Is the energy transition easy?
Why Replacing Fossil Fuels Is Like Surgery on a Marathon Runner
Few people today can remember when society ran on horsepower, the power equal to 550 foot-pounds per second that an imaginary horse could muster. Such meagre power barely touches the sides today.
It's 2019, and I'm sitting in a packed auditorium listening to a renowned climate activist paint a picture of our renewable energy future. Solar panels gleam on every rooftop. Wind turbines spin gracefully across the landscape. Electric vehicles hum silently down highways. The crowd is quite literally electrified.
But as someone who's spent four decades asking awkward questions about environmental assumptions, my inner sceptic was doing somersaults.
Not because I am opposed to renewable energy. I am a mindful sceptic, not a denier. What got my critical thinking going was the narrative felt too clean, too simple for a species that burns through 100 million barrels of oil every single day.
Here's the uncomfortable truth that most energy transition cheerleaders won't tell you. Replacing the fossil fuel foundation of modern civilisation isn't like swapping out a light bulb. It's more like performing open-heart surgery on a patient who's running a marathon and refuses to take it easy as a PB is on offer.
I learned this lesson the hard way while advising on carbon offset projects across three continents. Time and again, these projects supported continued energy use rather than reducing emissions, which was the intended purpose of the offset schemes.
But here's where mindful scepticism gives us better questions.
What if the energy transition isn't easy? What if acknowledging its complexity helps us navigate it more successfully? What if the real breakthrough isn't technology but our willingness to face inconvenient truths?
What if we are not transitioning at all?
Today, we will dissect six critical challenges that make the energy transition far more complex than your Instagram feed suggests. This is not to discourage action but to encourage clear-eyed thinking that leads to real solutions rather than comfortable delusions.
Because if 8 billion people are going to transition away from fossil fuels without civilizational collapse, we'll need all the intellectual honesty we can muster. And that starts with questioning the assumptions that make us feel good about our energy future.
Ready to have your renewable energy certainties gently but firmly shaken?
Before we dive in, could you help us?
Many thanks, now we are diving….
So much horsepower
We are all products of the fossil fuel age, the unique, one-time only injection of virtually free exogenous energy into the human enterprise. First, coal and later oil and gas have given two billion or so of the wealthiest humans to have ever lived the lifestyle that ancient kings could never have imagined.
The energy pulse delivered wealth gain thanks to technology and infrastructure development, even in the less fortunate parts of the world. And it produced more humans, an additional six billion since the 1920s.
Near-free energy changed lifestyles and created a lot more people.
But, very soon, the energy pulse will come to an end.
Whether because we can no longer afford the damage caused by burning them or because fossil hydrocarbons are a nonrenewable resource, the era of oil, coal, and natural gas will come to an end in the foreseeable future.
Jason Bradford, Post Carbon Institute
No problem. That is what the energy transition is all about.
Society is predominantly electrical (or can be), so all we have to do is generate electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal generators, which all produce electricity. Build the capacity from these sources, and all is well.
For the energy components and resources derived from oil that are difficult to substitute, including transportation fuels (e.g., gasoline, diesel, jet fuel), petrochemicals for plastics, and certain industrial processes due to their high energy density, specific chemical properties, and widespread infrastructure reliance, there is even the option to grow alternatives to oil by using plants as biofuels.
This is the soothing set of assumptions we are sold.
Conventional wisdom sees the energy transition as a necessary and inevitable process driven by the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Key institutions, including the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), argue that achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century is essential to avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.
This perspective emphasises phasing out coal, oil, and gas in favour of renewable energy sources, supported by battery storage, smart grids, and electrification of transport and heating.
Economic and technological optimism tells us that the falling cost of renewables, improvements in battery technology, and the rise of electric vehicles are evidence that the transition is both technically feasible and economically beneficial. Governments and corporations increasingly align with this vision through pledges to reduce emissions, invest in clean energy infrastructure, and implement carbon pricing mechanisms or subsidies for green technologies.
Unfortunately, it's more complicated.
Let’s borrow from ecologist, organic farmer, and author Dr. Jason Bradford, who advocates for sustainable agriculture and decentralised energy systems, to summarise why transitioning out of fossil fuels will be challenging.
Bradford says six significant issues complicate the energy transition. They all relate to how useful, efficient, and convenient fossil fuels have become, given that we built our technology around them.
Intermittency
A society that runs on electricity needs that energy continuously—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If the power goes out, critical systems can quickly break down.
Yet while the need for electricity is constant, demand fluctuates. More power is consumed on a 40℃ humid summer day than during mild weather conditions.
Though essential to the energy transition, solar and wind power are intermittent and inherently variable. If a society were to rely entirely on these sources, substantial energy storage or long-distance transmission systems would be necessary to meet demand when supply falls short. Current solutions of batteries and grid interconnections depend on significant infrastructure, much of which has yet to be built.
The other option is to reduce overall demand. More on this later.
Liquid fuels
We use so much oil for many reasons, but a key one is its physical form. Oil is a stable liquid, making it easy to store, transport, pump into vehicles, and feed into engines.
Oil, refined into kerosene, gasoline, and diesel, powers nearly all modes of transportation. However, few cars, trucks, ships, or aeroplanes can run on alternative fuels without expensive retrofitting.
In reality, only a small portion of the transport sector can be easily electrified without replacing fleets designed for liquid fuels.
Once again, the other option is to travel less and move fewer goods.
Other uses of fossil fuels
Other than transport and heating, fossil fuels provide high temperatures for manufacturing steel and other metals, cement, rubber, ceramics, glass, and many manufactured goods.
Fossil fuels serve as feedstocks for materials, especially plastics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
One of the most critical chemicals is ammonium, the primary ingredient in nitrogen fertilisers. The Haber-Bosch process of fixing nitrogen into usable fertilisers converted fossil energy into food and people.
Studies using nitrogen isotope analysis have shown that a significant proportion of the nitrogen found in human tissues, such as hair and muscle, can be traced to synthetic fertilisers. The widely cited estimate is that roughly 50% to 80% of the nitrogen in the global human population comes from food produced using Haber-Bosch-derived fertilisers. This percentage is even higher in populations that rely heavily on industrial agriculture. In essence, the process has enabled the planet to support a much larger population than would be possible with naturally fixed nitrogen alone.
There are substitutes for many of these uses, and technologies could be invented for many more. The problem becomes retrofitting current facilities or building new factories that run on alternative inputs. It's not just the cost, either. Some of the products we cannot do without for even a season.
Area density of energy collection
An oil rig has a small footprint as an energy source.
It could become large if it leaks, but alternative energy sources, with the notable exception of geothermal, take up much more space with unavoidable costs, inefficiencies, and environmental impacts.
This is measured as the area density of energy collection. Fossil fuels like coal and oil have extremely high energy densities by volume or mass. However, their area density, which includes mining, extraction, and infrastructure, is lower than it seems at first glance. In contrast, renewable sources such as solar and wind are constrained by their low power density, requiring significant land areas to produce equivalent energy output.
For example, utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) installations typically have an area power density of around 5–10 W/m², depending on location, panel efficiency, and spacing. Wind farms yield even less, often 1–2 W/m² when accounting for spacing between turbines to avoid aerodynamic interference. In contrast, a compact natural gas plant can generate thousands of watts per square meter of its actual facility footprint, not counting upstream infrastructure. These stark differences are critical when assessing land use, ecological impacts, and the feasibility of scaling energy systems.
Along with a bigger area footprint, the construction and deployment of renewable energy systems require significant inputs of raw materials. Solar panels rely on rare or semi-rare elements such as silicon, silver, and tellurium; wind turbines use large quantities of steel, copper, and rare earth magnets; and nearly all systems depend on plastics, cement, and glass.
Mining and refining these materials carry environmental and social consequences, including habitat destruction, water use, energy consumption, and pollution. Furthermore, the manufacturing processes often depend on fossil fuels, embedding carbon emissions into the production phase, even for “clean” technologies.
Additionally, renewable infrastructure is not permanent.
Solar panels typically last 25 to 30 years, wind turbine blades and mechanical components degrade over time, and battery storage systems have finite charge-discharge cycles.
As these components end their operational lives, they must be decommissioned, recycled (where possible), or disposed of. This introduces challenges around material recovery, waste management, and the long-term sustainability of renewable energy deployment. While these challenges seem far less damaging than the ongoing emissions of fossil fuels, they underscore that the shift to renewables is not free of environmental impact.
Location
The sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow everywhere.
Inconsistency was always one of the biggest challenges for renewables, but we now have sophisticated tools to evaluate where renewable resources are most abundant. These tools can assess whether your rooftop is suited to solar or help locate ideal sites for wind farms. In some cases, you’ll benefit; in others, you won’t because location still matters.
When we build infrastructure in the sunniest or windiest regions and transmit power to where it’s needed, we encounter similar challenges to those faced by the current electricity grid. High-voltage transmission lines require extensive planning, materials, land, and maintenance, which are costs and resources that must be factored into any transition.
While geothermal energy offers a steady and locally dispatchable power source in some areas, its availability is limited by geology. Thus, it is one part—but not a universal solution—of a resilient, distributed energy system.
The deeper issue, however, lies not just in the variability of renewable energy but in the mismatch between where energy can best be generated and where it is most intensively consumed. Population centres like New York, Shanghai, or Berlin concentrate enormous demand, far more than local renewables alone could reliably supply, even under ideal conditions.
Energy quantity
Over the past century, global energy consumption has grown exponentially, now exceeding 500 exajoules annually. This staggering figure underscores the scale of our dependency on energy, much of which is still derived from fossil fuels. Even with a rapid and massive expansion of solar and wind infrastructure, meeting this level of demand within the next 35 years remains a monumental challenge. Renewable capacity is growing, but the pace remains far from matching the relentless rise in global energy use.
The tight coupling between energy consumption and economic growth complicates the transition further. Economic expansion, especially in industrialising regions, requires more energy, and in turn, access to energy is often seen as a prerequisite for development.
This near one-to-one relationship is both a driver of prosperity and a structural barrier to decarbonisation. The annual climate conferences (COPs) are an ironic reminder of this problem. Despite decades of diplomatic efforts, global energy demand continues to climb, and each new summit is preceded by more consumption than the last. It reveals the uncomfortable truth that international negotiations, while necessary, have yet to alter the trajectory of global energy trends.
In the face of these constraints, two fundamental pathways remain. One is to radically scale up low-carbon energy sources, including wind and solar, nuclear, geothermal, and possibly future technologies like fusion or carbon-neutral fuels. The other is to reduce overall energy demand through efficiency, behavioural shifts, and rethinking growth.
The real energy transition will likely require a combination of both, alongside new ways of imagining what prosperity can look like in a lower-energy future.
The energy transition is hard
I always went along with the assumption that fixing the fossil fuel conundrum of a finite resource with heavy externalities would be fixed with a transition to a cleaner energy source.
I figured that the shift would take time and probably be clunky but it would happen because there would always be demand for energy, which would drive innovation and investment. And because there was money in it and a collective externality from the current energy sources, there would be a transition.
What I now realise is… maybe not.
Popular alternative energy sources currently in the mix will not bring humanity to energy sufficiency. They could help us transition to reduced energy use, but even then, there will be constraints, shortages, and interruptions.
The energy transition is hard.
What is surprising and telling is the relative silence around truly disruptive energy options like geothermal, hydrogen, and nuclear fusion. These technologies hold immense promise for transforming the global energy landscape, offering clean, abundant, and in many cases geographically widespread energy with fewer material and environmental burdens than wind or solar. Unlike intermittent renewables, they are inherently stable and dispatchable, capable of providing round-the-clock power without the need for massive battery storage or sprawling land use.
Geothermal energy, for instance, taps into the Earth's internal heat and can produce continuous baseload electricity with minimal emissions and a compact footprint. It is vastly underutilised outside of volcanic or tectonically active regions, mainly due to a lack of exploration investment and public awareness rather than inherent technical limitations.
Hydrogen, primarily when produced using renewable electricity (green hydrogen), has the potential to decarbonise hard-to-electrify sectors such as heavy industry, aviation, and long-haul transport. Yet despite widespread recognition of its potential, infrastructure development remains slow and fragmented.
Fusion is often dismissed as forever on the horizon but has made real progress in recent years, with private and public ventures achieving record-breaking results in energy yield and plasma containment. Fusion could provide nearly limitless, clean power with negligible fuel inputs and waste if it becomes commercially viable.
Despite these potentials, public discourse and policy focus remain heavily tilted toward wind and solar, perhaps because they are already market-ready, politically safer, and more visible. This narrow emphasis risks missing the opportunity to invest in next-generation solutions that could address the scale and complexity of the energy transition.
Diversifying the conversation and funding toward these less visible but highly promising technologies is not just a matter of innovation but also of resilience and long-term planning.
The energy transition is still hard.
It is tempting to make the reason resource-hungry capitalism, with its insatiable energy demand, making any renewable rollout just enough to catch up with the new demand. This is an easy blame because it is unsustainable.
However, the majority of people don’t live this way. At least 6 of the 8 billion souls alive are in a different economic paradigm or cut-down version of capitalism and use much less energy and resources than the average American Joe. However, as the late and great Professor Hans Rosling describes in his explanation of global population growth, they aspire to shoes, a bicycle, a car, and travel on aeroplanes.
Just keeping 8 billion people alive will require a massive amount of exogenous energy. Solar and wind are good, but they are not enough… not even close.
Mindful Momentum
Three options this week, to generate some mindful momentum in your day…
Facts Challenge
List three energy transition "facts" you've never questioned. For example, electric vehicles are automatically better, or solar panels pay for themselves in five years.
Pick one and spend 30 minutes investigating its critics' strongest arguments.
The 48-Hour Energy Detective
Track everything that uses energy in your life for two days—not just electricity, but transport, food production, and manufacturing of goods you buy.
Calculate your actual energy footprint using online tools.
Weekly Discovery
Identify one energy technology you've barely heard of (geothermal, tidal, hydrogen, small modular reactors).
Spend 20 minutes understanding why it's not mainstream despite potential benefits.
Key Points
Renewable energy narratives are oversimplified, and theoretical solutions consistently fall short in real-world implementation. Drawing from Jason Bradford's analysis, at least six critical obstacles make transitioning away from fossil fuels far more complex than popular discourse suggests.
Renewable energy faces fundamental limitations, including intermittency requiring massive storage infrastructure, transportation's dependence on liquid fuels that resist electrification, and renewables' low power density demanding extensive land use compared to fossil fuel extraction. These technical realities reveal how deeply embedded fossil fuels are in civilisation's infrastructure.
Global energy consumption exceeds 500 exajoules annually and continues growing exponentially, while even aggressive renewable expansion cannot realistically meet this demand within proposed timeframes. The tight coupling between energy use and economic growth creates a structural barrier where climate diplomacy consistently lags behind rising consumption.
We need intellectual honesty about both renewable limitations and overlooked alternatives like geothermal, hydrogen, and fusion technologies that receive minimal attention despite significant potential. Rather than promoting blind optimism or despair, mindful scepticism embraces complexity while remaining open to breakthrough solutions beyond current paradigms.
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Thank you for being part of a community that values intellectual honesty over comfortable narratives.
Whether you agree or find yourself productively disagreeing, your reading and comments help build the evidence-based discourse our environmental challenges demand.
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Curiosity Corner
This issue of the newsletter is all about…
The energy transition isn't the straightforward technology swap most narratives suggest. It's a complex civilizational challenge requiring honest acknowledgment of renewable energy limitations, massive infrastructure overhauls, and serious consideration of overlooked alternatives like geothermal and fusion if we're to support 8 billion people without fossil fuels.
5 Better Questions from this issue of the newsletter…
What if acknowledging the complexity of energy transition helps us navigate it more successfully than pretending it's simple? This is better because it reframes potential obstacles as useful information rather than reasons for despair, encouraging constructive problem-solving instead of denial or paralysis.
Why do promising technologies like geothermal, hydrogen, and fusion receive minimal public attention compared to solar and wind despite their potential advantages? This question reveals how media coverage and investment patterns shape public perception more than technical merit, helping us recognise when popularity doesn't equal effectiveness.
How much of our energy consumption stems from genuine human needs versus the structural requirements of an economic system built around fossil fuel abundance? This is superior because it distinguishes between what we need and what our current systems demand, opening space for reimagining prosperity in a lower-energy future.
What unstated assumptions behind renewable energy timelines and capacity projections are we accepting without scrutiny? This question develops critical thinking skills by encouraging us to examine the methodology behind confident predictions rather than just accepting conclusions.
What does an honest conversation about energy trade-offs look like if maintaining 8 billion people requires enormous energy, regardless of the source? This is better because it moves beyond simplistic good-versus-bad framing toward nuanced discussions about real choices and their consequences, which is essential for effective policy-making.
Each question shifts the conversation from simple answers to deeper exploration, a hallmark of mindful scepticism.
In the next issue
Why Your Smartphone Makes You Less Informed Than Your Grandmother
While you can find 50,000 studies on coffee's health effects and get a Chatbot to summarise them in under 30 seconds, your grandmother made better decisions with just her doctor, newspaper, and Auntie Maud's gossip.
We've confused having data with understanding it, and this confusion is drowning us in digital noise while starving us of reliable knowledge.
Next week…
Discover the forgotten art of rigorous thinking that transforms information overload into confident, evidence-based decisions.
Learn the difference that matters most...
I was hopeful, when you wrote "the shift to renewables is not free of environmental impact" that you recognise that no energy source capable of powering industrial technological civilisation is clean. And yet you then used that term "clean energy" (in some form) later in your piece, especially around hydrogen and fusion.
Though climate change is a big issue, it it just one of the many environmental issues we have, along with the limited resources issue. The only approach that makes sense, at a minimum, is to scale down our energy use. And yet economic growth and development is the priority for all countries. It's not true to suggest that a lower level of economic development doesn't have the issue of development and growth requires more energy. Of course, poorer nations use less energy but as they grow, they will require more energy.
The transition will be difficult. So far, it hasn't stopped growth in conventional and traditional energy sources, and emissions continue to grow. The transition seems to be as far off as it ever was. But if the transition is ever made (and surely there must be a big doubt over whether it is even possible), it will not stop environmental degradation and habitat loss, because it will continue to require non-renewable resource use, and at an increasing rate (though even a steady state level of use would be unsustainable). And it would enable an unsustainable civilisation to continue. But not for ever.
This is incredibly comprehensive—thank you for all of this great information! I definitely learned a lot. Fusion could be extremely interesting given the recent revival of nuclear excitement and development—just subbed as well!