Past oil crises forced countries to cut fuel use and pay high prices, but now falling prices of clean tech offer another solution.
For context, China just stopped exporting gasoline and diesel
Past oil crises forced countries to cut fuel use and pay high prices, but now falling prices of clean tech offer another solution.
For context, China just stopped exporting gasoline and diesel
Thing is, there is no energy transition. Renewable infrastructure, built using fossil fuels is stacked on top of rising fossil energy use https://i0.wp.com/ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/World-energy-fossil-fuels-vs-add-ons.png?ssl=1
That’s what the beginning looks like. We’re just at the cusp of where renewables growth gets to be fast enough to start winding down fossil fuel use at a global level and not just for a few big territories or countries
We’re already past primary energy use peak per capita, and we’re distinctly past peak net energy use. At the same time, extraction of increasingly dilute mineral resources necessary for technology requires progressively more and more energy.
So I would expect we start losing fossil inputs quickly, since increasingly unable to extract them, while the renewable infrastructure will not have grown sufficiently, and then starting to decline, since we cannot sustain them with renewable energy alone.
At the same time we’re going to lose a lot of population (excess deaths of several billions this century), so at least whatever resources are left will last longer than at the current use rate.