What Transition?

 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 interdependent agglomeration’. Indeed, Fressoz says that now ‘after two centuries of ‘energy transitions’ humanity has never burned so much oil and gas, so much coal and so much wood’. 

However, he isn’t happy about this and he adopts a quite radical position, claiming that the current energy transition concept was ‘originally itself promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a means to put off any meaningful change.’ So it’s a greenwash con! And just a technical fix. Certainly, he says ‘thanks to the transition theory, climate change calls for a change of technology not a change of civilisation’, which might be seen as a radical deep green view. Although he makes clear that ‘this book is certainly not a critique of renewable energy’, in effect he calls for a new approach with major social and economic changes, and fossil fuels gone in absolute terms, not just diminished in relative terms. And all done fast.

Well, I’m not sure how that fits in with his ‘accumulation rather than replacement’ thesis. Presumably as a completely new step. But then I’m not sure how his historical view of energy sources being ‘additional’ not ‘substitutional’ stands up at a time when, for example, the UK has shut down its last coal fired plant and all it mines, although it is true gas is still being used in the UK, and elsewhere yet more coal is still being used, notably in China. But in most places, big transitions take time and may not always be complete. 

Fressoz does provide examples of how wood has continued to be used in new energy systems after it stopped being used as a fuel e.g. repurposed as pit props in coal mines. Well yes, and we still use steel made using fossil fuel for wind turbines. But that may not be forever: things can change in transitions- eventually. We don’t use whale oil or paraffin for lighting anymore. Though Fressoz is right that the changes can be messy and incomplete. And there is certainly a risk that, as he says, we will just add renewables to our use of more and more finite energy sources - and materials. And to warn us that the term ‘energy transition’ may mask the persistence of old systems and downplay the transformation to be achieved.

However, is does seem, foolish to throw out the whole idea that there are phases in industrial history that can be typified by then dominant technologies, which then go on to replace them, in a process of what Schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’. Schumpeter had built on Kondratiev’s earlier work in Russia in the 1920s, and others have also followed on, with, these days, less insistence on 50-year cycles, since it is argued that new computer and communications technology has speeded up the innovation process.  

Even so, as Fressoz indicates, there have been debates over whether this sort of model was too deterministic, and even suggestions that the whole thing was actually a form of self-fulfilling prophecy- cleverly promoted new technology could become winners, and hyped up as a vital part of the ‘next wave’. It’s hard to see how this could explain the pattern of industrial change over the past century or so, but, as Fressoz argues, it may well be that there is more to it than just technology. Many other things can also influence how social, economic and political paradigms develop. However, make of this what you will, but political interest in long waves seem to be cyclic- peaking when there is an economic downturn. For example, in the 1980s. We may be due for a new round. Although, back at the start, it didn’t help Kondratiev much- he fell foul of Stalin, who thought the cyclic model contradicted Marxism. He was executed in a purge in 1938. 

Tooze and Fressoz may also have some political differences, in that Tooze says ‘an honest account of energy history would conclude not that energy transitions were a regular feature of the past, but that what we are attempting - the deliberate exit from and suppression of the energetic mainstays of our modern way of life - is without precedent’. There is a hint there of a defence of the status quo, against neo-Marxist views of historical transitions! Whereas Fressoz seems keen on change. 

Be that as it may, transition theory pretty much rules the roost for the moment- Trump apart. However, long wave theory is still rather marginal academically. Indeed, taking a very cynical historic view, some might say all that has happened over the last couple of centuries is that we have shifted back to using renewable resources, albeit now on a more massive scale - wind and water had helped lift off the industrial revolution. On this view, the fossil fuel phase is (or was) just a (dirty) interregnum period. However, whatever the model used, sadly, what Fressoz seems to be saying, is that it may take time to move on.  That could certainly be true if Trump gets his way. You could see his policies on expanding fossil energy use as attempting to push history backwards by backing off most of Biden’s progressive energy polices - though not too far back, since he’s not keen on renewables like offshore wind!