Not a microchip

For some reason, the first thing I did when waking up today was reading an article in Joule published by some researchers at Oxford University. Described in different fora as a highly authoritative “Oxford study” it turned out to be one of many that have used advanced probabilistic forecasts to arrive at the same improbable conclusions.

In short, the problem with the study is that it fails to understand that neither a wind turbine nor a solar panel is a microchip. While computers may have followed Moore’s law (which says that the number of transistors on silicon doubles about every two years) in the past, no efficiency improvement of weather-dependent renewables can ever make the sun shine at night or the wind blow when it is calm. As such, physical reality dictates that the costs of renewable energy systems will not fall exponentially in the same way that the costs of computer power has done. In fact, there is every reason to expect the exact opposite as the best sites for renewable energy production have already been used up, overall grid volatility increases, and existing infrastructure starts to age.

For all their ideologically motivated reasoning, a “rapid transition to renewables” will not generate trillions in net savings but rather drive inflation, irreversibly destroy habitats, and leave humanity as a whole less equipped to deal with the risks of the 21st century.