Big Oil and Clean Energy: Are We At an Impasse?

The theme for my next book is essentially a take-off on the last one — “facts and fantasies,” exploring the “tough realities” of the migration to renewable energy.  I want to understand the nitty-gritty of the pragmatic issues that stand in the way: technological, economic, and political.  And although I know it’s not a good idea to make assumptions regarding what one expects to find before one sets out of a path of research, I wonder if that’s humanly possible. 

I have to admit that I DO have an assumption: it’s that big oil and the corruptive influence of its 7000 lobbyists have built an impasse.  It’s not really complicated — and it’s not even clandestine.  We have a system of laws that allows corporations to exert tremendous influence over the law-making process.  How surprised should we be that the energy industry has engineered an environment that guarantees its own survival (even at the expense of ours)?  Wouldn’t we be more surprised if these guys were voluntarily turning over the profit stream to someone else?

The problem, of course, is that this is not an idle intellectual exercise; it’s ruining our lives — in several different ways.  Categorize them all as expenses, if you will.  Our country is headed into financial collapse, yet continues to borrow $300 billion a year to buy foreign oil, simultaneously enriching some of the world’s most evil people.  We spend an extra $63 billion a year in the additional healthcare costs that are necessary to care for the people whose lives are trashed by ingesting the waste products of fossil fuels combustion.  And we fight wars that are catastrophically expensive — in every sense of the world. 

And here’s the truly sad part: It may be that there is not a damn thing we can do about it. 

I’m reminded of the B movie from the early 1970s “Billy Jack,” in which the martial arts expert protagonist explains to his pathetic opponent exactly how he’s going to kick him in the head, and then says deliberately, “and you know what? There’s not a damn thing you’re gonna be able to do about it.”  Check out the link above; it’s a great line from the annals of cheesy film.  I just hope it doesn’t apply to the future of our planet.