[gregwebs]

These reports are inferring a lot from 1 year trends that are often changing only around 1%. Certainly it is great if new energy is coming mostly from cleaner sources, but the idea that we are actually getting rid of the non clean sources is something we should be skeptical of.

This graph shows all energy usage over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy

New energy sources have always been additive. We have never gotten rid of an energy source unless we exhausted the resource or it got prohibitively expensive (whale blubber having a population collapse). Coal is far more polluting then any other fuel source and globally we aren't reducing its usage. This graph is not updated for 2026, but I doubt the message will change much.

As we now undergo a worldwide population decline things might change. But at the same time we are also introducing energy intensive technologies: AI and robots, so there is no clear end in sight to increased energy consumption yet.

[standeven]

Comparing primary energy is VERY misleading. From Marc Jacobson:

The use of primary energy on the vertical axis is an old trick by the fossil fuel industry to mislead people into thinking that one unit of fossils = one unit of renewables. In fact, one unit of primary energy for wind or solar electricity is the equivalent of three units of fossil fuel electricity.

Another trick is to pretend we need all those fossils if we switched to renewables. In fact, if we switch to renewables, 12% of the fossil fuel energy disappears because that is how much energy is used to mine-transport-refine fossil fuels+uranium for energy, and we wouldn't need to do that anymore

A third trick is to pretend we need so much energy if we go to all electricity powered by renewables. In that case, because EVs use 75% less energy than gasoline/diesel vehicles, heat pumps use 75% less energy than combustion heating, etc., energy demand goes down another 42%.

In sum, this plot illustrates the real story of where we are and where we need to go. The proper metric is end-use energy, not primary energy.

https://lnkd.in/gYw9mB3x

and here's the paper

https://lnkd.in/gTcqkyG5

[leonidasrup]

Making one unit of primary energy for wind or solar electricity equivalent to three units of fossil fuel electricity is an old trick of renewable energy advocates to argue that in future we will need less primary energy.

They base this on the efficiency of older gasoline engines, which is about 25%. They ignore future improvement in fuel efficiency and disregard all current combustion engines with higher efficiency.

High-tech gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of more than 50%.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/how-f1-technology...

Very fuel efficient diesel engines have been developed for large ships because fuel costs are large part of operating costs of big ships. Low speed diesel engines like the MAN S80ME-C7 have achieved an overall energy conversion efficiency of 54.4%, which is the highest conversion of fuel into power by any single-cycle internal or external combustion engine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency#Diesel_engin...

Renewable energy advocates also like to disregard efficiency of gas turbines. Latest generation gas turbine engines have achieved an efficiency of 46% in simple cycle and 61% when used in combined cycle. And still some of the waste heat can also be used for cogeneration.

Another trick is to pretend that renewables need almost no mining-transportation-refining. According to International Energy Agency.

"The special report, part of the IEA’s flagship World Energy Outlook series, underscores that the mineral requirements of an energy system powered by clean energy technologies differ profoundly from one that runs on fossil fuels. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a similarly sized gas-fired power plant."

https://www.iea.org/news/clean-energy-demand-for-critical-mi...

[adrianN]

Which combustion engines have good efficiency in real world scenarios? Diesel can do reasonably well under optimal conditions, but in real world driving it’s much less. A small car uses 5l/100km, so about 50kWh. An EV needs well under 20kWh.

Carnot also puts pretty harsh limits on future improvements in fuel efficiency in scenarios like ocean shipping where the engines can get close to their theoretical efficiency.

[leonidasrup]

Much of heating and cooling buildings can be replaced with heat pumps, but many energy uses can't be replaced with heat pumps - high temperature applications, chemical processes driven by heat like cement production.

"The energy devoted to heating and cooling buildings accounts for around 35% of all energy consumption, the largest share attributable to any end use. "

https://www.energy.gov/cmei/buildings/heating-ventilation-ai...

There are electric replacements of fossil fuels for many applications where heat pumps can't by used, but usually they don't use 75% less energy than combustion heating. Usually they use more energy...

[locallost]

While your statement is true your graph is misleading for two reasons.

1) comparison of spent energy for fossil fuels vs electricity is not a good way to do it because electric motors use less for the same output. Compare kWh per 100km for an ICE car and EV. Electrification will lead to a drop simply because of this

2) the graph is global, we have seen energy consumption go down in the developed world. E.g. the EU now uses less electricity than 20 years ago.

[philipallstar]

> comparison of spent energy for fossil fuels vs electricity is not a good way to do it because electric motors use less for the same output. Compare kWh per 100km for an ICE car and EV. Electrification will lead to a drop simply because of this

Yes but there are losses in generating electricity, and in transmitting it as well. If you only measure from energy in your car's battery to motion you're right, but I don't think that's a useful measure.

[triceratops]

Then you also have to account for losses in drilling oil, shipping it to a refinery, refining it into gasoline or diesel, shipping it to a distribution hub, then to a gas station. And all the electricity consumed in doing that. And the navy and coast guard ships that need to patrol all the oceans to keep the oil tankers safe. And...

[philipallstar]

Yes, and the same for building and fuelling the power station I suppose. That's why I'm saying you need to pick a sensible point to compare efficiency at.

[locallost]

There are no losses in generating from solar which is the topic of the article. There is no loss since there is no fuel. There is a loss in transmission but not enough to offset the roughly 4x reduction in energy use. As the other person also pointed out, there is the same loss in transmission for e.g. combustion engines. You don't pour the gasoline that came out of your back yard. It's extracted and processed for most of the world somewhere very far away and then transported. If anything, the losses in electricity are less than the energy required to transport these huge amounts of fossil fuels.

[triceratops]

Building power stations is a one-time cost. If the power station is solar or wind, same thing, only no fuel. Not the case for fossil fuels.

Solar panels or windmills are like oil drills. They aren't oil.

[gregwebs]

I think 2) is a lot more complicated to the point statements like that are misleading.

Take a look Graph of energy consumption of China which is about double the US: https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china

The energy consumption of the United States has flat lined: https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/united-states

One can argue that the US and Europe have maintained a low energy consumption by de-indusrializing and having China produce all the energy (largely with coal!) to manufacture their goods instead of manufacturing it themselves.

1) Is a lot more complicated as well. A simple ICE vs EV comparison ignores electric grid generation efficiency and transmission losses as well as the massive energy cost of manufacturing the battery.

[tzs]

> One can argue that the US and Europe have maintained a low energy consumption

The US has not "maintained a low energy consumption". US total energy consumption is the second highest in the world, at 2x third (India), 3x fourth (Russia), 5x fifth (Japan), and 6x sixth (India). It was first until China overtook it in 2008. Here's a line graph from 1965-2024 of those 6 countries [1].

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=l...

[triceratops]

> A simple ICE vs EV comparison ignores electric grid generation efficiency and transmission losses as well as the massive energy cost of manufacturing the battery

Does it take into account the "massive energy cost" of manufacturing the ICE vehicle then?

[ahhhhnoooo]

Or the gasoline generation efficiency and transmission losses? Or the economic impacts of oil pollution? Getting oil from the ground to the pump isn't free either.

[leonidasrup]

The ecological impact of mining and refining of rare earths, used for permanent magnets in EV motors or in electric generators - wind turbines, is quite large.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine#...

Because of ecology, refining of U.S. mined rare earths was outsourced for a very long time to China. Outsourcing of ecological damage...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/mp-materials-sto...

[ahhhhnoooo]

> The ecological impact of mining and refining of rare earths, used for permanent magnets in EV motors or in electric generators - wind turbines, is quite large.

I don't think I ever said otherwise. FWIW I think cars are bad. Full stop. If they have to exist, electric cars appear to have fewer externalities.

[triceratops]

> The ecological impact of mining and refining of rare earths... is quite large

There's obviously no ecological impact of mining and refining fossil fuel. The Deepwater Horizon actually reduced the amount of oil in the ocean.

And unlike batteries, which are non-recyclable and always have been. It's common to throw the lead-acid battery from ICE vehicles into the nearest body of water, for example. It's definitely not the case that 99% of them are recycled today. Whereas recycling coal and oil is trivial and done all the time. /s

[triceratops]

100 percent

[locallost]

Others have touched on the other points, but I would like to point out also that China using 2x the energy with 4x the population speaks more in favour of China than the US. The US also uses fossil fuels to generate more than half of its electricity, and has done so for a long time. Germany for example transitioned from coal to renewables, whereas the US went from coal to natural gas. China is following a similar pattern as Germany.

Overall there is no 100% clean source, there is something dirty in the chain everywhere. The main question for me is, is one thing an improvement over the other, is the improvement massive or modest? I think the improvement is massive and am hopeful for the future. This doesn't mean you can never improve, but I think this is already happening. For instance I saw an estimate from the Rocky Mountain Institute that they expect no further mining of lithium for batteries because it will be recycled. I obviously don't know if this is true, but even if lithium mining is environmentally unfriendly, if it's an improvement over what we have now, and if we can down the road get rid of that too, it's a positive development.

[coumbaya]

Germany didn't transition away from coal. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/all/yearly

[locallost]

It's less than half of what it was even 15 years ago. And it didn't replace that with natural gas like the US but with wind and solar.

[tim333]

It's quite impressive how badly we've done in cutting fossil fuel use in that. Gas+Oil+Coal has gone up 71% since the first IPCC report in 1990 to the amount for 2024.

[drob518]

Yea, the article struck me immediately as a lot of spin in that it’s hyping the growth rate of solar versus the growth rate of other tech. Solar is newer and is still a relatively small slice of the overall pie compared to oil and gas. It’s relatively easy to rapidly grow a small pie wedge than a large one given the overall growth rate of the pie. And growth rates inevitably slow down as pie wedges get larger, because they have to. So, as you say, good news, but still over-hyped, IMO.