One of the most curious facts about energy is that economies continue to use more of it even as they use it more efficiently. This strikes us as strange because it has become an article of faith that making cars, buildings, and factories more energy efficient is the key to cheaply and quickly reducing energy consumption, and thus pollution.

But energy experts have never seen this as particularly mysterious. As energy historian Vaclav Smil notes, “Historical evidence shows unequivocally that secular advances in energy efficiency have not led to any declines of aggregate energy consumption.” A group of economists beginning in the 1980s went further, suggesting that increasing the productivity of energy would increase economic growth and energy consumption.

Efficiency advocates dismiss the evidence of rebound of energy use pointing to direct behavioral changes at the household or business level that are easiest to measure.…

Part I of this three-part series set the stage for examining intermittent power sources, especially wind, as viable sources of electricity. Part 2 addresses one of the critical power considerations: power density.

In his  MasterResource series, Vaclav Smil compared the power densities of a range of fuels for electricity production, which demonstrates the inadequacies of renewables. David MacKay also makes a useful contribution to this topic.[i] Table 1 summarizes the results, which take into account entire fuel cycles, transportation and transmission requirements for a range of assumptions.

Note that all renewable energy sources are ten to over a thousand times less effective than those serving our needs today, with wind providing one of the poorest performances of the renewable sources shown, outside of wood. Areas required for renewables are large because of the dispersed, and often remote, nature of their energy supply.…

[Editor note: Some analyses are worth revisiting, including this book review in the  Energy Journal of Cutler Cleveland, ed., Encyclopedia of Energy (6 volumes, Elsevier). Bradley shared his review with Professor Cleveland, who stated his surprise that it passed peer review. The reader can the judge the quality of the review in six years’ hindsight.]

This is the Hummer of energy books. The Elsevier Encyclopedia of Energy is almost twice as large as two predecessor energy encyclopedias combined. The price tag is commensurate. This set is only for the wealthy, the addicted, large libraries, and paid-in-kind reviewers.

Encyclopedia editor Cutler Cleveland, an ecological economist, introduces the compilation (p. xxxi) as “the first comprehensive, organized body of [energy] knowledge for what is certain to continue as a major area of scientific study in the 21^st century.”…

[Editor’s note: This is Part I of a five-part series by Vaclav Smil that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. Dr. Smil is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading energy experts. His views deserve careful study and understanding as a basis for today’s contentious energy policy debates. Good intentions or simply desired ends must square with energy reality, the basis of Smil’s worldview.]

Energy transitions – be they the shifts from dominant resources to new modes of supply (from wood coal, from coal to hydrocarbons, from direct use of fuels to electricity), diffusion of new prime movers (from steam engines to steam turbines or to diesel engines), or new final energy converters (from incandescent to fluorescent lights) – are inherently protracted affairs that unfold across decades or generations.…