If we can reduce that demand as we continue to build out renewables, we can decommission fossil fuel power generation at huge rates.

That's a fine idea but wouldn't it be better to build out renewables specifically to decommission fossil generation.

If we can reduce that demand as we continue to build out renewables, we can decommission fossil fuel power generation at huge rates.

One point the author makes is that the data obscures a real phenomenon where switching from an inefficient fossil fuel source to an efficient renewable to do the exact same task actually already reduces the demand for energy.

For example, switching from a car that gets 30 miles per gallon to an electric that gets 3.3 miles per kWh, for a person who drives the American average of 12,000 miles per year, will switch from 400 gallons of gasoline to 3,636 kWh. The energy content of gasoline is 33.4 kWh/gallon, so that's a drop in demand from 13,364 kWh to 3,636 kWh, a 72.8% drop in energy consumption while not changing any actual behavior.

Similar analysis can be done for replacing on-premise fossil fuel combustion with heat pumps for heating buildings and heating water and cooking food. Each of these ends up bringing off-grid fossil fuel use to on-grid electricity use, so that although there is demand destruction overall, that is still an increase in demand on the grid itself, so that looking at the grid stats alone obscures a huge shift.

And the feedback loop on these accelerating changes will make for interesting, somewhat unpredictable results, if the supply chain for gasoline and diesel starts feeling economic pinch in certain places, it may further accelerate adoption and actually close down certain routes for fossil fuel supplies.

With large scale battery projects being built at record pace, where more than half of the battery capacity on US grids was built in the last 2 years (maybe less), we can expect to see the economics of solar energy also push for accelerated adoption even in the face of regulatory resistance from the Trump administration.

The goal is not to have a 100% clean electricity grid, but to not use fossil fuels at all. The problem with that is that a lot of fossil fuel consumption is best replaced by an electrical alternative. For example the combustion engine in a car with a battery powered electric drive train or gas heating with a heat pump. So we are unlikely to reduce that demand in the short term.

It's the 'spending will increase to match your income thing' that many experience in their twenties, but writ large by billionaires who got there by scamming (and extracting wealth from the masses).