The Consequences of Relying on Renewable Energy Sources

A UK paper, The Register, reports the conclusions of two scientists that had worked at Google on renewable energy projects--renewable energy will never replace non-renewable sources. The whole article is worth reading, but this portion caught my eye for its application to the purpose of this blog:

In reality, well before any such stage was reached [i.e., trying to replace all hydrocarbon based energy sources], energy would become horrifyingly expensive - which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably). This in turn means that everyone would become miserably poor and economic growth would cease (the more honest hardline greens admit this openly). That, however, means that such expensive luxuries as welfare states and pensioners, proper healthcare (watch out for that pandemic), reasonable public services, affordable manufactured goods and transport, decent personal hygiene, space programmes (watch out for the meteor!) etc etc would all have to go - none of those things are sustainable without economic growth.

(Underline added).