Renew Extra Weekly

 The green energy transition  ‘is often presented as the latest in a series of transitions that have shaped modern history. The first was from organic energy – muscle, wind and water power – to coal. The second was from coal to hydrocarbons (oil and gas). The third transition will be the replacement of fossil fuels by forms of renewable energy.’ So says Adam Tooze in a useful extended LRB review of French historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s book ‘Moore and more: an all- consuming history of energy,’ which, as Tooze says, is very challenging, to current energy and climate policies, given that Fressoz doesn’t agree with this model of change.  Instead Fressoz argues that, far from the industrial era passing through a series of transformations, each new phase has in practice remained almost wholly entangled with the previous one. So he adopts what Tooze calls an ‘accumulation’ view, ‘based not on progressive shifts from one source of energy to the next, but on their interdepe...