Renewable Energy and a Clash of the Titans
Here’s an article that communicates the truth of the clean energy scene i.e., that fossil fuels have more than enough clout in this world to have survived the short-term threat to their existence, and will remain prominent in the global energy picture for at least the coming few decades. The article argues that this is a function of the past few years’ financial results, in which the ROI associated with solar and wind disappointed investors.
To be fair, I suppose there were some people who expected these new technologies to be hugely profitable right out of the chute, though there is certainly no precedent in world history for results like that. Personally, I think the issues are more wide-reaching, and include the following:
From a policy perspective, essentially nothing is being done to put a price on carbon, and deal with the fact that energy from fossil sources is artificially cheap. The programs that are popping up around the world on a helter-skelter basis, e.g., renewable energy credits and carbon trading schemes are so transitory and so susceptible to manipulation that it’s hard to imagine that they’ll succeed. Is it possible they’re designed to fail?
The stranglehold that the oil companies have on the world of policy-making is so complete that there is little hope for a level playing field on which solar, wind, energy storage, smart-grid, etc. can compete fairly. Renewable energy advocates face endless frustration regarding even the most obvious, common-sensical ideas, e.g., removing the tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil industry, and enabling solar and wind the same low-cost tools to raise capital (Master Limited Partnerships) that are enjoyed by coal, oil, and gas.
Coinidentally, Friday was the birthday of Niccolo Machiavelli, who, in “The Prince,” wrote advice to those in power with respect to how they might retain it. According to The Writer’s Almanac, Machiavelli wrote that “morality was irrelevant when it came to running a state, and that leaders should be willing to perform evil acts when it became necessary to hold onto their power and maintain the security of the state.” He included many terse suggestions along these lines, including: “A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.”
Having said that, I see a world in which public rancor in this space is growing louder on a week-to-week basis. It’s possible that we’ve reached a critical mass in terms of the number of people who demand sustainable solutions to the world’s energy picture, and will not simply sit around and watch the environment continue to heat up and otherwise decay, simply so that the world’s uber-rich can continue to get richer. There are many millions of people who are part of more than 200,000 groups worldwide whose purposes are sustainability and environmental justice — and these numbers are rising every day.
It’s rather like the old concept of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, or, as it’s described in Hollywood, a Clash of the Titans.
I’m reminded of Strother Martin’s line to Steve McQueen in Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is failure to communicate.” Most people remain blissfully ignorant of the many lethal and devastating costs that fossil energy firms externalize to achieve their unprecedented profits on the presently colossal scale.
The preponderance of the media is held by a fistful of entities with an agenda not distantly aligned with that of fossil firms and other elite interests.
There is an old adage that power does not seek wisdom and wisdom does not seek power.
Ignorance, however, is not bliss. It’s excruciatingly painful. There is merely a delay or transfer of the pain. Ignorance now causes pain later, or one person’s ignorance causes another person’s pain. In this case, both are operative.
Collective ignorance in past decades is causing a present and accelerating severity of pain, and that pain will grow exponentially as ignorance persists. The power elite’s ignorance of the violence that their own behavior visits upon their own progeny will cause the impending misery that is shortly to be felt by their progeny, along with all life in the biosphere.
Another quote is instructive here – “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.” John Lennon observed that the masses have the real power, but their power is rendered moot to the extent their ignorance is deepened and preserved.
I’m with you all the way. We most certainly do have more power than we think.
Luke was played by Paul Newman, btw. 🙂
Ah, yes, you’re correct, of course – I was thinking of McQueen’s role in the Great Escape. Fine films both.
Agreed!