> Second, considering that energy use is strongly coupled to GDP growth, an important measure for the performance of the energy-economic system is the energy return on energy invested (EROI). The energy system’s EROI is likely to shrink substantially during the transition to a renewable energy system.<p>I can't tell if they're trolling, or have just been sucked into the ERoEI conspiracy theories, but if you believe that fossil fuels are magical and can't be replaced, then I suppose their model makes sense. We'd be literally running out of energy and would need to plan for that.<p>Of course, that's just nonsense that became popular because it let fossil fuel producers eke out a few more years of profits, so we can mostly ignore what these people say even if they are just well meaning but misled. Because energy is getting cheaper, so if you think the opposite of that you'll get a lot of weird conclusions.<p>For those still thinking ERoEI is anything other than a clear sign you should ignore the rest of the opinions the person has, here's a brief twitter take:<p><a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1341738209659793409" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/134173820965979...</a>
Not afraid to say the quiet part out loud anymore, this has always been about "degrowth", the return to subsistence poverty for the non-elite population