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Energy Transition, or Anthropic Transfer?

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Existing critiques of the energy transition — extractivism, rebound effects, technological debt — are typically treated as separate problems, leaving unanswered how they connect as components of a single mechanism of disorder displacement. This paper applies the concept of anthropy — the hypothesis that social systems displace disorder rather than resolve it — to the dominant model of energy transition. Drawing on IEA critical minerals data (IEA, 2023), IPCC consumption-based accounting frameworks (IPCC, 2022), and recent rebound-effect syntheses (Brockway et al., 2021), it shows that the transition shifts disorder spatially (from fossil fuels to mining in the Global South) and temporally (from carbon emissions to technological debt), while carbon accounting metrics function as the key invisibilisation device. The paper proposes three criteria for evaluating a less displacive transition: reduced spatial distance between consumption and extraction, shortened temporal deferral, and political visibility of residual transfers.

Source: Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19439920

Author: Lalut, Stéphane

Language: English

Topic: Global Energy and Sustainability Research

Subfield: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Field: Energy

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Affordable and clean energy, Climate action

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W7150871627

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