Energy transition and materials: new limits?

Summary More than forty years ago, in its report to the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth, MIT first raised the question of global limits to economic growth. This was followed by oil shocks and counter-shocks, awareness of climate change, and a new surge in oil and commodity prices before the 2008 financial crisis. Since 2014, the price front has returned to normal, and market observers are even predicting a sustainable end to the commodity super-cycle (Mc Kinsey Global Institute, 2017). Despite this, the climate peril calls for a major techno-logical transition. It must lead, by 2050, to a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in particular by reducing the consumption of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. This requires the fastest possible deployment of energy efficiency, renewable energies and, in countries where it is possible, nuclear energy. The fossil fuel energy system, which has been developed over two centuries of industrial revolution, must be deconstructed and decarbonized in 35 years. The transition from fossil fuels to decarbonized energies, if it takes place as necessary before the middle of the century, will be an unprecedented historical event. The magnitude of the challenge leads some to doubt that the future of the planet's climate is at stake. If we place ourselves in this perspective of accelerated transition, the question arises as to how it could be facilitated by rapid progress in low carbon technologies. The energy transition could, on the contrary, be slowed down by the availability of resources needed to fully renew the energy capital stock.