Energy transition: a talk and Q&A with author Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

Event information

MHSG is pleased to welcome author and eminent historian of science, environment and technology, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz to talk around his fascinating new book MORE AND MORE AND MORE: AN ALL-CONSUMING HISTORY OF ENERGY, Allen Lane 2024, which takes a novel look at the history of energy.

Livestreamed from Paris, the evening will offer a rare opportunity to pick the impressive brain of this visionary thinker, and to debate the future of ‘energy transition’.

“A necessary, eye-opening and frequently gobsmacking book … Removing fossil fuels from the energy mix will require something akin to an amputation. The vivid sense of the scale and complexity of the world’s material and energetic flows provided by this book make it clear what a difficult, and possibly bloody operation that will have to be …” The Economist

Fressoz debunks the idea that there is a series of transitions in the history of energy – wood making way for coal, followed by shifts to oil, gas and now, possibly, renewables. Instead, he explains we have cumulative growth – the More and More and More of his title – where new supplies of energy just add to the mix.

So, the coming of the railways replaced stagecoaches, but increased the use of horses, to haul wagons from freight yards. Greater use of coal meant an increase in the use of wood, but for pitprops in mines rather than fuel. And the coming of oil meant huge quantities of wood to make barrels. Rockefeller being one big supplier.

What next then? And if energy transitions did not happen, why is the idea current? How did it become, since the 1970s, “the future of our governments, the future of consulting firms and international organizations, in short, the future of reasonable people?” as Fressoz asks.

The event will be available to watch live and thereafter on the MHSG YouTube archive at: https://www.youtube.com/live/jGh9r1TeymI