Book Club summary #19 - The Ecotechnic Future
Not originally intended as a book club selection, the insights of John Michael Greer’s The Ecotechnic Future on biological succession in the natural environment, seemed to effortlessly explain trends in the energy sector. On these grounds, its arguments and speculations were deemed highly relevant to company employees, given the firm’s involvement in high-tech energy systems.
In brief, Greer argues that deforested areas are likely to be dominated at first by weeds, which reproduce rapidly. Over time, however, efficiency counts more than growth rates, and so such areas tend to return to forest, which cycle nutrients more effectively. In the short run, speed wins; in the long run, efficiency counts.
The energy technology parallel could be that fossil fuels have held a key advantage for centuries, on account of their being ease of exploitation. (As with weeds, their inefficiency with respect to GHG emissions could have been a small weakness relative to their scalability.) Energy technologies currently being pursued offer better efficiency (lower “carbon intensity”) but are generally unable to scale rapidly. Solar panels, wind turbines, fuel cells and even nuclear power plants generally require a much larger up-front investment of energy and money, than their fossil-fuel counterparts.
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