When techno-optimism goes wrong

Prime Future 216: the newsletter for innovators in livestock, meat, and dairy

As early as the 1880s, peak oil supply in the United States was predicted to occur within 5, then 10, then 20 years. The timeline kept moving further out as oil production continued to increase with the emergence of new technologies.

Meanwhile, a recent report by The International Energy Agency claimed that Peak Oil Demand growth will happen by 2029, at which point the world will be "swimming in excess oil."

That prediction does not indicate a new trend. As early as the 2010s, peak oil demand has been forecasted to happen soon-ish. Shell and BP predicted peak oil demand would happen as early as 2019. Consultants' predictions range, but McKinsey predicts peak oil demand will occur in the early 2030s.

But this time, unlike the 1880s predictions of Peak Oil Supply, the Peak Oil Demand predictions are banking on technological breakthroughs.

Is it possible these forecasts are overestimating technology or at least overestimating the timeline for clean energy technology to become scalable and cost-effective?

That is an interesting dynamic in historical vs current predictions around energy. Now let's do food.

In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that "population growth would outpace food production, leading to famine, lower living standards, and societal collapse." A prediction of Peak Food Production, and therefore Peak People.

Malthus and the many followers who came after him had no way of knowing the impact of future breakthrough technologies like synthetic fertilizer, antibiotics, refrigeration, livestock genetics, plant breeding innovations, and so on and on.

Fast forward to 2023, when venture capitalist Marc Andreessen published the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto," which covered a range of predictions, including this one:

"We believe our planet is dramatically under-populated, compared to the population we could have with abundant intelligence, energy, and material goods.

We believe the global population can quite easily expand to 50 billion people or more, and then far beyond that as we ultimately settle other planets."

We’ve gone from Malthusian predictions to Andreesen predictions in <300 years. 👀

Bold predictions make great headlines. The problem with all predictions is that they are usually wrong. The question is, how wrong?

Previous generations underestimated the impact of technology and how new technologies would increase food and energy production at lower costs while unleashing a whole host of other economic and social benefits, from decreasing the percentage of people in extreme poverty to increasing life expectancy.

We could say they were techno-naive. They just didn’t know.

But not us. Most humans in 2024...techno-naivete? Nah. We have big expectations of future technology because we are living the benefits of past technology breakthroughs.

We know what the Industrial Revolution did for the world. We know what the digital revolution is doing for the world. We know advances are being made in every corner of science and technology. We see evidence of it. Every day. It's obvious.

But, is it possible that our collective techno-optimism skews our long-term food & energy expectations as much as previous generations' techno-naivete skewed their long-term expectations about food and oil production?

Is it possible that we are techno-OVER-optimistic?

The answer to that question, and what we do about it, matters because food and energy are what enable the economy and life as we know it. And long-term expectations shape short-term decisions.

Let's start here.