Crossposted from https://tardigram.com/m/Economia/t/37943

Stories we tell ourselves
According to the newly released report, total energy supply in 2025 increased by 1.7% over the previous year, with solar power accounting for the vast majority of this growth. Despite solar’s rapidly increasing share of world energy—now at 8.7%—all other forms of energy use continued to expand in absolute terms, including fossil fuels. Coal, oil and gas use have all increased throughout 2025, and still accounted for 86% of all energy supplied to the economy. Contrary to the stories we tell ourselves the energy transition still hasn’t started yet: wind and solar are still mere additions to an ever growing pile of carbon based fuels.

Beside providing the raw data (in a downloadable format) the report also imparts “insights” into the world of energy; short narratives intended to plant stories in the heads of executives, government officials and consultants on where the world is headed and what to expect in the future. No wonder: the report was written and backed by some of the biggest names in business consultancy—a clear conflict of interest. And while the data with its narrow interpretation is spot on—as always—the general audience is still left missing the big picture. These stories—deliberately or not—often omit and overlook very important aspects of energy use and supply, even though its right there in the data—if you know where to look, that is. Instead of providing the reader with an honest assessment on the state of the world economy and its future prospects, authors of the Statistical Review are building a bridge to nowhere, based on a blind faith in infinite growth on a finite planet.

Perhaps the best example of this is Insight 2: Energy security in a changing world — How the 1970s oil shocks shifted energy patterns (page 8-9). After misidentifying the problem as an issue rooted solely in politics and war, while forgetting to mention that the then largest producer and consumer of oil in the world by far (the US) has passed it’s own domestic peak in conventional oil production in 1970, then suffered a 15% drop in output making its economy extremely vulnerable to external shocks, the report suggests that the crisis was eventually solved by other sources of energy (coal, gas, nuclear) taking up the slack. While the reference to the present crisis around Hormuz is not explicitly there, it is very hard to miss: ‘Don’t worry so much about oil, solar is here to save us!’

See, had the United States been able to continue growing its oil supply in the same manner it did before 1970 (that is at a 7% year-over-year growth rate), it could have easily kept itself and its allies well supplied—OPEC embargo and the Iranian revolution notwithstanding. Since it couldn’t, though, no matter how hard their oil companies tried, the US increasingly became import dependent—making its economy extremely vulnerable to interruptions in supply. Hence the unprecedented price hikes with long lines at the pump, prompting car manufacturers to invest in fuel efficiency measures, and urging power plants to ditch oil as a fuel source. In summary: the oil intensity of the economy and the rate of oil extraction growth fell not because we no longer needed oil, but because we could no longer increase its rate of extraction.