A covert doomer?

Vaclav Smil's "Energy myths and realities" is a relatively good and interesting book about the alternatives to fossil fuels. The author discusses electric cars, wind power, solar power, biofuels and nuclear power. In fact, he debunks them! For instance, replacing fossil fuels with biofuels would lead to massive environmental destruction, less land available for food production and perhaps even massive starvation due to increased food prices. Wind power and solar power would only work in some areas, and can never replace fossil fuels on a national or global scale. "Greens" won't like this book. Smil is also sceptical of grand schemes for carbon sequestration, however, which presumably would make his book controversial among cornucopians, as well.

The book has two shortcomings. One is that it tends to conflate technical problems and political problems. If the author is right, the problems with wind power are inherently technical, which would make this particular form of energy unrealistic no matter what. However, the problems Smil mentions in conjunction with nuclear power seem mostly political: economic downturns, curious political decisions, bureaucratic regulations and fear-mongering affecting public perception. Perhaps they are difficult to solve, but they are not unsolvable in principle. It's unclear why Smil gives nuclear power short shrift in this manner, and why he writes off breeder reactors (which, of course, work eminently well, if governments build them).

The other problem is that Smil doesn't say how the energy crisis should be solved in the first place. Since he does believe in global warming being a problem, he should be for a phase-out of fossil fuels. Yet, since he debunks all alternatives to fossil fuels, the reader is left wondering what on earth we should do next! He concedes that nuclear power might play a "modest" role in the future, but what should play the predominant role? Smil never says. Perhaps he secretly supports oil, coal and gas?

Still, the book did make me think. For a long time, I assumed that we can replace both fossil fuels and nuclear power with solar, wind, hydro, biofuels, recycled garbage and some rather exotic alternatives ("wave power" etc). And, of course, energy conservation. Of these, only hydro is controversial in "Green" circles. However, if Smil is right, most of these "alternatives" cannot meet present or future demand, and the only one that perhaps could do it (biofuel) is undesirable. The search for renewable energy would then be a wild goose chase - or worse. However, if climate change is real, then fossil fuels need to be phased out anyway! This means that our predicament is much worse than expected.

Perhaps there are some solutions. Robert Bryce proposes in his books that massive investments in nuclear power and natural gas might save us. Even some Greens, such as James Lovelock, call for an expansion of nuclear power. Are they right? If not, we're left with the scary scenario of James Howard Kunstler in "The Long Emergency". Kunstler actually accepts many of Smil's points, and precisely for *that* reason believes that civilization is doomed to collapse.

Well, I suppose we could always keep our recycled garbage...