A Concerning Trend not Appreciated Enough

The chart above, produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA), depicts the historical trends in the production and use of energy sources.  It also projects beyond 2025 to the year 2040.  This chart clearly shows that though the production and use of renewable sources is increasing, it also shows that renewables are not REPLACING or DISPLACING fossil fuels.  The use and production of fossil fuels is increasing.  Renewables are merely being added on top of our current heavy dependence on greenhouse-gas-generating fossil fuels.

Many of us have been optimistic that we are on the right road—that since we are seeing a huge uptick in the development of solar and wind sources, that we’re going to be ok.  But as we see from the IEA chart, the reality is otherwise. 

As NPR reported in January, “The United States is poised to burn a lot more natural gas in the coming years to meet soaring electricity demand…”  This will lock in decades of global warming greenhouse emissions.  Forget about reaching the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.  Most scientists say this is now impossible.

There are several reasons that this is happening.  Perhaps, first and foremost, is the fact that our demands for energy overall are increasing dramatically.  New electrical energy demands from data centers that include using AI as well as crypto currency operations (crypto mining) are adding huge new burdens of climate warming gas emissions.

In some states, the use of fossil fuels has increased to meet this demand even though many of those states have greenhouse gas reduction targets of eliminating or drastically reducing these emissions by midcentury.  If the present trend continues, it is impossible for them to meet these goals.

Government clearly has a role in countering these trends.  Extra taxes can be levied on crypto and data operations to limit their use of fossil fuels.  Also, tax incentives can be used to encourage these operations to develop their own sources of renewable energy to power their operations.

However, I have to admit that considering the huge influence crypto, data centers, and AI have in our economy, I can’t be optimistic that this challenge will be met.  Our entire economy is so dependent on growth and expansion. In fact, we are growing ourselves toward a road of extinction as we warm the planet to such disastrous levels that civilization may ultimately collapse.  Moreover, though we seem to be able to draw endlessly from nature the resources that we need to keep our economy growing, the reality is that there is a limit to everything.  Someday, we will run out of natural gas and petroleum, for example.

This might be a good time for us to look into the concept of a steady state economy.  Even the classical economist Adam Smith considered something like this concept, which was later more fully developed by Herman Daly (1938-2022), who was a pioneer of ecological economics.  A recent treatment of this concept is found in the book by Brian Czech entitled Supply Shock-Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution.

In Supply Shock, Czech demonstrates that we are in the end stages of economic growth and that the only viable alternative is to develop a steady state economy.  Fortunately, Brian Czech will be presenting from our virtual Zoom stage on September 10.  I have a feeling he might be the voice that provides a realistic assessment of where we are and how we might put ourselves on a better track.

Distinguished Speaker, Brian Czech, economist/ecologist, author of Supply Shock, Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM ET, September 10, 2025:

Register for his Zoom Presentation