Energy Efficiency V Superabundance

I've just read an article on the need to reduce energy consumption for Australia to achieve it's 2050 net zero targets.?

The article in The Conversation is well reasoned and reflects a study by Mark Diesendorf. It echoes a discussion ongoing in Europe, but driven by energy costs (sorry fossil fuel costs), recognising that the cheapest unit of energy is the one not used.?

All arguments I would agree. If we can reduce our fossil fuel usage by efficiencies it brings net zero nearer, or more attainable quicker. It would drive new industries of services and tech, but also possibly take some sacrifice or changes in societal behaviour in the next decade or so.?

But I came across this sensible article in a via a US right-wing twitter post using the title as clickbait (I was searching posts using the 'renewables' hashtag before you ask...); because let's face it they would not read, let alone understand it.... They were obviously intimating 'look, net-zero and this left-wing renewables nonsense is only possible if we go back to donkeys and knitting yogurt pullovers'. Obvious false bull-crap (for US sensitivities!).?

Energy efficiency

So putting aside that vacuous usage of this topic for dubious ends, I thought 'why are we talking about energy efficiency'? As I mentioned above it's because of the fossil fuel costs right? Energy is expensive, so don't use it. At the moment that saves the planet AND saves large amounts of cash.?

But what happens in a world where we are running on low cost, clean renewable energy and storage systems and smart grids etc, with virtual limitless wind and sun etc? Will the cost of energy be considered high? Will there be a need to be efficient as we will need to be in the next 30 odd years?

Too cheap to meter

This brought me to the concept of energy abundance. Those of us old enough to remember nuclear' s heyday (OK, I read a lot...) may recall this quote

“It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matter of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours.”? - Lewis L. Strauss, Chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission (1954)

Now almost 70 years on we are still waiting for nuclear come down to mildly exorbitant, but will renewables finally bring us energy superabundance?

Energy superabundance

The concept is that increased energy usage directly increases economic growth. There is a fascinating paper published by The Centre For Growth and Opportunity of Utah State University .?

The authors state "Climate change, however, gives us an opportunity to rethink energy technology. Recent cost reductions in wind- and solar-energy production have created a wave of optimism. They show that costs can come down quickly with adequate scale. If they continue, or if similar cost declines are possible with advanced nuclear or geothermal technologies, we could find ourselves somewhere most of us never expected: in a world with cheap energy, free from international supply shocks, and with limited environmental incentives to conserve. We call an extreme version of this scenario “energy superabundance.”

Energy Return On Investment?

It has been assumed that renewables will help drive the Energy Return On Investment (EROI)?of energy systems down. EROI is used to determine the amount of ‘net energy’ available to society over and above that needed to extract the energy originally.

The higher the ration, the more surplus net energy, the lower the ratio, a declining EROI implies therefore economic decline.

Nafeez Ahmed in ThinkDisruption last year stated that "it is often argued that while EROI decline is inevitable with fossil fuels, renewable energy represents a further decline in EROI which means they cannot accomplish the same levels of societal and economic complexity."

But he goes on to propose that , according to a number of recent studies and research that:

• Renewables already seem to have a higher EROI than fossil fuels
• Fossil fuels exhibit a declining EROI trend with escalating costs and diminishing returns,
• Renewables are experiencing the opposite: an increasing EROI trend with increasing returns and declining costs.

There is reason to believe that the energy transition to renewables could halt or even reverse the decline in global EROI.

So is it unreasonable to think that energy efficiency is actually just a fossil fuel issue? That it's only a mitigation and then the scourge has been banashed, we can get back to increasing EROI and so economic growth and possible finally...finally get somewhere even close to energy 'too cheap to meter'???