Catch-22

I am about to say something that is going to make me sound totally crazy. But by admitting to you that I am about to sound crazy, then that really means I am not crazy as I just told you what I am about to say will make me sound crazy thereby proving I am sane because I realise it will sound crazy.

To get off fossil fuels, we may need to use more fossil fuels.

See? I told you. It sounds absolutely crazy. I really wish it was crazy. But unfortunately it is not. You see, the current percentage of renewable energy powering homes and businesses around the world is currently at 28% (In Australia we are at 24%). Do you see the problem? It means that 72% of our current energy supply comes from fossils, the thing we need to get off using and quickly! But to increase the supply of renewable energy infrastructure, we need to use fossil fuels 72% of the time to do so!

Sure, the more renewable energy sources that come online, the smaller the percentage of fossils we have to use. But until they do come online, we have to use fossils.

Sucks, huh?

Further to make more renewable energy sources faster, we have to rely on burning more fossils in a shorter time until we can connect those renewable energy sources because we have been talking about renewables now for decades and all we have globally is 28%. If we want to get to 100% renewables globally by 2080, we really got to pull our collective finger out of our collective buttholes. We are barely going to make it 50% by 2050, which means we will still be using renewables for the other 50%.

But wait. There is more crap news. Lets say we in Australia really go for it and get totally off fossils by 2050 and in the process do not open any new coalmines and close some of the ones that are open? Doesn’t that sound terrific? Well it would, unless you are in countries that are not Australia and you are still trying to lift your renewable energy supply to 30%. You see, then, with Australia out of the coal market, then we reduce the supply in the world by about 10%. Which means the demand for what coal there is still out there rises, which means prices rise, which means poorer countries will have to raise the cost of living for their people, which could lead to more civil unrest and to even more conflict because, lets face it, humans are arseholes. Of course, some govts may need to remove the energy going into the manufacturing of renewables or slow it down so they can reduce that cost burden on their people.

My point is, long after we in Australia stop burning coal as we have made our renewable infrastructure, do not forget that other countries around the world have most likely not done so and (here comes the crazy again) for us to help them get to renewables faster, we have provide them with fossils.

Now I may be talking out of my rear end here. I mean, as some countries move to renewables, the overall fossil demand will start to fall. The problem though is we have to wait for those countries to reduce their demand in their time frames BEFORE we remove what they need to let them do it.

I told you. Catch-22. And its a problem. A MAJOR problem.

A. Ghebranious 2022