But isn’t this a feature of every technological improvement? You need fossil fuel energy to be able to extract renewable energy, yes, but there’s no reason to believe you couldn’t replace it with renewable energy down the line.
It’s sort of like how you bootstrap a compiler: the first version of a new language tool chain needs to be implemented in some other language. But then you can make it “self-hosted” by implementing it in itself.
> yes, but there’s no reason to believe you couldn’t replace it with renewable energy down the line.
Is there any chance of this happening by, say, 2050? I don't think so. The whole "energy transition" idea is a fallacy. Today we burn more coal, petrol and gas than ever before. We simply don't know how to manufacture solar panels and wine turbines without fossil fuels.
It’s sort of like how you bootstrap a compiler: the first version of a new language tool chain needs to be implemented in some other language. But then you can make it “self-hosted” by implementing it in itself.