Why Fossil Fuel Demand Can Rise Even as Clean Energy Wins Terrain
Asia Needs $1 Trillion a Year to Secure Energy Supplies Leon Stille has a background in energy sciences (MSc and BSc) and is pursuing a PhD in energy policy.
He currently runs his own company,… French historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz has offered energy-transition skeptics an appealing historical argument.
InMore and More and More, he argues that humanity has never really moved from one energy source to another.
Wood was joined by coal, coal by oil, oil by gas and all of them by renewables.
Energy sources accumulate rather than replace one another.
Global primary-energy charts make the argument look convincing.
Fossil use remains near record levels after trillions in clean-energy investment.
Biomass did not disappear when coal arrived, nor coal when the oil age began.
But the chart uses the wrong scale and watches the wrong indicator.
Technologies compete in particular services and markets, not one global bucket labelled “energy.” Replacement appears first in sales, then installed equipment, fuel demand and finally the global aggregate.
By the time the last chart turns downward, the transition may already be irreversible.
Michael Liebreich’s recentrebuttal of Fressozmakes the scale problem clear.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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