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Note: The above term was coined by my friend Tom Kirkman in a conversation about the energy transition on LinkedIn. You have my profuse and eternal gratitude for this jewel, Tom.
When a couple of months ago I decided to get really serious about this newsletter I started to catch up on my longer-form energy-related reading. Thanks to generous researchers who contacted me in order to share their work I learned a lot more than I ever thought I might want to learn about renewable energy. And that’s not all.
I’ve been a fan of Stephen King’s writing for decades now. There are books I re-read and re-re-read on a regular basis because they are such brilliant works of the horror genre. I never thought non-fiction could read like a horror story but the papers I have been studying read exactly like that.
The reason for this is that while facts about certain physical constraints and technological limitations of wind and solar power generation are beginning to leak into the public attention, thanks in no small part to platforms such as Substack, the renewable energy crusade continues unabated.
While serious analysts and industry insiders are warning that there are simply not enough raw materials to produce the components necessary for the massive buildout of wind and solar installations, NGO, governments and international organisations continue to advocate for just such a buildout and the sooner, the better. To quote a certain diplomat known for his wit, it’s like talking to a deaf person.
I’ve been damned with a pretty active imagination but there are few things I can think of that are scarier than people in positions of power being told that what they are trying to do is, if not impossible, then quite ill-advised, and still trying to do it.
Paper after paper detail the exact reasons why the renewable wet dream of the likes of Frans Timmermans, Fatih Birol, and Antonio Guterres has little chance of becoming a reality and still they keep pushing for more panels and more turbines. If this is not horror, I really don’t know what is.
It is because of this scary divorce between physical reality and energy ambitions that I almost seriously believe it is only a matter of time until we get to a stage where liquefied natural wind is discussed in all seriousness. In fact, it is not too far-fetched to suggest that there are already individuals among us primed to consume even this sort of absurdity unquestioningly. It may be worth a social media experiment in case someone has the time.
I, meanwhile, will move on to another aspect of the horror nature of the transition crusade: the indoctrination aspect. If anything, it is a lot scarier than the constant renewable energy refrain pouring out of the mouths and websites of various government officials and their agencies.
I wish I could say I’m using hyperbole to drive my point home more strongly but the truth is, I am indeed quite worried about the state of the world today when it comes to energy, which is why I’m doing what I’m doing here. That, and my desperate need for external validation, obviously.
Based on my observations of social media networks, people, especially younger people, seem to be losing their ability to process information critically at a lightning fast rate. I can’t say whether this is the result of shortcomings in the educational system or an aspect of a bigger trend. What I can say is that the biggest lesson I have ever learned in my life was to question the information I receive from the media.
Many will say they also question everything they read on Twitter or on Reuters. The reality is that we don’t really do that. We do, quite easily, question information that goes counter to what we believe in but we also tend to seek out and gorge on information that strengthens these beliefs, be it true or not. I’m not inventing the wheel here, we all know about our inherent biases.
There are a lot of problems with these biases but the most topical one is that the energy transition narrative is boosting the power of these biases to an extent where critical thinking becomes literally impossible. Some are already there, unfortunately, ready to gobble up even the most insanely stupid statement from the right people, such as Guterres’ tweet about “dangerous radicals”, and at the same time utterly incapable of comprehending the facts of why a wind/solar energy future is impossible at this stage of human evolution and likely to remain impossible for quite a while yet.
What’s even worse is that I am pretty certain the secretary-general of the UN himself may not be able — or willing — to comprehend the facts about why a wind/solar energy future is impossible at this stage of human evolution and likely to remain impossible for quite a while yet. And this, friends and neighbours, is as scary as the original film adaptation of Pet Sematary.
It is because of this utter ignorance, whether deliberate or not, that I suspect it won’t be too long before liquefied natural wind becomes a thing. In fact, if you think about it, it already has: what do you call compressed hydrogen produced through electrolysis using electricity from wind farms? Liquefied natural wind, of course, that’s what you call it. And you thought it was a joke.
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