Transition to a new energy source, automation will take time

I like and admire Gwynne Dyer. But this time (robots will replace humans), his points leave me with some questions. Regardless of climate considerations, there is no doubt that some day the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of extracting hydrocarbons will become unfavourable and we need to start soon to be looking for effective alternatives and to design a flexible and adaptable transition to the new decarbonized energy source.

Such transition will likely last several decades and will take careful and lengthy planning. It will not happen by political decree. A successful and seamless transition may start with policy makers, but it will have to be designed by technical, economic and environmental teams examining every detail and implication during and after the transition. It is naïve to think that we can change our energy mode just because political ideology states so. We have created artificial environments that we call cities. These depend on massive and uninterrupted energy supplies.

Mr. Dyer talks as if the robots will mine the materials, manufacture, build/test and validate themselves. As Tesla found, it takes only one of the thousands of robots to malfunction for the entire production line to come to a halt. In order to have robots doing our jobs, they need to be extremely reliable and have backups. It will take thousands of jobs to design, mine materials, manufacture, commission, program, operate, maintain, fine tune and do quality control in any automated production. To say that people should stay home and collect government handouts is wishful thinking. Automated production requires high capital investment that may not be advisable before a market for the product has been first established through traditional methods.

New developments take place when creative people have spare time. Before you automate a process, you must first try it manually. Before you manually operate you need training, etc., so what we will likely see is that the quality and requirements of the jobs will increase. Those that do not want to improve themselves will, yes, stay home and collect UI.

Cosmos Voutsinos

Lethbridge