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More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy
The radical, paradigm-shifting international bestseller that destroys our delusions about energy consumption and will change the way we talk about climate change.
We have long been taught that humanity’s relationship with energy is one of progress, with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear—until at some future point everything will be replaced by “green” energy. But the long-held belief in transition and sustainability is completely untrue, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz argues.
More and More and More demolishes this disastrous fallacy, showing how our industrial age and beyond has in fact been powered by an ever-greater accumulation of each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples from past and present, from the whaling and candle-making industries of the nineteenth century to our post-nuclear age today, Fressoz describes how humanity has gorged on all forms of energy—with whole forests used to prop up coal mines, and fossil fuels remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products we rely on every day. While nations have signed climate agreements aimed at reducing fossil fuels, the sad truth is that the world today burns more wood, coal, and carbon than ever before.
More and More and More forces listeners 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.
We have long been taught that humanity’s relationship with energy is one of progress, with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear—until at some future point everything will be replaced by “green” energy. But the long-held belief in transition and sustainability is completely untrue, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz argues.
More and More and More demolishes this disastrous fallacy, showing how our industrial age and beyond has in fact been powered by an ever-greater accumulation of each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples from past and present, from the whaling and candle-making industries of the nineteenth century to our post-nuclear age today, Fressoz describes how humanity has gorged on all forms of energy—with whole forests used to prop up coal mines, and fossil fuels remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products we rely on every day. While nations have signed climate agreements aimed at reducing fossil fuels, the sad truth is that the world today burns more wood, coal, and carbon than ever before.
More and More and More forces listeners 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.
1 pages, Audio CD
Published August 5, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
March 9, 2025
I don't understand why this book has received such raving reviews. It certainly contains certain interesting facts, but few of them will come as a surprise to anyone who works on the topic of energy and climate policy(obviously, if the world population increases and the economy grows, a decrease in the share of wood in energy consumption does not imply a decrease in its absolute use). It's even difficult to understand what the author's point really is. The book is chaotic, filled with statements that are not substantiated ,non sequiturs, misunderstandings regarding the scientific process, etc. At one point, the author acknowledges that the current state of energy modelling is beyond his understanding. Which is in itself not a problem, but then maybe he should be a bit more careful in criticizing these models and not just assume that their flaws reflect a desire to delay climate action.
August 10, 2025
Book Review: More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
Rating: 4.8/5
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s More and More and More is a paradigm-shattering work that dismantles the myth of energy transition with the precision of a historian and the urgency of a climate activist. This all-consuming history challenges the comforting narrative of linear progress—from wood to coal to renewables—revealing instead a voracious accumulation of energy sources that has fueled modernity’s insatiable appetite. Fressoz’s thesis is as unsettling as it is illuminating: humanity doesn’t replace energy systems; it stacks them, with fossil fuels still underpinning even green technologies today.
Emotional Resonance & Thematic Depth
Reading this book felt like watching a meticulously constructed house of cards collapse. Fressoz’s examples—from 19th-century whaling (where whale oil demand increased alongside coal) to modern net-zero paradoxes (global coal use hitting record highs despite pledges)—left me alternating between awe and despair. His deconstruction of corporate transition rhetoric, originally a delay tactic rather than a sustainability plan, resonated deeply in an era of greenwashing. The chapter on how forests were razed to support coal mining (not replace it) was particularly gut-wrenching, exposing the absurdity of our energy logic.
However, the book’s relentless focus on historical patterns occasionally overshadows forward-looking solutions. While Fressoz’s critique of techno-optimism is vital, a concluding chapter on viable alternatives (even if tentative) would have balanced the grim realism.
Constructive Criticism
Strengths:
-Interdisciplinary Mastery: Fressoz seamlessly blends economic history, environmental science, and corporate anthropology, making complex systems accessible without dilution.
-Narrative Power: The whaling-to-AI arc (yes, even data centers rely on fossil-fueled grids) reads like a thriller, with each revelation compounding the dread.
Weaknesses:
Geographic Imbalance: The Eurocentric case studies (e.g., 19th-century Europe) could be supplemented with Global South perspectives.
Density: Some statistical sections risk overwhelming general readers; infographics might have helped.
How I would describe this book:
- The Silent Spring of energy studies—Fressoz doesn’t just shift the goalposts; he burns them.
- If you think renewables will save us, this book is your necessary intervention.
- A gut-punch to climate complacency. After reading, energy transition will sound like a bad joke.
Personalized Remarks & Gratitude
As someone who promotes sustainability, I’ve already earmarked passages —especially Fressoz’s takedown of carbon accounting sleights of hand. The advanced review copy’s stark cover (a black oil spill morphing into wind turbines) perfectly mirrors the book’s unsettling message. A profound thank you to Harper for the review copy via Goodreads Giveaways; this is the rare academic work that belongs on both nightstands and protest signs.
Final Thoughts
More and More and More is a landmark achievement, though its unrelenting critique may leave readers gasping for hope. Essential for anyone who engages with climate policy, energy economics, or modern history—but brace for existential turbulence.
Rating: 4.8/5 (Docked slightly for structural quibbles, but a mandatory read in the Anthropocene.)
Rating: 4.8/5
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s More and More and More is a paradigm-shattering work that dismantles the myth of energy transition with the precision of a historian and the urgency of a climate activist. This all-consuming history challenges the comforting narrative of linear progress—from wood to coal to renewables—revealing instead a voracious accumulation of energy sources that has fueled modernity’s insatiable appetite. Fressoz’s thesis is as unsettling as it is illuminating: humanity doesn’t replace energy systems; it stacks them, with fossil fuels still underpinning even green technologies today.
Emotional Resonance & Thematic Depth
Reading this book felt like watching a meticulously constructed house of cards collapse. Fressoz’s examples—from 19th-century whaling (where whale oil demand increased alongside coal) to modern net-zero paradoxes (global coal use hitting record highs despite pledges)—left me alternating between awe and despair. His deconstruction of corporate transition rhetoric, originally a delay tactic rather than a sustainability plan, resonated deeply in an era of greenwashing. The chapter on how forests were razed to support coal mining (not replace it) was particularly gut-wrenching, exposing the absurdity of our energy logic.
However, the book’s relentless focus on historical patterns occasionally overshadows forward-looking solutions. While Fressoz’s critique of techno-optimism is vital, a concluding chapter on viable alternatives (even if tentative) would have balanced the grim realism.
Constructive Criticism
Strengths:
-Interdisciplinary Mastery: Fressoz seamlessly blends economic history, environmental science, and corporate anthropology, making complex systems accessible without dilution.
-Narrative Power: The whaling-to-AI arc (yes, even data centers rely on fossil-fueled grids) reads like a thriller, with each revelation compounding the dread.
Weaknesses:
Geographic Imbalance: The Eurocentric case studies (e.g., 19th-century Europe) could be supplemented with Global South perspectives.
Density: Some statistical sections risk overwhelming general readers; infographics might have helped.
How I would describe this book:
- The Silent Spring of energy studies—Fressoz doesn’t just shift the goalposts; he burns them.
- If you think renewables will save us, this book is your necessary intervention.
- A gut-punch to climate complacency. After reading, energy transition will sound like a bad joke.
Personalized Remarks & Gratitude
As someone who promotes sustainability, I’ve already earmarked passages —especially Fressoz’s takedown of carbon accounting sleights of hand. The advanced review copy’s stark cover (a black oil spill morphing into wind turbines) perfectly mirrors the book’s unsettling message. A profound thank you to Harper for the review copy via Goodreads Giveaways; this is the rare academic work that belongs on both nightstands and protest signs.
Final Thoughts
More and More and More is a landmark achievement, though its unrelenting critique may leave readers gasping for hope. Essential for anyone who engages with climate policy, energy economics, or modern history—but brace for existential turbulence.
Rating: 4.8/5 (Docked slightly for structural quibbles, but a mandatory read in the Anthropocene.)
March 11, 2025
I am a fan of Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s work, particularly his earlier collaborations with Christophe Bonneuil ( The Shock of the Anthropocene) and Fabien Locher ( Les révoltes due ciel). This solo-authored book certainly has a similar energy (pun intended), as he pulls no punches in breaking down what he calls a the “ideology of capital in the twenty first century”. That ideology is the ideology of “transitions” - of energy transitions specifically - which he believes has been fed by an understanding of the history of energy that is wrong at best and malicious at worst.
The starting point for the book – kicking off a brilliant introductory chapter – is a hilariously simple but profoundly troubling observation: humanity is burning more oil, gas, coal, and wood than ever before in its history. Not shocking enough? The first ten chapters are crammed with similar revelations. Three times more whales were killed in the 20th century (the “Age of Oil”) than in the previous century; Europe currently burns twice as much wood for domestic heat and electricity than a century ago; in the 2000s, car headlights alone consumed over a million barrels of oil a day; and so on and so on. If you like statistics, this book has them in spades. It’s honestly a bit too much for me, as the narrative suffers a bit from all this fact-dumping. But I imagine this sense of abundance was deliberately created to win over certain kinds of audiences (read: economists and policy makers) that really need to read this book.
What argument do these statistics serve? Well, Fressoz argues that by focusing on absolute values rather than their relative dynamics, he is able to reveal how historically unfounded our idea of energy transitions is (enter Latour’s holy spirit: “we have never transitioned”). A focus on the materials themselves reveals that rather replacing older sources of energy, new fuels like coal, gas, and oil in fact drive up their consumption. This is because these materials exist in what Fressoz calls symbiotic relationships, supporting rather than competing with one another. For instance, you might think coal had well and truly “replaced” wood in the 19th century as the main source of fuel for an industrialised nation, but the amount of wood required for mineshafts and railway sleepers meant coal in fact increased demand for wood. By 1900, Great Britain even burned more wood for energy than it did in pre-industrial times. Similarly, you might think oil replaced coal as the dominant source of energy in the mid-20th century (this is what Timothy Mitchell argues in his famous Carbon Democracy). But consider that all that oil was to a large extent used to be able to ship coal around the world. The first half of this book puts these kinds of symbiotic relationships into stark relief, and asks us not to take rhetoric about the energy transition for granted.
The second half of his book asks where that rhetoric came from. Here we leave the land of mind-blowing statistics and enter the ominous realm of wacky fundamentalists. In the final few chapters, Fressoz traces how “stagist” thinking (i.e. that history is divided into stages defined by energy or technology) emerged out of early-20th century technocratic movements, and later atomic energy boosters with Malthusian ideas. What began as worries about an “energy crisis” in the early- to mid- 20th century had by the end of it turned into worries about climate crisis, and so, as Fressoz underlines, “the tools developed to think about a possible scarcity of fossil fuels were used to think about the problem of their overabundance” (Chap. 12). And so we get to his Conclusion, in which Fressoz clarifies that he is not against “the energy transition” if this is taken to mean the development of renewables. Rather, he aims to show that just developing renewables is not sufficient to get ourselves of the hole we’ve dug, and that we shouldn’t fix our hopes on solar panels and wind turbines to solve everything – if his material energy history is any guide to go by, then fossil fuels are likely not to go away any time soon. His is an argument against unfounded solutionism across the board – not just the techno-solutionists who advocate for transitions rather than endangering the status quo, but also the economists and social scientists who find climate-friendly “virtues” in all of their proposed political projects.
This book is really one of my favourite kinds of books: a sustained explanation of how a thing we have all come to take for granted really isn’t as straightforward as it seems, and may actually hinder our ability to make effective decisions moving forward. This is not to say it’s a perfect book. I really felt slapped across the face with statistics most of the time. In trying to cover a lot of ground he also tends to jump around in time quite a lot, which makes the chapters lose a sense of linear progression. It’s very difficult to spot where he is citing primary or secondary literature, or in other words, whether he is referring to empirical evidence or bringing in other scholars. And near the end, when his account is more linear (and recognisable for me), he is quite sweeping, making big claims and including too many names for me to know what I should be paying attention to. Hence why I think this book could have been a great paper (or two): take the Intro and Conclusion, flesh them out with some poignant statistics, leave the “how we got here narrative” for another paper, and bam – highly citable stuff. I would still recommend this book to anyone with a passing interest in climate change, energy, or history of technology though.
The starting point for the book – kicking off a brilliant introductory chapter – is a hilariously simple but profoundly troubling observation: humanity is burning more oil, gas, coal, and wood than ever before in its history. Not shocking enough? The first ten chapters are crammed with similar revelations. Three times more whales were killed in the 20th century (the “Age of Oil”) than in the previous century; Europe currently burns twice as much wood for domestic heat and electricity than a century ago; in the 2000s, car headlights alone consumed over a million barrels of oil a day; and so on and so on. If you like statistics, this book has them in spades. It’s honestly a bit too much for me, as the narrative suffers a bit from all this fact-dumping. But I imagine this sense of abundance was deliberately created to win over certain kinds of audiences (read: economists and policy makers) that really need to read this book.
What argument do these statistics serve? Well, Fressoz argues that by focusing on absolute values rather than their relative dynamics, he is able to reveal how historically unfounded our idea of energy transitions is (enter Latour’s holy spirit: “we have never transitioned”). A focus on the materials themselves reveals that rather replacing older sources of energy, new fuels like coal, gas, and oil in fact drive up their consumption. This is because these materials exist in what Fressoz calls symbiotic relationships, supporting rather than competing with one another. For instance, you might think coal had well and truly “replaced” wood in the 19th century as the main source of fuel for an industrialised nation, but the amount of wood required for mineshafts and railway sleepers meant coal in fact increased demand for wood. By 1900, Great Britain even burned more wood for energy than it did in pre-industrial times. Similarly, you might think oil replaced coal as the dominant source of energy in the mid-20th century (this is what Timothy Mitchell argues in his famous Carbon Democracy). But consider that all that oil was to a large extent used to be able to ship coal around the world. The first half of this book puts these kinds of symbiotic relationships into stark relief, and asks us not to take rhetoric about the energy transition for granted.
The second half of his book asks where that rhetoric came from. Here we leave the land of mind-blowing statistics and enter the ominous realm of wacky fundamentalists. In the final few chapters, Fressoz traces how “stagist” thinking (i.e. that history is divided into stages defined by energy or technology) emerged out of early-20th century technocratic movements, and later atomic energy boosters with Malthusian ideas. What began as worries about an “energy crisis” in the early- to mid- 20th century had by the end of it turned into worries about climate crisis, and so, as Fressoz underlines, “the tools developed to think about a possible scarcity of fossil fuels were used to think about the problem of their overabundance” (Chap. 12). And so we get to his Conclusion, in which Fressoz clarifies that he is not against “the energy transition” if this is taken to mean the development of renewables. Rather, he aims to show that just developing renewables is not sufficient to get ourselves of the hole we’ve dug, and that we shouldn’t fix our hopes on solar panels and wind turbines to solve everything – if his material energy history is any guide to go by, then fossil fuels are likely not to go away any time soon. His is an argument against unfounded solutionism across the board – not just the techno-solutionists who advocate for transitions rather than endangering the status quo, but also the economists and social scientists who find climate-friendly “virtues” in all of their proposed political projects.
This book is really one of my favourite kinds of books: a sustained explanation of how a thing we have all come to take for granted really isn’t as straightforward as it seems, and may actually hinder our ability to make effective decisions moving forward. This is not to say it’s a perfect book. I really felt slapped across the face with statistics most of the time. In trying to cover a lot of ground he also tends to jump around in time quite a lot, which makes the chapters lose a sense of linear progression. It’s very difficult to spot where he is citing primary or secondary literature, or in other words, whether he is referring to empirical evidence or bringing in other scholars. And near the end, when his account is more linear (and recognisable for me), he is quite sweeping, making big claims and including too many names for me to know what I should be paying attention to. Hence why I think this book could have been a great paper (or two): take the Intro and Conclusion, flesh them out with some poignant statistics, leave the “how we got here narrative” for another paper, and bam – highly citable stuff. I would still recommend this book to anyone with a passing interest in climate change, energy, or history of technology though.
April 20, 2025
A useful read to bring myself back down from rather slanted views on philosophy of technology. It's a slew of simple [simplified] stories, with really big numbers (cf. the endless statistics facts along the lines of "... By increasing the production and availabilty of wood, oil has made it possible to increase its eneegy uses. Since 1960, the amount of firewood in the world has increased from around 1 billion cubic metres to 2 billion cu. m. To regard thid as the persistance of old technology would be to misunderstand its novelty and scale...".
The book is a 'history of energy' in that it dispels the worst intellectual tendencies in historians' writings on energy within the last two centuries, but is by no means exhaustive, conclusive or coherent. Probably the ideal book to read if you want to read one single book on 'energy', and its fairly transparent in its tirades, and so not a difficult read in the slightest.
The book is a 'history of energy' in that it dispels the worst intellectual tendencies in historians' writings on energy within the last two centuries, but is by no means exhaustive, conclusive or coherent. Probably the ideal book to read if you want to read one single book on 'energy', and its fairly transparent in its tirades, and so not a difficult read in the slightest.
February 23, 2025
Not sure how this featured in FTs best science books of the years it’s shite (and no science)
September 26, 2025
This is a really interesting book to read. Essentially, it is like a history of energy use from wood for fires to modern developments, and how they were supposed to replace the less efficient products of the past.
Things like this really interest me as it gives me a chance to understand more about the world and its history from a different perspective. This book was a real eye-opener for me as the author brings up some basic but honest opinions and observations. While there is some technical stuff included, on the whole, this is an understandable book.
We are aware of how different fuels produce different pollutants. They can find their way into the water courses and atmosphere. Over the centuries, developments have changed how we heat and cook. This was the basic premise for us, now in the modern generation, energy is used for everything, such as manufacturing, building, computing, consumables, development and yes... everything.
If you think the use of wood has decreased over the centuries, then think again. Wood is still used, and its use has increased. Coal, gas, oil, solar, hydro and wind power were all supposed to have replaced each older energy supply. This has not happened, and this is the point the author makes throughout this book. You may be surprised by this, I certainly was. I had not considered how many things arrive on pallets. A simple wooden pallet is used for moving everyday items, food, fuel, parts, products, the list is endless.
The author brings insight to an industry dominated by large firms. It also shows how consumers have led the energy industry by wanting more and more. If you are reading this, then you are using a device that has used a vast amount of different energies to produce, transport, power and uses materials that have to be separated into things that can be reused. With the increase in technology then the increase in natural resources used has boomed. So, instead of transitioning from one type of energy to another, we are simply adding to the types of energy we use.
This is a very basic summary of the book, it goes into a lot more information, graphs, stats, history and consumption that has increased with the population over the centuries. While I do admit to totally understanding some of the content, on the whole, it did make for compelling, and also shocking reading. It is an eye-opener for sure.
If you have an interest in non-fiction books that look at the history of energy use, economics, capitalism, climate change, consumerism and similar then I do think you will really enjoy this one. I found it very compelling and fascinating, and I would definitely recommend it.
Things like this really interest me as it gives me a chance to understand more about the world and its history from a different perspective. This book was a real eye-opener for me as the author brings up some basic but honest opinions and observations. While there is some technical stuff included, on the whole, this is an understandable book.
We are aware of how different fuels produce different pollutants. They can find their way into the water courses and atmosphere. Over the centuries, developments have changed how we heat and cook. This was the basic premise for us, now in the modern generation, energy is used for everything, such as manufacturing, building, computing, consumables, development and yes... everything.
If you think the use of wood has decreased over the centuries, then think again. Wood is still used, and its use has increased. Coal, gas, oil, solar, hydro and wind power were all supposed to have replaced each older energy supply. This has not happened, and this is the point the author makes throughout this book. You may be surprised by this, I certainly was. I had not considered how many things arrive on pallets. A simple wooden pallet is used for moving everyday items, food, fuel, parts, products, the list is endless.
The author brings insight to an industry dominated by large firms. It also shows how consumers have led the energy industry by wanting more and more. If you are reading this, then you are using a device that has used a vast amount of different energies to produce, transport, power and uses materials that have to be separated into things that can be reused. With the increase in technology then the increase in natural resources used has boomed. So, instead of transitioning from one type of energy to another, we are simply adding to the types of energy we use.
This is a very basic summary of the book, it goes into a lot more information, graphs, stats, history and consumption that has increased with the population over the centuries. While I do admit to totally understanding some of the content, on the whole, it did make for compelling, and also shocking reading. It is an eye-opener for sure.
If you have an interest in non-fiction books that look at the history of energy use, economics, capitalism, climate change, consumerism and similar then I do think you will really enjoy this one. I found it very compelling and fascinating, and I would definitely recommend it.
Read
December 25, 2025This isn’t exactly one more book to tell you how bad climate change is - although it does introduce some illuminating facts on that count. Particularly regarding wood energy - but it is an excellent account of the repurposing of the idea of an “energy transition.”
I often wonder why now feels, on the one hand, stagnant, repetitive, and boring; and on the other hand, urgent, terrifying, and overstimulating. Both at the same time. Here’s a sentence I’m pretty sure you could have said anytime in the last 20 years:
Beyoncé and Taylor Swift top the charts, Nancy Pelosi wields a lot of power, Israel violates fragile ceasefire, and we emitted more greenhouse gasses last year than the year before.
One time, or maybe a few times I said, when something is bad but I can’t change it I can at least change how I think about it. I didn’t mean I could delude myself. I meant I could change my point of view. I could change my relationship to the thing, I could change how I think about it. When I mentioned this, my friend looked irritated by it, like I was saying I could change how I think about being abused instead of escaping abuse, for example.
But I swear I mean something deeper and more along the lines of this book. So many ideas have changed while still adhering to their signage. Conservatism is one example. I am a conservative is a thing people say. And its meaning has shifted a lot, and yet to the holder of the sign, those changes might be imperceptible. Not because they’re stupid, but because there is something bizarre happening in communication, in general, I think.
The garbage trucks in my neighborhood are plastered with signs about being zero-waste. The garbage company is a zero-waste company. This seems like low hanging fruit, you might roll your eyes and think how insightful to have a teenage lens on the world and notice its hypocrisies. But - it has made things dull and mysterious at the same time. I watched Law and Order: SVU series that basically described the Lolita Express over and over; waiting on the remaining DOJ dump feels a little like a sick day, a day with no agency, a day you just wait out, with a Law and Order SVU marathon on in the background.
I often wonder why now feels, on the one hand, stagnant, repetitive, and boring; and on the other hand, urgent, terrifying, and overstimulating. Both at the same time. Here’s a sentence I’m pretty sure you could have said anytime in the last 20 years:
Beyoncé and Taylor Swift top the charts, Nancy Pelosi wields a lot of power, Israel violates fragile ceasefire, and we emitted more greenhouse gasses last year than the year before.
One time, or maybe a few times I said, when something is bad but I can’t change it I can at least change how I think about it. I didn’t mean I could delude myself. I meant I could change my point of view. I could change my relationship to the thing, I could change how I think about it. When I mentioned this, my friend looked irritated by it, like I was saying I could change how I think about being abused instead of escaping abuse, for example.
But I swear I mean something deeper and more along the lines of this book. So many ideas have changed while still adhering to their signage. Conservatism is one example. I am a conservative is a thing people say. And its meaning has shifted a lot, and yet to the holder of the sign, those changes might be imperceptible. Not because they’re stupid, but because there is something bizarre happening in communication, in general, I think.
The garbage trucks in my neighborhood are plastered with signs about being zero-waste. The garbage company is a zero-waste company. This seems like low hanging fruit, you might roll your eyes and think how insightful to have a teenage lens on the world and notice its hypocrisies. But - it has made things dull and mysterious at the same time. I watched Law and Order: SVU series that basically described the Lolita Express over and over; waiting on the remaining DOJ dump feels a little like a sick day, a day with no agency, a day you just wait out, with a Law and Order SVU marathon on in the background.
August 11, 2025
All debates about the future of energy have one unspoken but deeply entrenched assumption; the assumption of energy transition. That is that old energy sources are replaced by new ones.
The error in this assumption, the author argues, is that we have been tricked into mistaking the relative use of materials for their absolute use.
What we really have are energy accumulations instead of energy transitions. the discovery of coal did not reduce the consumption of wood. It caused wood to be consumed even more in order to build and expand the consumption of coal. Just as Jevon's Paradox makes it clear that efficiency can lead to increased consumption, so the author makes it clear that newer and cheaper sources of energy cause the older sources to be consumed more either as fuel or as ancillary materials in the expanded use of the newer energy sources.
This concept of energy transition, the author argues convincingly, was created as a discursive tool by governments and corporations as a way to talk about shifting to new and clean energy sources while still investing heavily in old and dirty energy sources.
This "energy transition" strategy underestimated the true difficulty of moving away from carbon, effectively enabling procrastination on environmental issues.
Why does this matter? Every time you hear about solar power and wind power, you are probably deceived into thinking that their expansion will cause us to transition from fossil fuels. But this is not necessarily true. When we look beyond the particular 'renewable energy sources' and focus on the industrial processes that create sustain, and expand it, we can see how they serve to expand the consumption of fossil fuels. As a simple example, the development of wind turbines have enabled fossil fuel drilling in places far away from electric power stations. So-called sustainable energy used to increase the drilling of fossil fuels.
Highly recommended.
The error in this assumption, the author argues, is that we have been tricked into mistaking the relative use of materials for their absolute use.
What we really have are energy accumulations instead of energy transitions. the discovery of coal did not reduce the consumption of wood. It caused wood to be consumed even more in order to build and expand the consumption of coal. Just as Jevon's Paradox makes it clear that efficiency can lead to increased consumption, so the author makes it clear that newer and cheaper sources of energy cause the older sources to be consumed more either as fuel or as ancillary materials in the expanded use of the newer energy sources.
This concept of energy transition, the author argues convincingly, was created as a discursive tool by governments and corporations as a way to talk about shifting to new and clean energy sources while still investing heavily in old and dirty energy sources.
This "energy transition" strategy underestimated the true difficulty of moving away from carbon, effectively enabling procrastination on environmental issues.
Why does this matter? Every time you hear about solar power and wind power, you are probably deceived into thinking that their expansion will cause us to transition from fossil fuels. But this is not necessarily true. When we look beyond the particular 'renewable energy sources' and focus on the industrial processes that create sustain, and expand it, we can see how they serve to expand the consumption of fossil fuels. As a simple example, the development of wind turbines have enabled fossil fuel drilling in places far away from electric power stations. So-called sustainable energy used to increase the drilling of fossil fuels.
Highly recommended.
June 8, 2025
Heldere analyse over hoe we nog nooit zijn gestopt met vervuilende energiebronnen, maar daarnaast nieuwe energiebronnen zijn gaan gebruiken, en hoe deze elkaar versterken.
- De productie van elektrische auto's heeft tot nu toe geleid tot een hogere aandeel van kolen in de totale brandstoffenmix
- Windparken worden aangelegd op verschillende plekken in de wereld om olieplatforms van elektriciteit te voorzien
- Europese landen verminderen hun CO2 uitstoot niet, maar exporteren deze
- De productie van elektrische auto's heeft tot nu toe geleid tot een hogere aandeel van kolen in de totale brandstoffenmix
- Windparken worden aangelegd op verschillende plekken in de wereld om olieplatforms van elektriciteit te voorzien
- Europese landen verminderen hun CO2 uitstoot niet, maar exporteren deze
July 13, 2025
Interessante Einordnung des Begriffs der Energiewende in den historischen Kontext. Der Autor argumentiert, dass die Übergänge von Holz auf Kohle und von Kohle auf Öl historisch nicht zu einer niedrigeren Nutzung des "alten" Rohstoffs geführt haben, sondern dessen Verwendung meistens sogar erhöht haben. Deprimierend, aber wichtig zur Einordnung von politischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen.
February 26, 2025
So this was depressing
November 20, 2025
Pretty boring! I learned that decarbonizing isn't as simple as some may think. Everyone still uses coal. Even for nonfiction it was dry.
February 25, 2025
big yikes
October 19, 2025
Fressoz has become one of my favorite social theorists after reading his and collaborator Bonneuil's The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us, a deep history of anthropogenic ecological destruction and awareness in opposition to it. This book is shorter in scope but no less paradigm-shifting in its promotion that energy consumption & technological innovations do not move from "better" stage to stage as is often presumed but rather interdependently lead to increasing consumption of all kinds of fuels. This inquiry depicts climate change as something that likely will not be innovated away with and rather requires a much greater effort of disentangling carbon from production infrastructures.
Fressoz demonstrates this in the example of a history of lighting from candles to LEDs. Candlemaking technologies developed throughout the 1800s in ways that were safer, more efficient, and less capital intensive than coal gas lighting and just as modern. Organic lamp fuels in seed oils enabled fossil fuel development in coal mining, yet even after kerosene "replaced" organic oils their overall consumption continued to rise. Today the LED is about as close to the pinnacle of efficiency as lighting can get; still, energy consumption for lighting has remained stable since its invention in 2000. Traditional fuels, fossil fuels, and innovation are shown to be thoroughly enmeshed in interdependent development along a scrambled timeline.
Fressoz further investigates fuels and technology and pairs them with current global production metrics. He details the extensive use of wood in earlier coal mining, rail transportation, and even the start of the oil industry and notes how current global steel & metallurgy industries consume even more charcoal than previous western industrial peaks. Going "paperless" is often touted as a green corporate back-pat, yet the same wood is now going towards skyrocketing pallet and cardboard box production with online and warehouse-based distribution. While coal is often imagined as fuelling archaic industrial machines, the vast majority of present cement and steel manufacturers burn coal, and it powers a significant portion if not majority of electricity in burgeoning grids like China & India.
He also historicizes the faulty development of energy consumption modelling and verbiage to demonstrate how climate modelling is built upon incorrect assumptions of energy depletion and transition. This study reveals rhetoric about energy transition as another form of greenwashing and procrastinating climate action. Already in 1987 at the tail-end of the Reagan administration some previous transition enthusiasts ceded that a shift to renewable energies was unlikely and we need to instead pivot to resilience in the face of inevitable climate change.
Adherents to scientism, or the belief that science explains everything all on its own and does not need any further contextualization or critique from the humanities, will not appreciate this book. This is a good theoretical component to read alongside works that further investigate current global resource extraction networks like Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future or Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River for a similar view of technology and consumption with another essential resource.
Fressoz demonstrates this in the example of a history of lighting from candles to LEDs. Candlemaking technologies developed throughout the 1800s in ways that were safer, more efficient, and less capital intensive than coal gas lighting and just as modern. Organic lamp fuels in seed oils enabled fossil fuel development in coal mining, yet even after kerosene "replaced" organic oils their overall consumption continued to rise. Today the LED is about as close to the pinnacle of efficiency as lighting can get; still, energy consumption for lighting has remained stable since its invention in 2000. Traditional fuels, fossil fuels, and innovation are shown to be thoroughly enmeshed in interdependent development along a scrambled timeline.
Fressoz further investigates fuels and technology and pairs them with current global production metrics. He details the extensive use of wood in earlier coal mining, rail transportation, and even the start of the oil industry and notes how current global steel & metallurgy industries consume even more charcoal than previous western industrial peaks. Going "paperless" is often touted as a green corporate back-pat, yet the same wood is now going towards skyrocketing pallet and cardboard box production with online and warehouse-based distribution. While coal is often imagined as fuelling archaic industrial machines, the vast majority of present cement and steel manufacturers burn coal, and it powers a significant portion if not majority of electricity in burgeoning grids like China & India.
He also historicizes the faulty development of energy consumption modelling and verbiage to demonstrate how climate modelling is built upon incorrect assumptions of energy depletion and transition. This study reveals rhetoric about energy transition as another form of greenwashing and procrastinating climate action. Already in 1987 at the tail-end of the Reagan administration some previous transition enthusiasts ceded that a shift to renewable energies was unlikely and we need to instead pivot to resilience in the face of inevitable climate change.
Adherents to scientism, or the belief that science explains everything all on its own and does not need any further contextualization or critique from the humanities, will not appreciate this book. This is a good theoretical component to read alongside works that further investigate current global resource extraction networks like Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future or Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River for a similar view of technology and consumption with another essential resource.
March 19, 2025
Energy use is often seen as separated into various 'epochs' or ages, where the age of wood was replaced by the age of coal, the age of oil and soon, the age of sun-and-wind.
Fressoz means that this is all wrong. We have never actually transitioned from one energy source to another, unless one counts the transition from horses to tractors. When the burning of wood for heating was replaced by coal, the use of wood for e.g. pip props in the coal mines actually increased. In part helped by the improvements in transportation. (Only during WWI and WWII did European wood consumption temporarily slide back, mostly due to reduced export from Scandinavia and Finland.)
Coal consumption did not slow down when oil became the dominant fuel (for transportation at least), as oil extraction requires vast amounts of steel, which in turn is made using oil. (Early oil exploitation also used prodigious amounts of wood, for derricks and barrels, but that was replaced by steel in the 1940s.)
Fressoz means that it is unrealistic to expect the increased use if renewables and nuclear to have any major impact on coal and petroleum usage in the short to medium term. (Personally, I think he's underestimating the power of exponential growth. If the production costs of solar continues to half every 3-4 years, solar power _will_ eventually become ubiquitous. Of course it can't continue forever - but if the trend holds for another decade, then solar power will be very cheap indeed.)
The final chapter is about how the idea of 'energy transition' took shape during the latter half of the 20th century, despite the evidence for it being scarce. A lot of early IPCC (and similar) members came from the oil and nuclear industry, and the watchword was that fast breeders would solve all problems in a couple of decades. Until then, it was better to increase the oil and coal extraction.
The book is written for the interested layman as well as for an academic target audience, with plenty of references, and half the book taken up by footnotes and references.
Fressoz means that this is all wrong. We have never actually transitioned from one energy source to another, unless one counts the transition from horses to tractors. When the burning of wood for heating was replaced by coal, the use of wood for e.g. pip props in the coal mines actually increased. In part helped by the improvements in transportation. (Only during WWI and WWII did European wood consumption temporarily slide back, mostly due to reduced export from Scandinavia and Finland.)
Coal consumption did not slow down when oil became the dominant fuel (for transportation at least), as oil extraction requires vast amounts of steel, which in turn is made using oil. (Early oil exploitation also used prodigious amounts of wood, for derricks and barrels, but that was replaced by steel in the 1940s.)
Fressoz means that it is unrealistic to expect the increased use if renewables and nuclear to have any major impact on coal and petroleum usage in the short to medium term. (Personally, I think he's underestimating the power of exponential growth. If the production costs of solar continues to half every 3-4 years, solar power _will_ eventually become ubiquitous. Of course it can't continue forever - but if the trend holds for another decade, then solar power will be very cheap indeed.)
The final chapter is about how the idea of 'energy transition' took shape during the latter half of the 20th century, despite the evidence for it being scarce. A lot of early IPCC (and similar) members came from the oil and nuclear industry, and the watchword was that fast breeders would solve all problems in a couple of decades. Until then, it was better to increase the oil and coal extraction.
The book is written for the interested layman as well as for an academic target audience, with plenty of references, and half the book taken up by footnotes and references.
March 12, 2025
This book shifted my understanding of energy creation and energy consumption.
The modern narrative is encroached around concepts such as transition, environment crisis, energy crisis, …a lexicon that induces us all to think in terms of stages in the history of energy, when really we should be thinking of symbiosis.
Hence the title: more and more and more...because really we have NOT transitioned from wood to coal, coal to oil and gas, oil to nuclear, oil to green energy...we are just using more and more natural resources to produce energy with other resources.
And if we don't acknowledge this is the case, we can't have an informed conversation about the future of human kind, sustainability and decarbonisation, for example.
Other factors that contribute to the acceptance of Stagism:
- The popularity of charts and data that look at relative energy production as opposed to absolute.
- Futurism vs history: when scientists, politicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs focus their theories and interventions on non-existent futures as opposed to grounding them on solid history
- Neo-Malthusian views that pushed for atomic energy: with the Nuclear Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that discovered carbon-induced climate risks as early as the 1950s, and based energy debates on the idea of a 'transition' (futurology), with a lot of coal still under their feet
Ultimately, this book has given me the understanding that today's situation is much more critical than I envisaged, and that as a society we're not talking about the culprit exacerbating climate change. Leaving me, one more time, a little extra Gramscian: pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the action.
I would 100% recommend reading this book (though not the easiest read on the planet).
The modern narrative is encroached around concepts such as transition, environment crisis, energy crisis, …a lexicon that induces us all to think in terms of stages in the history of energy, when really we should be thinking of symbiosis.
Hence the title: more and more and more...because really we have NOT transitioned from wood to coal, coal to oil and gas, oil to nuclear, oil to green energy...we are just using more and more natural resources to produce energy with other resources.
And if we don't acknowledge this is the case, we can't have an informed conversation about the future of human kind, sustainability and decarbonisation, for example.
Other factors that contribute to the acceptance of Stagism:
- The popularity of charts and data that look at relative energy production as opposed to absolute.
- Futurism vs history: when scientists, politicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs focus their theories and interventions on non-existent futures as opposed to grounding them on solid history
- Neo-Malthusian views that pushed for atomic energy: with the Nuclear Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that discovered carbon-induced climate risks as early as the 1950s, and based energy debates on the idea of a 'transition' (futurology), with a lot of coal still under their feet
Ultimately, this book has given me the understanding that today's situation is much more critical than I envisaged, and that as a society we're not talking about the culprit exacerbating climate change. Leaving me, one more time, a little extra Gramscian: pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the action.
I would 100% recommend reading this book (though not the easiest read on the planet).
December 24, 2025
Insightful book about how 'the energy transition' is a narrative that is not compatible with how different ways of producing and using different types of energy actually emerge. A key element of the energy transition-narrative is that we have been transitioning from energy source A to energy source B (for example from coal to oil).
Fressoz points out that on a global scale, we have been using new energy sources (coal or oil) on top of other sources (wood). He shows this with A LOT of statistics. He shows not only the absolute growth of the use of wood or coal (instead of its relative decline). Fressoz also underpins his argument with facts such as 'the second biggest expense of the railways in 1900, while shipping coal, was wood'. As a reader, all those facts feel overwhelming sometimes and in many cases you already know the argument.
Another point Fressoz makes is that the use of different types of energy is interrelated. The 'transition' to coal meant that railways had to be built (using wood), mines had to be constructed (using even more wood) etc. The extraction of oil needs metal, which needs coal to be produced. Different sources of energy form a kind of network instead of a transition-timeline.
Bottom line, Fressoz argues that the 'energy transition' is a concept that allows us to procrastinate real climate action.
These, and some other arguments, are very interesting and important. However, I missed a clear analysis of different 'zero-emission' energies such as solar or wind. Fressoz makes clear he is in favour of using renewables but doesn't go into detail what his argument actually means for euhh.. the energy transition (can we still use that concept?).
Fressoz points out that on a global scale, we have been using new energy sources (coal or oil) on top of other sources (wood). He shows this with A LOT of statistics. He shows not only the absolute growth of the use of wood or coal (instead of its relative decline). Fressoz also underpins his argument with facts such as 'the second biggest expense of the railways in 1900, while shipping coal, was wood'. As a reader, all those facts feel overwhelming sometimes and in many cases you already know the argument.
Another point Fressoz makes is that the use of different types of energy is interrelated. The 'transition' to coal meant that railways had to be built (using wood), mines had to be constructed (using even more wood) etc. The extraction of oil needs metal, which needs coal to be produced. Different sources of energy form a kind of network instead of a transition-timeline.
Bottom line, Fressoz argues that the 'energy transition' is a concept that allows us to procrastinate real climate action.
These, and some other arguments, are very interesting and important. However, I missed a clear analysis of different 'zero-emission' energies such as solar or wind. Fressoz makes clear he is in favour of using renewables but doesn't go into detail what his argument actually means for euhh.. the energy transition (can we still use that concept?).
January 21, 2025
This is an absolute must-read for anyone working or interested in the world's energy and climate challenge. Finally, a book on this topic that acknowledges and explains the complexity of the climate challenge with fossil fuels and other materials being very much intertwined, and compounding year after year.
Even more, instead of reiterating the well known relative shares of different types of energy and materials consumed in our world, Fressoz shows that new energies (e.g. coal after wood, oil after coal, solar after oil) historically have always compounding in our total consumption. Yes, solar and wind are growing fast, but global coal consumption is not declining whatsoever.
Also, Fressoz shares an interesting history about the upcoming of the phrase "energy transition" and about the origin of the IPCC, and the roles of government, fossil fuel companies and pro-nuclear energy groups. To me, Fressoz explains these different parts of history without really picking sides, only for the fact that reality is much more complex than is often presented.
Although Fressoz touched upon it briefly with his example on the number of materials in our current smartphones, I would have loved him going deeper into the topic of material consumption, product recycling and the connection with our global economy. It seems like he sees some opportunities in de-growth scenarios, but he did not elaborate on those.
If you are concerned about our climate, this book will definitely not put you into a happy place. But it will bring you more understanding of the great complexity we are facing. At least, that is a start...
Even more, instead of reiterating the well known relative shares of different types of energy and materials consumed in our world, Fressoz shows that new energies (e.g. coal after wood, oil after coal, solar after oil) historically have always compounding in our total consumption. Yes, solar and wind are growing fast, but global coal consumption is not declining whatsoever.
Also, Fressoz shares an interesting history about the upcoming of the phrase "energy transition" and about the origin of the IPCC, and the roles of government, fossil fuel companies and pro-nuclear energy groups. To me, Fressoz explains these different parts of history without really picking sides, only for the fact that reality is much more complex than is often presented.
Although Fressoz touched upon it briefly with his example on the number of materials in our current smartphones, I would have loved him going deeper into the topic of material consumption, product recycling and the connection with our global economy. It seems like he sees some opportunities in de-growth scenarios, but he did not elaborate on those.
If you are concerned about our climate, this book will definitely not put you into a happy place. But it will bring you more understanding of the great complexity we are facing. At least, that is a start...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2025
One of the best books on energy, climate change and materials I've read. Fressoz shows quite clearly that the absolute volume of all material consumption has increased since the Industrial Recolution, including wood - we consume multiples more wood today than ever before in history. He argues that what caused the idea of 'energy transition' to gain popularity was representing energy types as percentages rather than in absolute values. In this way it is true that wood has declined, as a percentage of overall energy consumption, but even in the early days of the industrial revolution, coal did not replace wood but was facilitated by wood. Britain in the mid-19th century used far more wood than in the 1700s and had to resort to importing massive quantities for timber props and railway sleepers. Steel, cement, fertilisers, automobiles, even wind turbines are all massively dependent on coal, oil and gas. The average car needs about 2.5tonnes of coal for its manufacture, predominantly for the steel and other metals.
I'm quite blown away by the level of research on this book, having read many of the authors Fressoz references like Vaclav Smil (my favourite non-fiction writer), Timothy Mitchell, Andreas Malm, among others.
The chapters on the history of how 'energy transitions' came to be so widely discussed and accepted are fantastic, the overall roots and framing of the 'energy transition' rhetoric having roots in the technocracy and atomic neo-Malthusian movements of the mid 1900s.
I'm quite blown away by the level of research on this book, having read many of the authors Fressoz references like Vaclav Smil (my favourite non-fiction writer), Timothy Mitchell, Andreas Malm, among others.
The chapters on the history of how 'energy transitions' came to be so widely discussed and accepted are fantastic, the overall roots and framing of the 'energy transition' rhetoric having roots in the technocracy and atomic neo-Malthusian movements of the mid 1900s.
November 30, 2024
A much necessary sobering view about the relationship of fossil fuels, their powering of the large scale manufacturing and the entrenched positions of the growth focussed polities - and their policies - that disallow for radical change
The effect of compounding of the installed stock of fossil powered tech - and the design of value chains connecting power / electricity generation (wood in ample demand to support scaling of shaft coal mining in early 20th century) to final production (amount of wood required for palette and box packaging). Fossil hardly escape - and the relative representation of demand covered by new “less impactful” energy drivers - ignore the design of the pyramid:
Its oil (car fuel) standing on top of coal (steel production) standing on top of wood (originally to support coal, now to provide cheap energy in “developing countries”)
A lot of this has to do with the growth paradigm - with the ball of climate impact continued to be pushed forward, for as long as the cash from “business as usual” can cover the “occasional negative cost”. Also a result of the capital system with margins sitting in the final production countries whereas the impact of basic extraction and energy intensive processing sits “elsewhere”.
Moving the needle partly happens by the new wealth of non-fossil fuel tycoons - but they also provide a nice distraction for the capital surplus (investment) that was in other eras sent to finance transformative programs.
The effect of compounding of the installed stock of fossil powered tech - and the design of value chains connecting power / electricity generation (wood in ample demand to support scaling of shaft coal mining in early 20th century) to final production (amount of wood required for palette and box packaging). Fossil hardly escape - and the relative representation of demand covered by new “less impactful” energy drivers - ignore the design of the pyramid:
Its oil (car fuel) standing on top of coal (steel production) standing on top of wood (originally to support coal, now to provide cheap energy in “developing countries”)
A lot of this has to do with the growth paradigm - with the ball of climate impact continued to be pushed forward, for as long as the cash from “business as usual” can cover the “occasional negative cost”. Also a result of the capital system with margins sitting in the final production countries whereas the impact of basic extraction and energy intensive processing sits “elsewhere”.
Moving the needle partly happens by the new wealth of non-fossil fuel tycoons - but they also provide a nice distraction for the capital surplus (investment) that was in other eras sent to finance transformative programs.
August 29, 2025
A Thought-Provoking and Thorough Exploration of Energy History
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz presents a compelling and well-researched narrative that challenges many of the assumptions we hold about energy, growth, and modernity. The book is clearly the result of meticulous scholarship and offers a global, critical perspective on how our energy choices have shaped — and continue to shape — our societies.
That said, the material can sometimes come across as dense or overly technical, which may make certain sections feel dry, especially for general readers unfamiliar with energy history or policy debates. Nonetheless, the book is an important contribution to the field and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the intersections of science, economics, and environmental thought.
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz presents a compelling and well-researched narrative that challenges many of the assumptions we hold about energy, growth, and modernity. The book is clearly the result of meticulous scholarship and offers a global, critical perspective on how our energy choices have shaped — and continue to shape — our societies.
That said, the material can sometimes come across as dense or overly technical, which may make certain sections feel dry, especially for general readers unfamiliar with energy history or policy debates. Nonetheless, the book is an important contribution to the field and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the intersections of science, economics, and environmental thought.
April 11, 2025
The contributions of this book are two-fold:
1) to open people's eyes to the extent two which our modern, ecocidal way of life is completely dependent on material and energy extraction (many people seem to not know or discount this by saying there is a "decoupling");
2) to thoroughly debunk the notion of "transition" in energy or materials.
In both these regards, the author does an excellent job.
My primary complaint about the book is that it focuses on these issues within the context of climate change rather than of ecological overshoot, of which climate change is just one of many symptoms.
However, this is a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent book.
1) to open people's eyes to the extent two which our modern, ecocidal way of life is completely dependent on material and energy extraction (many people seem to not know or discount this by saying there is a "decoupling");
2) to thoroughly debunk the notion of "transition" in energy or materials.
In both these regards, the author does an excellent job.
My primary complaint about the book is that it focuses on these issues within the context of climate change rather than of ecological overshoot, of which climate change is just one of many symptoms.
However, this is a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent book.
May 14, 2025
Great overview of the way that energy and material use has accumulated over time, coal adding onto wood, oil adding onto coal. Lots of interesting details but quite readable. Also a great overview towards the end of the book about the history of the idea of "energy transition" that got its start during the nuclear age. I also learned the extent to which it seems the majority of climate scientists have been techno-optimists and how few sounded the alarm that we should put great efforts into reducing our energy usage. Conclusion is depressing but only because our energy/climate situation is dire.
July 22, 2025
I found this to be a refreshing and detailed energy history, with an interesting emphasis on the connectedness and interdependency between different energy sources and materials.
Ironically as someone with a degree in ‘International Energy Transitions’, it had never occurred to me to really interrogate where this conventional phrase emerged from and so the latter part of this book was particularly interesting to me.
I was craving some elaboration on the topic of degrowth and sufficiency, in particular how energy modelling organisations might narrate scenarios incorporating these more ‘taboo’ assumptions.
Ironically as someone with a degree in ‘International Energy Transitions’, it had never occurred to me to really interrogate where this conventional phrase emerged from and so the latter part of this book was particularly interesting to me.
I was craving some elaboration on the topic of degrowth and sufficiency, in particular how energy modelling organisations might narrate scenarios incorporating these more ‘taboo’ assumptions.
November 12, 2025
More and More and More was a heavy read, I'm not going to lie. If I'm honest, I found it depressing. The upshot is that no matter what new ways of creating energy to fuel the planet, we continue to use the old, outdated, earth destroying forms, too. Consume, consume, consume. We are endlessly hungry for wood, oil, coal, 'green' energies, and beyond. Our demand is never satisfied. Well, whale oil may be the only exception, rightfully so, but that isn't entirely off the menu either.
Honestly, this was above my pay grade and beyond my comprehension much of the time. I am sure it is a useful text, and hope it can do good in the right hands, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I'm sorry to say.
Honestly, this was above my pay grade and beyond my comprehension much of the time. I am sure it is a useful text, and hope it can do good in the right hands, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I'm sorry to say.
April 19, 2025
The book really comes to life in its final third. From that point on, it serves as an excellent contribution to both the degrowth movement and to those who are far less techno-optimistic about potential solutions to climate change than the likes of the IPCC. However, before that, many of the numbers feel arbitrary, as if they have been cherry-picked, never mind that, quite often, they have nothing to do with energy, even indirectly. Getting through the first ~140 pages was not easy, but I’m glad it finished strongly.
February 3, 2025
Book starts real strong with a great overview of how energy sources have developed over time, stops short from building on it to assess future of renewables/nuclear etc.. Author shows clearly why the idea of energy transition is a myth, and that if we really are serious about fighting global warming, it’ll take much more than wind turbines and PV parks.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2025
Material symbiosis, accumulation of FFs og en nedslagtning af tanken om energiomstilling som noget der er sket før og vil ske(et sted derude i fremtiden pga. technofix) igen. Vi skal ikke snakke om omstilling - for selv grøn energi bruger FF og kan bruges til dårlige ting og kan have rebound effekt - men om “material consumption levels and distribution. Hov - var det lige degrowth???
November 16, 2025
The first half is data heavy and talks a lot about the historic lumber and coal industries. I found it hard at first to connect this to relevant topics today, but the second half did that well.
We need to change how we make and consume things if we really plan to decarbonize. cement and steel use a lot, and we just need to use less.
We need to change how we make and consume things if we really plan to decarbonize. cement and steel use a lot, and we just need to use less.
February 15, 2025
Sobering but very useful view on energy transitions and on the symbiosis of fuels rather than substitution.
Relatively well written but would also have loved a more encyclopedic but straight to the point writing
Relatively well written but would also have loved a more encyclopedic but straight to the point writing
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