CONVENTIONAL THINKING HAS ENERGY EMPLOYMENT being a series of transitions shaping modern history. Quoting Adam Tooze’s “Trouble Transitioning,” London Review of Books, January 23, 2025: “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.”
“The transition narrative,” Tooze writes, “is reassuring because it suggests that we have done something like this before.” But what if this model of energy transition is a faulty one? So believes Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a historian of science and technology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.
More and More and More, by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Allen Lane, 2024.
A Seductive Illusion? Tooze writes, “…. history is a slippery thing. The ‘three energy transitions’ narrative isn’t just a simplification of a complex reality. It’s a story that progresses logically to a happy ending. And that raises a question. What if it isn’t a realistic account of economic or technological history? What if it is a fairy tale dressed up in a business suit, a PR story or, worse, a mirage, an ideological snare, a dangerously seductive illusion?”
“This,” Tooze says, “is the argument of More and More and More….” Tooze’s analysis of Fressoz’s book is a lengthy one, 3348 words. What follows here are tidbits gleaned from his review, Fressoz’s book, and comments at bookshop.org.
Not a Transition, But an Agglomeration. “When we look more closely at the historical record,” Tooze says of Fressoz’s thesis, “it shows not a neat sequence of energy transitions, but the accumulation of ever more and different types of energy. Economic growth has been based not on progressive shifts from one source of energy to the next, but on their interdependent agglomeration.”
Transport as an Example. Tooze recounts, “The first railways ran on rails held together by timber sleepers [“ties,” we Yanks call them] and, in the US, timber sleepers still predominate. American railway companies don’t want to spend more money than they have to and insist that timber handles extremes of temperature better than the concrete sleepers more familiar in Europe. The problem was that the railways created the need for more not less lumber.”
“Similarly,” he continues, “a car with an internal combustion engine is powered by petrol, but the engine itself is made of steel, which is smelted using vast quantities of coal. The concrete that is poured into roadways in many places is manufactured using coal. Asphalt is a by-product of oil refining.”
The Agglomeration of Wood. Tooze recounts, “More wood is used today, including for firewood, than ever before. As Fressoz points out, anyone who claims that the dawning of the coal age in the 19th century freed us from our reliance on organic materials has never been down a mine.”
And Of Coal Too. “What is true of wood is also true of coal, which far from being displaced by the ‘age of oil’ is today consumed in greater amounts than ever before…. Even in the US, peak coal production wasn’t reached until 2008, driven by a new generation of giant open-cast pits created in Wyoming in the 1970s.”
What’s More. Tooze recounts, “And when you end coal consumption for power generation, as the UK managed to do in 2024, what do you turn to instead? The giant Drax plant in North Yorkshire now burns wood pellets imported from North America.”
“Woodsman, spare that tree.” Well, maybe not.…
The Nuclear Non-Transition. “The promise of nuclear power was great,” Tooze writes. “Many thought it had the potential to replace all other energy sources and thus to bring about a true energy transition. However, the levels of investment and technological risk involved were daunting.”
Chernobyl and Fukushima exemplify this word “daunting.”
History in the Most Radical Sense.Tooze observes, “Fressoz doesn’t wish to dismiss the possibility of change. The point, rather, is to dereify it.” [“dereify”: Not in Merriam-Webster. However, it does offer “Reify is a word that attempts to provide a bridge between what is abstract and what is concrete.” Thus, “dereify” would seem to imply unraveling abstraction into more meaningful concrete examples.]
“If we are to achieve an energy transition,” Tooze suggests from Fressoz’s thesis, “it will not follow a familiar timetable. It must mark a fundamental break with an otherwise irresistible logic of accumulation. It doesn’t require unanimity or consensus. It doesn’t require that no one is left behind. What it does require is a powerful coalition to impose its will, to make history in the most radical sense.”
Bookshop.org Conclusions: “More and More and More forces readers to confront hard truths, including how ‘transition’ was originally promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a way to put off any meaningful change. It offers a clear-eyed understanding of the modern world in all its voracious reality and shines a hard light on the true nature of the enormous challenges eight billion of us face, as we stand at the precipice of planetary crisis.”
Hardly for the faint of heart. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025