Technological Dynamics of Growth and Stability

Chapter Seven from the Authors, "The Physics of Capitalism"
 

Erald Kolasi

The ecosphere is capable of handling and assimilating a great deal of human waste and low- grade energy without getting severely destabilised. However, our current age of industrial capitalism is testing that proposition in every possible way. According to the International Energy Agency, a typical electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional gas-powered vehicle. The typical onshore wind plant needs nine times more minerals than a conventional gas-fired power plant. Since 2010, every new unit of power generation has required on average 50 percent more mineral resources. But despite the impressive scale of this transition, the world is still using more energy, emitting more greenhouse gases, and setting new records in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That’s in large part because the transition to renewables is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, as raw minerals are mined and transported using vehicles powered by fossil fuels.

Moreover, the idea that we can do more with less is seductive, but there are several reasons why this strategy will fail over the long run, if we choose to keep pursuing it. The most fundamental reason is that nature imposes absolute physical limits on efficiency that no amount of technological progress can overcome. Aggregate efficiency gains for entire economies are almost always associated with higher levels of energy use and consumption, not less. Increases in energy efficiency are generally used to expand accumulation and production, leading to greater consumption of the very resources that the efficiency improvements were supposed to conserve. Thus, a person driving a Tesla would have produced roughly the same carbon emissions as someone driving a Honda Accord.

Most of these debates have in common that they’re happening within the ideological framework of capitalist economies. The reason why elites frame the potential solutions to our common global problems as a simple matter of technological tinkering is simply because that’s what would allow them to preserve their wealth and power, to preserve the status quo from which they benefit. Capitalists are the apex predators of the ruling classes, and capitalists anywhere and everywhere are masters of deception and distraction.

Given all these challenges, a renewable strategy based on the “Holy Trinity”—wind, solar, and hydro—is the most plausible and realistic path forward in the future. A radical and rapid transition toward renewable energy can and must take place, but only if it’s accompanied by massive cutbacks in aggregate energy use. Electricity generation can undergo a radically quick transition toward renewables; there’s no technological barrier there at all. It’s purely social and political barriers that are the problem.

We need new political and economic institutions that prioritise the long-run stability of our biosphere as well as the economic concerns of workers worldwide. And to get there, we’ll need to better understand the complex relationship between society, energy, and technology—that is, to understand how the actions of the social institutions that govern our lives affect the energetic and technological dynamics that are increasingly governing the global ecosphere.


For a full read of this essay, click here or on the picture to download the pdf file.