The Great Energy Transition Myth

Book: More and More and More: A Sobering Look at Our Energy Addiction

Forget everything you thought you knew about energy transitions. In his book, More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, dismantles the comforting narrative that humanity has transitioned from one energy source to another. We never really transitioned at all. We just piled on more energy sources in the older ones, intensifying our overall consumption.

Take coal for example. While it became dominant during the 19th century, vast quantities of wood were still needed to support coal economy – to build mines, railways and infrastructure. This pattern continues today. Despite the rise of renewable energy sources like wind and solar, global consumption of fossil fuels remains at record highs.

Fressoz calls this pattern ‘accumulation,’ not transition. Rather than progressing through energy “stages,” societies have formed symbiotic relationships between energy sources. Consider for example the 20th century—the so-called "Age of Oil.” Did we stop hunting whales; No, quite the opposite, we got better at it. With steam-powered ships and exploding harpoons in hand, the 20th century became the bloodiest era in whaling history. The peak of this activity occurred in the 1950s, with nearly half a million whales slaughtered in the Southern Hemisphere alone. Technology didn’t replace old habits – it only made them ruthlessly efficient.

Similarly, Europe today burns more wood for domestic heating and electricity than it did a century ago. So much for leaving the forest-felling days behind.

The idea of an “energy transition” was born not out of environmental concern, but from early 20th-century technocrats - many of them atomic energy advocates— who promoted it as a way to address perceived resource scarcity. Ironically, the same rhetoric now is used to justify climate solutions, often ignoring the deeper root of the crisis: overconsumption.

One of Fressoz’s most compelling insights is his critique of what he terms "solutionism"—the belief that technological fixes alone can solve complex problems like climate change. He challenges this view by pointing out that these “green” technologies are often integrated in systems still deeply reliant on fossil fuels. Solar panels, for instance, are produced using coal-intensive processes. The solutions are rarely as clean as they seem.

“Transition” has become capitalism’s favourite disguise. “It turns evil into cure, polluting industries into green industries of the future and innovation into our lifeline Transition puts capital on the right side of the climate battle. Thanks to the transition, we are talking about trajectories to 2100, electric cars and hydrogen-generated aircraft rather than material consumption levels and distribution. Very complex solutions in the future make it impossible to do simple things now. The seductive power of transition is immense: we all need future changes to justify procrastination. ”

We must not let the technological promises of carbon free material abundance repeat themselves again and again: after crossing the 2^oC threshold in the second half of this century, we may find that the future we were waiting for has already left us behind.

More and More and More isn’t an easy book. But for those willing to put in the mental effort, Fressoz's work is a mind-bending journey through the tangled web of energy, industry, and human hubris. It forces us to question our relationship with energy, and consider the possibility that true change requires not just technology, but also less consumption—and a radical rethinking of what we call “development.”