"You think a physicist doesn’t know the thermo of the current system?'

In that case, you know that every single gram of oil, coal and gas at ever-diminishing EROEI's can and will be used. Not much point in gaslighting ourselves about that. No amount of wishful thinking is going to change that. Rather use our sense of realisme to think forward.

Fusion is at best decades still out, nuclear slow, extremely expensive and only in part useful as a replacement, wind, pv, tidal are and will remain a drop in the energy ocean, also in part due to massive material shortages.

In the end, the only rational solution is population decrease. Back to more or less pre-fossil-fuel levels. Back to before 1870 when we had bio&solar based societies. (today we are far more efficient but also consume much more) So closer to 1bln instead of the 10bln we are now heading for. The real and extremely uncomfortable question is how, at what speed and at what price of quality of life.

"enjoy" his posts on the topic > https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/12/the-simple-story/#more-2778