And it’s going to be very difficult to replace them - not only in the time frame from now to 2050, but at all. Electricity can’t do it. And the materials and massive investments required to even make a major step are vastly misunderstood.
True - but not by everyone. Smil’s point is basically the reason why we have the “blah blah blah” climate policies that are in place through most of the western developed economies: grand rhetoric paired with actual measures that are far too small to make a real dent in emissions. Policy-makers are well aware of the scale involved with decarbonizing, and they know that there’s no practical way to make sufficient changes at that scale. They also know their voters don’t want to hear that.
Albaby