The World Electricity Supply - a decade of de-carbonization?

[GliderGuider]

2. There is a limit to the amount of efficiency that can be wrung out of a system.

In order to stay even, overall energy efficiency must improve as fast as system growth. We're certainly not doing that now, and the low-hanging efficiency fruit has already been picked.

The other problem is the question of "doing the same amount". That brings in the whole non-energy side of the equation - the biodiversity loss due to habitat destruction, the soil fertility and fresh water loss - not to mention the CO2 that's already wreaking havoc in the atmosphere.

In order to mitigate as much of the damage as we can in as short a time as possible, we cannot rely on efficiency. We have to reduce the overall level of human activity, aka consumption and population growth.