
drawing board, in theory, might be able to generate 1562°F (850°C), but this is
not hot enough for making cement, steel, glass, and lots of other stuff.
Friedemann’s key question is: could life as we know it
continue in an alternative energy future?
By chapter 13, all contestants for powering a happy sustainable future
were rejected, except one — biomass. Prior
to the fossil fuel era, heavy industry was powered by charcoal made from dead
trees. Brazil is still making steel with
rainforest charcoal.
“Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can
generate the high heat needed by industry to make cement, iron, steel,
aluminum, trucks, computers, electronic equipment, ceramics, bricks, and
machinery. Biodiesel is the only
renewable drop-in fuel that can keep heavy-duty trucks, locomotives, and ships
running. Biomass, with a little help
from hydropower, is the only renewable way to keep the electric grid up.”
Yikes! This spooky
paragraph sent a cold chill through my body.
Weird chapters followed. I began
to wonder if I had just wasted two entire days of the only life I may ever
live. But, by this point, I was aware
that Friedemann had a whimsical side, so I kept reading, hoping for a sharp
turn. It came later. Act two of the book was focused on
contemplating how we could produce enough biomass to power industrial
civilization, and prepare to feed the 3 billion additional folks expected for
dinner in 2050. Hope fiends will have a
good cry.
Bummers obstructing the rise of a biomass utopia include climate
change, freshwater scarcity, brutalized topsoil, and our addiction to countless
fossil powered processes. Turning
biomass into a liquid fuel known as ethanol is idiotic. Trucks can’t guzzle it, and it refuses to be
pumped through pipelines. It takes about
as much energy to make a gallon as the finished gallon contains. (Ethanol is a monster child fathered by gold
plated government subsidies to Big Ag.)
The bummer parade is long and unusual. Make biodiesel with algae? Make ethanol with seaweed, sorghum, or corn
stalks? Biodiesel could indeed replace
oil-based diesel, if we were able to produce it in high volume. This would require enormous amounts of
cropland, and it would pummel the land as much as other types of agriculture. If climate shifts blindside farm country,
game over.
Bottom line: “The electric grid can not stay up without
natural gas due to a lack of energy storage.
Transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing can not be electrified. If transportation can not be electrified or
run on Something Else, civilization as we know it ends. Agriculture goes back to horses and human
labor.” When readers finally reach
chapter 33 and slither across the finish line, their brains have been reduced
to a bucketful of steaming glop. It
doesn’t look like we’re on the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City. The sky is full of flying monkeys. What a book!
The pisser here is that this very important book is sold by a
textbook publisher, and it’s very expensive.
It won’t be able to catch much of a ride on the wave of interest
generated by Gibbs, Jensen, and others.
Its modest collegiate audience is mostly the well-dressed offspring of
the idle rich, and desperate students who are massively in debt. Non-billionaires may need to rob a gas
station, or get a library card.
The bigger pisser is that 12 year olds don't already know this
stuff. Maybe it would be polite
to inform youngsters about the challenging future they have inherited. I hope that Friedemann is busy working on
something like a Dick and Jane primer for school kids — an affordable,
competent, un-redacted, easy to read, mind-expanding introduction to actual reality,
warts and all. Imagine that.
Friedemann, Alice, Life
After Fossil Fuels, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2021.
NOTE
TO ALL: Alice Friedemann has made THIS ENTIRE BOOK AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE on
her website:
https://energyskeptic.com
