proponents acknowledge. Humankind, The Nuclear Smil recounts, has experienced three major energy transitions: from wood Option and dung to coal, then to oil, and then to natural gas. Each took an extremely long time, and none is yet complete. Renewables Can’t Save the Nearly two billion people still rely on Planet—but Uranium Can wood and dung for heating and cooking. “Although the sequence of the three Michael Shellenberger substitutions does not mean that the fourth transition, now in its earliest stage (with fossil fuels being replaced by new conversions of renewable energy Energy and Civilization: A History flows), will proceed at a similar pace,” BY VACLAV SMIL. MIT Press, 2017, Smil writes, “the odds are highly in 552 pp. favor of another protracted process.” In 2015, even after decades of heavy round the world, the transition government subsidies, solar and wind from fossil fuels to renewable power provided only 1.8 percent of global A sources of energy appears to energy. To complete the transition, finally be under way. Renewables were renewables would need to both supply first promoted in the 1960s and 1970s as the world’s electricity and replace fossil a way for people to get closer to nature and fuels used in transportation and in the for countries to achieve energy indepen- manufacture of common materials, such dence. Only recently have people come as cement, plastics, and ammonia. Smil to see adopting them as crucial to pre- expresses his exasperation at “techno- venting global warming. And only in the optimists [who] see a future of unlimited last ten years has the proliferation of energy, whether from superefficient solar and wind farms persuaded much [photovoltaic] cells or from nuclear fusion.” of the public that such a transition is Such a vision, he says, is “nothing but possible. In December 2014, 78 percent a fairy tale.” On that point, the public of respondents to a large global survey is closer to Smil than to the techno- by Ipsos agreed with the statement “In optimists. In the same 2014 Ipsos survey, the future, renewable energy sources 66 percent agreed that “renewable sources will be able to fully replace fossil fuels.” of energy such as hydroelectricity, solar Toward the end of his sweeping new and wind cannot on [their] own meet history, Energy and Civilization, Vaclav the rising global demand for energy.” Smil appears to agree. But Smil, one of Smil is right about the slow pace of the world’s foremost experts on energy, energy transitions, but his skepticism stresses that any transition to renewables of renewables does not go far enough. would take far longer than its most ardent Solar and wind power are unlikely to ever provide more than a small fraction MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER is President and Founder of Environmental Progress. Follow of the world’s energy; they are too diffuse him on Twitter @ShellenbergerMD. and unreliable. Nor can hydroelectric
September/October 2017 159 Michael Shellenberger power, which currently produces just complex. “To generalize, across millennia, 2.4 percent of global energy, replace fossil that higher socioeconomic complexity fuels, as most of the world’s rivers have requires higher and more efficiently used already been dammed. Yet if humanity inputs of energy is to describe indisput- is to avoid ecological catastrophe, it must able reality,” Smil writes. That striving find a way to wean itself off fossil fuels. for more energy began with prehuman Smil suggests that the world should foragers, who craved energy-dense foods, achieve this by sharply cutting energy such as oils and animal fats, which contain consumption per capita, something two to five times as much energy by mass environmental groups have advocated as protein and ten to 40 times as much for the last 40 years. But over that period, as fruits and vegetables. The harness- per capita energy consumption has risen ing of fire let prehumans consume more in developed and developing countries animal fats and proteins, allowing their alike. And for good reason: greater energy intestinal tracts to shrink (since cooked consumption allows vastly improved food requires less digestion) and their standards of living. Attempting to reverse brains to grow. The final outcome was that trend would guarantee misery for the human brain, which demands twice much of the world. The solution lies as much energy by mass as the brains in nuclear power, which Smil addresses of other primates. only briefly and inadequately. Nuclear Around 10,000 years ago, humans power is far more efficient than renew- gradually started to shift from foraging able sources of energy and far safer and for food to farming and began to tap cleaner than burning fossil fuels. As a new forms of energy, including domes- result, it offers the only way for humanity ticated animals for plowing, wind for to both significantly reduce its environ- powering mills, and human and animal mental impact and lift every country waste for fertilization. Permanent farms out of poverty. allowed human societies to grow in size and power. “Even an ordinary staple ENERGY’S HISTORY grain harvest could feed, on the average, Few scholars dominate a field of inter- ten times as many people as the same disciplinary study the way Smil does area used by shifting farmers,” Smil notes. that of energy, on which he has published Yet those societies’ individual members over 20 books. Energy and Civilization saw little benefit. Smil records the remark- synthesizes his canon, offering a broad able fact that “there is no clear upward picture of the evolution of Homo sapiens, trend in per capita food supply across the rise of agriculture, and the very recent the millennia of traditional farming.” emergence of a high-energy industrial A Chinese peasant ate about as much civilization. in 1950, before the arrival of synthetic The core of Smil’s argument is that fertilizers and pumped irrigation, as his the history of human evolution and fourth-century ancestor. development is one of converting ever- That’s in part because for most of larger amounts of energy into ever human history, societies increased their more wealth and power, allowing food and energy production only when human societies to grow ever more they were forced to, by factors such as
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Death panels: a solar farm in Yinchuan, China, April 2017 rising population or worsening soils. fossil fuels is not yet complete. In India, Even in the face of recurrent famines, 75 percent of the rural population still farmers consistently postponed attempts relies on dung for cooking, despite a push to increase production, because doing by the Indian government and interna- so would have required greater exertion tional agencies to replace it with liquefied and longer hours. petroleum gas. And as Smil points out, Then, as farming became more thanks to population growth, humans productive in England in the seventeenth today use more wood for fuel that at and eighteenth centuries, farmers were any other time in history. freed up to move to the city and work The transition from a low-energy, in manufacturing. Urbanization and biomass-dependent agricultural life to
CHINA STRINGER NETWORK /CHINA NETWORK REUTERS STRINGER industrialization required a far larger a high-energy, fossil-fuel-dependent leap in energy consumption than the industrial one came at a high human and one involved in moving from foraging environmental cost but also delivered to agriculture. The shift was made possible significant progress. As terrible as indus by a rapid increase in coal mining. Coal trial capitalism, particularly in its early offered roughly twice as much energy forms, could be for factory workers, it was by weight as wood and by the mid- to usually an improvement over what came late nineteenth century provided half before it, as Smil documents in a series of all the fuel consumed in Europe and of delightful boxes peppered throughout the United States. Despite the obvious the book that feature obscure old texts benefits, the transition from biomass to reminding the reader of the brutality of
September/October 2017 161 Michael Shellenberger daily life before and during the Industrial Many advocates of renewables argue Revolution. “Ye gods, what a set of men that hydroelectric power can solve this I saw!” wrote the second-century Roman problem. They suggest that upgraded scholar Lucius Apuleius, describing Roman dams could supplement the unreliable mill slaves. “Their skins were seamed all electricity from solar and wind power, over with marks of the lash, their scarred yet there are not nearly enough dams in backs were shaded rather than covered the world to hold the necessary energy. with tattered frocks.” In a study published in June in the The shift from wood to coal was, Proceedings of the National Academy of especially in its early years, painful for Sciences, a team of energy and climate many workers. In another box, Smil researchers found that the most promi- quotes from “An Inquiry Into the Condi- nent proposal for shifting the United tion of the Women Who Carry Coals States to completely renewable energy Under Ground in Scotland,” published in had inflated estimates of U.S. hydro- 1812. “The mother sets out first, carrying electric capacity tenfold. Without the a lighted candle in her teeth; the girls exaggerated numbers, there is no renew- follow . . . with weary steps and slow, able energy source to replace the power ascend the stairs, halting occasionally to generated from the sun and the wind draw breath. . . . It is no uncommon thing during the long stretches of time when to see them . . . weeping most bitterly, the sun doesn’t shine and the wind from the excessive severity of labor.” doesn’t blow. Yet as cruel as coal mining could be, over Moreover, all three previous energy time it helped liberate humans from transitions resulted in what’s known as agricultural drudgery, increase productiv- “dematerialization”: the new fuels pro- ity, raise living standards, and, at least duced the same amount of energy using in developed nations, reduce reliance on far fewer natural resources. By contrast, wood for fuel, allowing reforestation and a transition from fossil fuels to solar or the return of wildlife. wind power, biomass, or hydroelectricity would require rematerialization—the use WHY RENEWABLES CAN’T WORK of more natural resources—since sunlight, Smil argues that moving to renewable wind, organic matter, and water are all sources of energy will likely be a slow far less energy dense than oil and gas. process, but he never addresses just how Basic physics predicts that that remate- different such a move would be from rialization would significantly increase past energy transitions. Almost every the environmental effects of generating time a society has replaced one source energy. Although these would not be of energy with another, it has shifted to uniformly negative, many would harm a more reliable and energy-dense fuel. the environment. Defunct solar panels, (The one exception, natural gas, has a for example, are often shipped to poor larger volume than coal, but extracting countries without adequate environmental it does far less environmental damage.) safeguards, where the toxic heavy metals Replacing fossil fuels with renewables they contain can leach into water supplies. would mean moving to fuels that are Given that Smil has done more than less reliable and more diffuse. anyone to explain the relationship between
162 foreign affairs The Nuclear Option energy density and environmental population.” But he goes on to claim that impact, it’s surprising that he spends so the environmental consequences of little time on this problem as it relates dramatically increasing global energy to renewables. In 2015, Smil published consumption are “unacceptable.” He an entire book, Power Density, on the might be right if the increase were general subject, showing how large cities achieved with fossil fuels. But if every depend on dense fuels and electricity. country moved up the energy ladder— Renewables, he concluded, are too diffuse from wood and dung to fossil fuels and unreliable to meet the vast material and from fossil fuels to uranium—all demands of skyscrapers, subways, and humans could achieve, or even surpass, millions of people living and working Western levels of energy consumption close together. Yet he fails to mention while reducing global environmental this obstacle when discussing the fourth damage below today’s levels. energy transition in his new book. That’s because far more energy is trapped in uranium atoms than in the THE POWER OF THE ATOM chemical bonds within wood, coal, oil, In both Energy and Civilization and Power or natural gas. Less than half an oil barrel Density, Smil introduces the concept of full of uranium can provide the average “energy return on energy investment” amount of energy used by an American (eroei), the ratio of energy produced over his or her entire life. By contrast, it to the energy needed to generate it. But takes many train cars of coal to produce Smil again fails to explain the concept’s the same energy—with correspondingly implications for renewable energy. In larger environmental effects. Power Density, Smil points to a study of Renewables also require far more eroei published in 2013 by a team of land and materials than nuclear power. German scientists who calculated that California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power solar power and biomass have eroeis of plant produces 14 times as much elec- just 3.9 and 3.5, respectively, compared tricity annually as the state’s massive with 30 for coal and 75 for nuclear power. Topaz Solar Farm and yet requires just The researchers also concluded that for 15 percent as much land. Since those high-energy societies, such as Germany vast fields of panels and mirrors even- and the United States, energy sources tually turn into waste products, solar with eroeis of less than seven are not power creates 300 times as much toxic economically viable. Nuclear power is waste per unit of energy produced as thus the only plausible clean option for does nuclear power. For example, imag- developed economies. ine that each year for the next 25 years Taking the rest of the world into (the average life span of a solar panel), account strengthens the case for nuclear solar and nuclear power both produced power even further. Since two billion the same amount of electricity that nuclear humans still depend on wood and dung to power produced in 2016. If you then cook their supper, Smil notes that “much stacked their respective waste products more energy will be needed during the on two football fields, the nuclear waste coming generations to extend decent life would reach some 170 feet, a little less to the majority of a still growing global than the height of the Leaning Tower
September/October 2017 163 Michael Shellenberger of Pisa, whereas the solar waste would economically viable, engineers will need reach over 52,000 feet, nearly twice the to make a “breakthrough” in reducing the height of Mount Everest. construction times of new nuclear power Nuclear power is also by far the safest plants. But a comprehensive study of way to generate reliable energy, accord- nuclear power plant construction costs ing to every major study published over published in Energy Policy last year found the last 50 years. Even the worst nuclear that water-cooled nuclear reactors (which accidents result in far fewer deaths than are far less expensive than non-water- the normal operation of fossil fuel power cooled designs) are already cheap enough plants. That’s because of the toxic smoke to quickly replace fossil fuel power plants. released by burning fossil fuels. Accord- And where nuclear power plant builders ing to the World Health Organization, have shortened construction times, such the resulting air pollution from this and as in France in the 1980s and South Korea burning biomass kills seven million people more recently, they did so not by switch- every year. Nuclear power plants, by ing to different designs—a sure-fire contrast, produce significant pollutants recipe for delays—but rather by having only when radioactive particles escape as the same experienced managers and a result of accidents. These are exceed- workers build the same kinds of units ingly rare, and when they do occur, so on each site. little radioactive material is released that Despite his skepticism, Smil does vanishingly few people are exposed to leave the door open to nuclear power it. In 1986, an unshielded reactor burned playing a role in the future. But he over for over a week at the Chernobyl nuclear looks the fact that an entirely nuclear- power plant, the world’s worst-ever nuclear powered society would be far preferable accident. Yet the who has estimated that to a partially nuclear-powered one, as among the emergency workers at the it would have no need for fossil fuels or scene, only about 50 died, and over the large, wasteful, and unreliable solar or course of 75 years after the disaster, the wind farms. radiation will cause only around 4,000 In the 1960s and 1970s, some of premature deaths. nuclear power’s opponents regarded The real threat to the public comes the technology as dangerous because from irrational fears of nuclear power. it would provide humanity with too The Fukushima nuclear accident in much energy. In 1975, the biologist Japan in 2011, for example, did not Paul Ehrlich wrote in the Federation lead to any deaths from direct radiation of American Scientists’ Public Interest exposure. Yet public fear led Japan’s Report that “giving society cheap, abun- prime minister to intervene unneces- dant energy at this point would be the sarily, prompting a panicked and need- moral equivalent of giving an idiot child lessly large evacuation, which led to a machine gun.” “It’d be little short of the deaths of over 1,500 people. disastrous for us to discover a source To his credit, Smil acknowledges of cheap, clean, and abundant energy nuclear power’s environmental and because of what we would do with it,” health benefits, but he goes on to the energy guru Amory Lovins told suggest that for nuclear power to be Mother Earth News in 1977.
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Smil does not share those extreme Breakthroughs in information and views, but he is concerned about the communications technology are leading to effects of excessive energy use. InEnergy forms of dematerialization unimaginable and Civilization, as in his other books, he just a decade ago. Consider smartphones. skewers hyperconsumerism with relish, They require more energy to manufacture lambasting, for example, the “tens of and operate than older cell phones. But by millions of people [who] annually take obviating the need for separate, physical inter-continental flights to generic beaches newspapers, books, magazines, cameras, in order to acquire skin cancer faster” and watches, alarm clocks, gps systems, maps, the existence of “more than 500 varieties letters, calendars, address books, and of breakfast cereals and more than 700 stereos, they will likely significantly reduce models of passenger cars.” “Do we really humanity’s use of energy and materials need a piece of ephemeral junk made in over the next century. Such examples China delivered within a few hours after suggest that holding technological prog- an order was placed on a computer?” ress back could do far more environmental he asks. damage than accelerating it. As entertaining as Smil’s outbursts Despite Smil’s omissions and over- are, restricting high-energy activities sights, Energy and Civilization is a wise, would do more harm than good. Cutting compassionate, and valuable book. Smil down on jet travel would crimp trade, helps readers understand the relation- investment, and international political ships among the energy density of fuels, cooperation, all of which would slow the shape of human civilization, and global economic growth and prevent humanity’s environmental impact. The poor nations from catching up to rich lesson Smil does not draw, but that flows ones. And although consumer culture inevitably from his work, is that for does generate a rather ridiculous array modern societies to do less environmental of breakfast cereals, it also delivers life- damage, every country must move toward saving drugs and medical devices. more reliable and denser energy sources. A high-energy society also allows In recent decades, governments have continuing technological advances that spent billions of dollars subsidizing often reduce humanity’s environmental renewables, with predictably under- impact. Fertilizers and tractors, for whelming results. It’s high time for example, have dramatically increased countries to turn to the safer, cheaper, agricultural yields and allowed poorer and cleaner alternative.∂ soils to return to grasslands, wetlands, and forests and wildlife to return to their former habitats. For that reason, a growing number of conservationists support helping small farmers in poor nations replace wood with liquid fuels and improve their access to modern fertilizers and irrigation techniques in order to both feed the world’s growing population and reverse deforestation.
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