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Special · September 6, 2026

Energy — the precondition for everything else

A lecture by Prof. em. Dr. Lino Guzzella (former ETH president) at the IWP Lucerne, translated into the HDH why-format: causal chains from the kilowatt-hour to geopolitics.

🎓 IWP University of Lucerne⏱ ~15 min🌍 Energy & Macro
01 / The core thesis

Energy is the precondition for all other factors

In the textbook
2–3%
of value creation · "barely worth mentioning"
Its true value
cost of failure
not the price in the normal state
Economic term
complementary
no capital: slower · no power: standstill

"Energy is not everything, but without energy everything is nothing." – Lino Guzzella, IWP Lucerne

02 / The complementary factor

Why expensive energy drives out the knowledge first

1
In the short run energy is price-inelastic — consumption barely reacts to price.
2
But in the long run, when energy stays expensive, first the energy-intensive processes migrate away, then the investment, finally the knowledge.
📉
The case study in real time: the deindustrialization of Germany after the loss of Russian pipeline gas.
⚙️
Note: energy was never just a good — it was always also a weapon.
03 / The strongest chain · food

Eight billion people — on the same land

Population
3 → 8 bn
since the Second World War
Farmland
+20%
almost unchanged
Yield per area
×3
tripled
Without fertilizer
½ world
would starve

By the old Malthusian logic we should long since be starving. Why aren't we? The answer is a physically proven causal chain — next slide.

03 / Causal chain · from gas to the plate

Natural gas → fertilizer → feeding half the world

Step 1
Plants need nitrogen
air is 80% N₂, but triple-bonded
→
Step 2
Haber-Bosch
N₂ → ammonia → urea
→
Step 3
Needs lots of gas
2–3% of global CO₂ emissions
→
Step 4
Hormuz chokepoint
gas mainly from Qatar · ~600,000 t/week
→
Result
A survival question
bread +10 cents here — a staple in Egypt

"We'll just stop with fossils" — Guzzella's reply: and how, then, do you feed half the world? This is no longer correlation, it is causation.

04 / Geopolitics

All flows run into Europe

🌍
Kissinger: "Whoever controls the flow of energy controls the world."
🛢️
America exports enormous amounts of LNG and oil — Europe is a pure consumer.
🚫
Russian gas over, the Qatar route harder. Guzzella: we'd need a new Bismarck who can juggle thirteen balls, not five.
05 / Oil, recession & the gas price

Why the oil price didn't explode this time

World oil use
~100 mn
barrels per day
Iran conflict
−16%
suddenly fell away
Why moderate?
oil = water
finds a way · China taps reserves/coal
Gas price US↔EU
factor 5
Henry Hub ~⅕ of TTF → BASF leaves

It is not the outage itself that is the problem, but the transient — the transition in which we are poorly positioned. The 16% come back, but slowly.

06 / Coal & nuclear

The calming factor and the energy density

Coal
>100 years
~9 bn t/yr · geostrategically everywhere
1 liter of nuclear fuel
≈ 1 GWh
electricity · unbeatable density
Swiss annual demand
40 years
fuel fits in one swimming pool

Coal is the dirtiest primary carrier but practically unlimited — Guzzella expects its use to rise worldwide. From coal you can make gas, diesel, petrol and jet fuel.

07 / Climate — counted honestly

We don't just keep burning — we burn ever more

📈
The CO₂ curve: first derivative always positive (we reduce nothing), second derivative positive — the curvature. We burn ever more.
⚠️
Since Paris 2015 fossil use is not flat — it has risen 14%. The only real dip was the Corona lockdown.
🌏
By 2050 the world grows to 9.5 bn people. Those +1.5 bn have the same right to energy — denying it, Guzzella calls unethical.
08 / The model student

Who really decarbonizes? The USA

Model student
USA
consistently less CO₂ · fracking, coal→gas
Largest emitter
China
India has overtaken the EU
Germany
203 GW
2.5× peak load — not reliably enough
German net investment 2024
~0
investment minus depreciation

The causation is purely economic: in the USA, switching from coal to cheap frack-gas halves CO₂. The market did more for the climate there than the declaration of intent in Europe.

09 / Causal chain · useful vs. good

The Swiss winter gap

Useful
Diesel generator
always power — but CO₂, not "good"
→
Good
Solar
in core winter only ~3.5% of nameplate
→
Result
~20× the area
plus batteries for one generator
→
Demand
60 → 90 TWh
EVs +12 · heat pumps +9 · data +6
→
Gap
~½ missing
8 TWh import — no contracts

Feynman after Challenger: "Reality must take precedence over ideology, because nature cannot be fooled." That is the standard. Guzzella's question: where are the supply contracts with the neighbors?

Conclusion · the economic lever

Do the right thing right

Avoid CO₂ · electric cars
~$1,000/t
expensive lever
Avoid CO₂ · coal→gas in Asia
~$60/t
almost a third for $1,000 bn
The recipe
a CO₂ price
revenue-neutral, not subsidies

Security of supply is a location factor of the first rank. Whoever plans on hope plans right past the outage.
Energy is not everything, but without energy everything is nothing.
Stay informed. HDH Macro Intelligence – next week.

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