Collapse

The problem has not yet fully manifested because renewables are a multiplier of fossil energy and fossil energy driven extraction of fossils and mineral resources, fossil driven agriculture and so on while we're yet only slightly past the cusp of net energy per capita production and about the cusp of net energy production. You already see the problems in accounting systems like SEEDS.

If you look at the world primary energy use https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy you see that there has been no energy source transition but addition. Biofuels allow you roughly Edo era Japan https://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-04-05/japans-sustainable-society-edo-period-1603-1867/ technology and population density and occupation structure, assuming a mostly pristine ecosystem.

Early EVs began in the well developed industry era, which required significant coal use. You don't need rare earth magnets for windmills or water wheels, but it limits us to milling grain, pumping water and running blacksmith forges. Without cheap and abundant natural gas no cheap and abundant nitrate fertilizer. Without diesel and agricultural machines we're back to subsistence farming, but with the handicap of 8+ billions people already around, in a degraded ecosystem. Without bunker fuels no modern supply chains. Without diesel electric hybrid trucks and monster excavators no large scale mineral extraction and processing of progressively poor ores.

Photovoltaics is just great, but it has to power agriculture, mining, industry and everything, besides just itself (do look into why it cannot power even the supply chain of its own production, it is not just about ERoEI). Adding wind, a lesser scalable resource does not change anything. Molecular nanotechnology systems could probably do it, but need sustained high technology regime to be developed. We have basically abandoned tried building them in the time space of the last half century.