NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.
This essay comes from the book ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Watershed Media and Post Carbon Institute.
Download: Alternative Energy Challenges
Alternative Energy Challenges – David Fridley
Since 1995, David Fridley has been a staff scientist at the Energy Analysis Program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He is also deputy group leader of Lawrence Berkeley’s China Energy Group, which collaborates with China on end-user energy efficiency, government energy management programs, and energy policy research. Mr. Fridley has nearly 30 years of experience working and living in China in the energy sector, and is a fluent Mandarin speaker. Prior to joining the Lab, he spent 12 years as a consultant on downstream oil markets in the Asia-Pacific region and as business development manager for Caltex China. He has written and spoken extensively on the energy and ecological limits of biofuels. David is co-author with Richard Heinberg of Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy (2016). David is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute.
Tags: energy transition, EROI, Renewable Energy
Related Articles
'SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID
FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id)
WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.ID NOT IN (1698323) AND (
wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (1)
) AND wp_posts.post_type = \'post\' AND ((wp_posts.post_status = \'publish\'))
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID
ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC
LIMIT 0, 3'
By Robert Jensen, Savage Minds
With age, I’ve become more aware of the world’s complexity but also better equipped to come to simple, albeit painful, conclusions: We need to replace fantasies of endless growth with ideas about managing the contraction.
September 16, 2026
By Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World
In this post, I examine differences in economic behaviour by comparing two types of periods: those with low energy affordability and those with high energy affordability.
August 26, 2026
Comments
Welcome to the new Resillience commenting system!
We have moved from the former Disqus commenting system to a new system as of September 10, 2026.
We made this change because of privacy concerns regarding Disqus. It's also part of a set of changes to bring more services to the Resilience community under a single login: commenting, (coming September 2026), and online courses (coming 2027). Unfortunately, your old Disqus comments may not reliably link to your account in this new system. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.