Smil y las transiciones energéticas

Uno de los grandes sabios en energía de nuestro tiempo, Vaclav Smil, vuelve a aportar sentido común al debate sobre el modelo energético, con dos mensajes clave: las transiciones llevan tiempo:

Energy transitions—shifts from a dominant source (or a combination of sources) of energy to a new supply arrangement, or from a dominant prime mover to a new converter—are inherently prolonged affairs whose duration is measured in decades or generations, not in years.

Y, en parte por ello, no se entiende cómo no se pone más interés en el ahorro como solución urgente para nuestros problemas:

These are uncertain times, economically, politically and socially. The need for new departures seems obvious, but effective actions have failed to keep pace with the urgency of needed changes—particularly so in affluent democracies of North America, Europe and Japan as they contemplate their overdrawn accounts, faltering economies, aging populations and ebbing global influence. In this sense the search for new energy modalities is part of a much broader change whose outcome will determine the fortunes of the world’s leading economies and of the entire global civilization for generations to come. None of us can foresee the eventual contours of new energy arrangements—but could the world’s richest countries go wrong by striving for moderation of their energy use?