Shift to renewable energy would make economic growth impossible, says expert
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Even climatologists are beginning to realise that the emperor has no clothes!
Economic growth as we know it is impossible if governments shift to 100 per cent renewable energy, a renowned French climatologist has said.
Jean-Marc Jancovici, the author of World Without End, the graphic novel on climate change which has sold nearly a million copies in France, said that wind, solar and hydroelectric power offer no miracle solution and “will not allow us to maintain today’s modern industrial world”.
He said: “Globalisation is basically ships, trucks, planes and computers, and all this relies on fossil fuels. The idea that we can keep all that in a world with only renewable energies is a bold assumption and I don’t believe that such a shift is compatible with maintaining growth in physical economic output.
“It’s also an unproven assumption to claim that renewable energy will remain cheap in a world with only renewable energy.”
Controversially for many greens, Mr Jancovici argues that nuclear power is an effective way to soften the blow with an “emergency parachute” to reduce the risk of “social collapse”.
Nuclear power has seen a widespread return to favour after years in the doldrums since the Fukushima disaster. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, recently announced his intention to build another six next-generation EPR reactors to add to France’s vast fleet of 58.
At Cop28, a group of 22 countries pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.
Farmer Marc Chabanol walks across his fields near Perpignan in the Pyrenees-Orientales region. France’s southernmost department has been alarmingly dry for almost two years in a row Credit: ED JONES/AFP
Mr Jancovici said this was doable but would “not itself save the industrial world”.
Tripling capacity means “going from 2 per cent of the final energy that we use to 6 per cent globally,” he said, adding: “It’s a good idea but will not spare us from having to make tremendous efforts on decreasing energy use.”
Given all that, he said he had sympathy for politicians such as Mr Macron and Rishi Sunak who continue to plug “green growth”.
He said: “They can’t really promise anything else because they have no alternative. France, like the UK, has no plan B for a world in structural recession. How do you manage the budget? How do you manage pensions?”
“As we are not equipped to face that situation, it’s pretty logical and human to say that it won’t happen.”
The world will have to “get rid of India starting next year” if the planet is to stick to global warming targets, he said.
Mr Jancovici, 61, a charismatic climatologist who pioneered the carbon footprint concept in France and sits on a climate commission advising the government, has a habit of dropping bombshells.
In fact, Jancovici is dangerously understating the real position.
This is not just about “economic growth”. Take away fossil fuels, and the inevitable result will be a collapse and dislocation of the world’s economy, mass starvation and poverty.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“Take away fossil fuels, and the inevitable result will be a collapse and dislocation of the world’s economy, mass starvation and poverty.” Only Western countries, their governments members of the WEF, are going down this route. The elite will take their ill-gotten gains and go elsewhere.
Much like the concept of catastrophic climate change, which wouldn’t arrive as a Tsunami even were it true, any achievable wind down from fossil fuels will see poverty and starvation rise gradually. It won’t arrive like a Tsunami either.
We are seeing a shift in political attitudes, Meloni in Italy, Wilders in Holland and Le Pen of the AfD leading the polls in Germany. Then there’s Trump and possibly Farage.
Of course the task of unwinding loony climate policies will be long and arduous, and people will suffer, but the ship is turning bit by bit as the personal cost of it all becomes more obvious to the public.
I suspect the only thing that can stop Trump, assuming he’s elected, going full scorched earth on the deep state is if he’s assassinated and that, not climate change, would be catastrophic for the country.
Sorry but if you attribute Le Pen to the German AfD, it doesn’t say much for your level of “informed”.
A typo in haste.
However, if you wish to nitpick, I don’t see any comments from you pointing out the changing political landscape.
In fact, I don’t see any meaningful comments at all from you on this thread.
The UK followed by Germany are working hard to prove that greening the energy sector causes deindustrialization. Frankly, I’m astonished the pushback in Germany has taken so long to develop.
Germany is being held back by the proportional election system that requires parties to join up to govern and that existing parties refuse to join with AfD. While AfD look like winning the most votes in Sachsen, Thueringen and Brandenburg 40% is not enough to govern. The CFD might well split this time and the offshoot party could get the missing votes as they have a non-lefty element.
Sorry CDU.
What ‘Renewable’ Energy?
With the National Grid in a state of collapse, here’s a startling fact for the gullible:
Wind turbines do NOT produce any energy at all, FULL STOP.
The First law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another.
So called ‘renewables’ should more accurately be called energy collectors. They collect energy that already exists, in the form of wind or sunlight, and convert what little there is into electricity.
Therein lies the perpetual problem. If it is dark, still and cold, typical midwinter conditions, there is no energy to collect, thereby literally leaving us in the dark!
As we frequently discover in still, frosty December, and again this January, wind ‘energy’ is a technological dead-end.
The intrinsically better sources have what is known as greater Energy Density.
For example, water is 800 times denser than air, so hydro is always going to give a much greater conversion capture than wind. Coal is intrinsically denser than wood, so much more thermodynamically efficient. A coal fire burns much hotter than wood.
Nuclear, working at atomic level wins the energy density stakes hands down.
The other hugely-damaging problem with parasitic ‘unreliables’ is their truly voracious material, maintenance, repair, replacement and land requirements.
At present, all the world’s energy plants occupy around 0.5% of the Earth’s surface. Trying to capture all our energy from solar and wind would require an astonishing 50% of the Earth’s surface!
This will leave virtually nowhere for farming, food production, forests, fishing, nature, wildlife habitats, recreation or us.
Before the planet is completely carpeted, and wrecked with ‘renewables’ it is high time the collective density of our deluded, ever-so-green, politicians realised this!
‘Shift to renewable energy would make economic growth impossible, says expert’
Only an expert could make that determination.
“First, we kill all the experts.”
Isn’t stopping economic growth for developing Countries, and to force economic regression for developed Countries the plan of the misanthropes in the Climate Cult?
Why oh why is it taking our masters to hear what many of us who really understand this stuff have been saying for decades? Yes decades, in my case nearly six of them!
Oxford University has a great deal to answer for. They trained the overwhelming majority of the decision makers in Whitehall and Parliament and the result has been consistent failure ever since 1945. They all have to go. Otherwise we are doomed.
Gas plants are currently supplying twice as much electricity to the grid as wind+solar, also a high percentage of the domestic heating. Now remove the gas – what fills the gap?
Cold….
Cannot the debate around the requirement for the UK to achieve “net zero” be distilled down into:
Where is the proven justification that UK needs to achieve “net zero”?
How much will the transition to “net zero” cost?
How much will “net zero” cost to maintain?
How much has “net zero” cost to date?
It is possible that the UK public could spend £££trillions to achieve “net zero” but with no meaningful benefit.
Micky. the answer to your last question is yes – ‘no meaningful benefit’. We on this site and other rational people have known this for decades.
“It is possible that the UK public could spend £££trillions to achieve “net zero””
Absolutely not. You won’t have £££trillions. NZ means a massive contraction of the economy. The end of prosperity.
Fukushima deaths: (Wiki) 1 confirmed from radiation (lung cancer, 4 years later), and 2,202 from evacuation. As so often, the cure is much worse than the disease.
Conversely, renewables ” with an estimated death toll ranging from tens of thousands to 240,000.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
Funny how everybody has heard of Chernobyl but virtually none have heard of Banqiao or all the other tens of thousands of hydro plant deaths.
More people died at this Soviet plant failure than Chernobyl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayano-Shushenskaya_power_station_accident
Inevitably I discovered my MP is a member of the Conservative Environmental Network. The CEN is stuffed full of young 20-30 year old types who have joined straight from university or worked in think tanks, as policy wonks/advisors, researchers etc. Few if any have expertise or qualifications regarding climate, weather or the environment. As for the energy sector, don’t bother looking.
The CEF gets most of its funding from these sources;
Grants (83% of our income), including European Climate Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Oak Foundation, WWF-UK, and Clean Air Fund.
Rather says it all.
Meanwhile, in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and increasingly in Africa, they’re all laughing as the Western economies commit suicide as a result of a hoax…
Well, of course a “Shift to renewable energy would make economic growth impossible.” That’s because continuous economic and population growth is ITSELF impossible in a world of finite resources.
Widespread adoption of nuclear energy at a scale to replace fossil fuel sources to maintain current levels of growth and consumption would result in a global, dystopian, centralized, authoritarian government that would out-Trump Trump’s totalitarian dictatorial dreams.
Even if it were possible to replace fossil fuel energy sources with nuclear + wind + solar, etc., all resources necessary to produce and maintain such technology are themselves finite and limited.
There is no free lunch, not even a reasonably inexpensive snack.
The only logical path forward is downscaling population and consumption to levels that can be sustained through natural processes. In fact, this is what will inevitably occur, as human dreams of unlimited energy and resources to support a continually growing population are just that: dreams without substance.
Leave us a note when you off yourself.
I bagsie his hat.