I get that this is collapse, but that was a ridiculously unsourced opinion piece.
Claiming renewable energy like solar is a dead end because it’s currently manufactured using oil power is as silly as someone from 200 years ago claiming oil powered electric factories are impossible because they need to be built with steam powered factories.
It is an opinionated blog. But the core idea is reasonably easy to check, using a self replicating ISRU photovoltaics factory which uses its energetic output for everything as a model. Running an aluminium electrolysis cell is already difficult without buffering. It will already require mining and also transport, since offsite. Do make a list of raw materials and the entire supply chain for manufacturing. Write down the list of materials for those. At some point you might notice where the problems are.
Notice that green plants have no issues with ISRU self-rep, but we are quite far removed from that capability and we likely won’t get there because we’re already running out of fossil fuels and hence resource extractability.
Do make a list of raw materials and the entire supply chain for manufacturing. Write down the list of materials for those. At some point you might notice where the problems are.
That’s what my proposed researcher from 200 years ago did to prove that oil powered factories are impossible.
This isn’t the valid argument you think it is. I don’t have any issues with you not understanding the predicament. After all almost nobody but a few weird people do, and we can’t do a damn thing about it, since it being, well, a predicament and not just a problem.
You believe there are bootstrap limitations but tell me I need to prove your argument. You claimed aluminum manufacturing requires oil fired generators yet 30% of aluminum production is already with renewables.
It seems this is a matter of faith for you rather than a position you wish to defend.
I did not claim that aluminium electrolysis cell was powered by an oil generator, if you want to single out one random, small part of the supply chain, which completely runs against the idea of looking at the entirety of processes and material sources for renewables, which of them depend on fossil energy, fossil organic and mineral sources, and which of them can be easily substituted, by, say, electrification or using a different material. It was just an algorithm for you to run at your end to produce a dataset to verify the claim, that current renewables are not autopoietic but fossil energy extenders, and subject to extraction limits at scales required. The bootstrap problem exists for hypothetical future renewable technology with ISRU self-rep. A weaker bootstrap issue is if you no longer have enough nonrenewable surplus for the transition, which is a real problem, but not the point I was making.
I don’t blame you. You need to have a holistic view of dozens of industrial processes, mineral extraction and enrichment, energy use, reserves, and so on in your head. Or be ready to collect the information, which takes a lot of time and effort.
There are reasons I only mention photovoltaics and wind. I could run through just the aluminium supply chain (without using hydro, because it’s saturated and hides the issue of output variability) to make a point, but I really encourage you to do it on your own. So that you can do it for everything else.
but I really encourage you to do it on your own.
If you claim there is a problem where no problem has yet manifested, or in all of history, you need to show your work. If you questioned global warming, I would show you the volumes of work that prove it. I wouldn’t say, “Do it on your own.”
If necessary we can mine with pick axes just like 500 years ago to get the materials to generate energy to reduce manual labor. Rare earth materials aren’t needed. They are used for efficiency gains. Electric cars were made over 100 years ago without rare earth minerals or lithium.
The problem has not yet fully manifested because renewables are a multiplier of fossil energy and fossil energy driven extraction of fossils and mineral resources, fossil driven agriculture and so on while we’re yet only slightly past the cusp of net energy per capita production and about the cusp of net energy production. You already see the problems in accounting systems like SEEDS.
If you look at the world primary energy use https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy you see that there has been no energy source transition but addition. Biofuels allow you roughly Edo era Japan https://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-04-05/japans-sustainable-society-edo-period-1603-1867/ technology and population density and occupation structure, assuming a mostly pristine ecosystem.
Early EVs began in the well developed industry era, which required significant coal use. You don’t need rare earth magnets for windmills or water wheels, but it limits us to milling grain, pumping water and running blacksmith forges. Without cheap and abundant natural gas no cheap and abundant nitrate fertilizer. Without diesel and agricultural machines we’re back to subsistence farming, but with the handicap of 8+ billions people already around, in a degraded ecosystem. Without bunker fuels no modern supply chains. Without diesel electric hybrid trucks and monster excavators no large scale mineral extraction and processing of progressively poor ores.
Photovoltaics is just great, but it has to power agriculture, mining, industry and everything, besides just itself (do look into why it cannot power even the supply chain of its own production, it is not just about ERoEI). Adding wind, a lesser scalable resource does not change anything. Molecular nanotechnology systems could probably do it, but need sustained high technology regime to be developed. We have basically abandoned tried building them in the time space of the last half century.