Alternative Energy is a Viable Solution

In my last post, I posited that I think alternative energy sources and technoscientific innovation can play a major role in solving our energy crisis.  They are not the sole solutions, but we should not dismiss them as easily as the authors of The Energy Reader, Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner seem to have.

There are clearly a lot of barriers at present to using renewables.  Since lack of infrastructure is one of the primary challenges, we must commit to building the infrastructure required for them.  As I write this, the US Senate is voting on a bill that would approve the building of the Keystone XL pipeline.  So, clearly, the idea of building new energy infrastructure is already on the table.  Hopefully, we will choose to build infrastructure for renewables instead.

We can also expand renewable energy gathering in the form of micropower, as Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner mentioned.  We should use programs like Solarize Troy to empower homeowners to put solar panels on their houses.  Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner state that “algal biofuel needs just the right mix of sun, water, and nutrients and may be difficult to produce at industrial scales.”  While this is likely true, algal biofuel  could be used as a form of micropower in places where it grows easily.  For instance, Kibbutz Ketura in Southern Israel produces algae, so they could use it as a source of micropower.

Most of the possible location for large-scale hydropower are already in use, but what about small-scale hydropower production?  There may be places where there used to be hydropower (such as mills), but it is no longer there.  For instance, on this Poestenkill (a brook south of the RPI campus, in Troy), there used to be several mills powered by the water, but now the Mount Ida Hydroelectric Plant is the facility that uses it for power.  More could be built, and the same holds true for other locations.

Nuclear power is also a promising option.  At some point, we will have safer nuclear reactors.  I realize that people have been saying this for years and yet it has not happened, but I think that eventually it will.  There are still issues with nuclear power, but far fewer than with fossil fuels.

I also don’t think we should give up on the idea of technoscientific innovation helping.  It can’t provide all of the answers, but it can provide some.  Perhaps we will invent solar panels that don’t require such rare materials.  Perhaps we’ll find new ways of harnessing the sun’s energy.  Perhaps we’ll be able to harness energy from as yet unused sources, such as lightning.  And we will hopefully continue to find ways to use energy more efficiently, and perhaps to recapture energy that is currently being lost. 

Of course, we still need to reduce our energy usage and find a way to make sure population does not continue to increase exponentially, but I think that alternative energy sources and technoscientific innovation are a viable primary solution.

Is it true that transitioning to alternative energy sources will not solve the problem?

The authors of The Energy Reader, Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner, posit that our energy crisis cannot be solved merely, or even mostly, by transitioning to non-fossil fuel energy sources and by technoscientific innovation.  Their thesis is that no matter what we do, our growth makes relying on any current or yet-to-be-discovered energy sources impossible.  But is this truly the case?  Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner explain why alternative energy sources like renewables and nuclear have many issues that would make relying on them difficult – low Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI), intermittency, lack of infrastructure, difficulty with storage.  However, they did not provide sufficient evidence that these sources, combined with one another and with further innovation in both obtaining energy and using it efficiently, cannot provide the amount of energy that our world currently uses, or will use in the near future.  In order to be convinced that this is the case, I would need to hear about countries that had maxed out their usage of alternative energy sources and still could not use them to obtain 100% of their energy.  Of course, this does not mean that I am convinced that these sources (combined with innovations) can avert the crisis without drastic population reduction.  I believe that it remains to be seen.

At this point, I agree with Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner that continued exponential population growth is not feasible, but I think we can do more with alternative energy sources than they give us credit for.  I think that if we make appropriate changes in infrastructure and make more discoveries, we can serve the world’s energy needs for a while to come, even accounting for the fact that countries that currently do not use much energy (such as those in Africa) will most likely increase their energy usage.  It’s important to solve the population problem, but I think that alternative energy sources can buy us time to do that, and we are not necessarily destined for disaster.  Population is actually going down in many industrialized countries, so it is reasonable to guess that when currently nonindustrialized countries become industrialized, their populations will also decrease.  So it may be that the problem of population will in some sense solve itself.  Though, of course, we cannot assume that, and must apply the precautionary principle to the idea of choosing not to do anything active about overpopulation (and, in general, should apply to precautionary principle not only to projects we are considering starting, but also to continuing to do business as usual).

The Intersection of Environmental Justice with Race, Class, and Gender

In the documentary A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet, civil rights activist James Farmer says, “If we do not save the environment, whatever we do in civil rights or the war on poverty will be of no meaning, because then we will have the equality of extinction.”  He makes a good point, but I think that environmental justice takes different forms depending on race, class, and gender, and that different categories of people are affected differently by environmental harm.

Around the middle of the film, we are told about a plan in 1982 to locate a hazardous landfill in Warren County, North Carolina.  At the time, the county was 75% black, yet had no black people on the County Commission.  This, to me, raises suspicion; was Warren County chosen as a location because the white people making the decision consciously or subconsciously valued black people less?  I think it is likely, though of course there is no way to prove it.  In any case, this was not an isolated occurrence.  Black people, and poor people, are often disproportionally affected by environmental hazards.

The US is not the only place where people of color are unfairly adversely affected by things like this.  It seems to be easier for companies to exploit or endanger people in developing countries (which are often non-white) than in developed ones (which are often white); those countries don’t have structures in place to resist that colonialism, and often have less strict regulations and labor laws.  However, companies certainly manage exploit and endanger people in developed countries, as well, and I am not sure of the extent of the disparity.  This was evidenced, to some extent, in the film Big Men; Kosmos was initially able to come in and profit from Ghanaian oil.  And would Dupont have been able to get away with what they did in Bhopal, India if they had done it in America instead?  I’m inclined to think not, although perhaps they would have, given how badly the Love Canal incident was handled.

Speaking of which, one thing I noticed while watching the Love Canal segment in A Fierce Green Fire was the phrasing used in the health department’s response to the health study the residents had done.  They dismissed it on the grounds of it having been “done by housewives with a vested interest.”  This derogatory use of the term "housewife" implies that they valued the study less because it had been done by women.

So, it seems clear that environmental justice issues intersect with issues of race, class, and gender.  One of the people featured in A Fierce Green Fire mentioned that Civil Rights and Environmental groups didn’t get together for a while, but hopefully now the intersections will be taken into account and the movements will join forces.  They will both be more powerful that way.

Different Judgments, Same Narrative

On page 95 of The Energy Reader,  authors Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner discuss the idea that there are two pervasive myths about the future in our society; the myth of progress and the myth of apocalypse.

The first, they posit, is the idea that “human history… is a grand tale of human improvement” (Butler 95).  It is a belief that throughout human history, our species and the societies we create have been getting progressively better and better.  Humans used to be primitive and superstitious, this myth says, but then something changed and led us on the path to where we are now; civilized and have scientific knowledge that allows us to lead better lives and have a greater understanding of our world.  Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner further posit that the myth of progressed in predicated on the idea of limitlessness.  In the past, limits (such as that on the amount of energy available to us) gave way before us as we gain technological knowledge and skill, so the impending limits (on fossil fuel use, CO2 production, and population, to name a few) will give way as well as our knowledge increases, posit believers in the myth of progress. 

The myth of apocalypse, on the other hand, is a myth that “people once lived in harmony with their world, each other, and themselves, but that golden age ended with a disastrous wrong turning and things have gone downhill ever since.”  According to this myth, at some point, things changed and led us out of harmony and into a chaotic world where priorities are misplaced and people are frenzied and lonely.  Our society, posit believers in the myth of apocalypse, is on a collision course and will soon fail in an epic manner.

Neither of these myths are correct, say Butler, Lerch, and Wuerthner.  Contrary to the tenets of the myth of progress, there truly are limits, and progress is not always good.  Also, our society did not actually change as radically over the centuries as believers of this myth think.  Progress is also not inevitable; when we run into limits, progress will slow down begin to move in the opposite direction.  On the other hand, our civilization will not crash and burn.  Yes, there will be famine and war, the authors say, and people will eventually be using technology of the level available before the industrial revolution, but society will remain intact.  Also, this regress will not happen immediately, but rather will take many decades.

What I find interesting is about these two myths is that in fact they are incredibly similar.  They have make different value judgments about what is right, and different beliefs about what is successful, but ultimately the narratives they describe are the same.  In both beliefs, life used to be simpler, people had less knowledge, and humans and nature had much closer interaction.  Then, something changed, and society became more complex, humanity conquered nature, we gained greater knowledge, our social mores changed, and individuals had greater opportunities.  And we are going to continue along this trajectory to its natural conclusion.

The disagreements, then, are about whether these things -- complexity, knowledge, dominion over nature, current social mores, and greater individual opportunity – are good or bad.  But neither belief questions whether these things are the case in the first place, and maybe that is the problem.  We tend to underestimate how advanced previous civilizations were, or, even when we recognize the complex of an ancient civilization, are surprised and consider it an anomaly.  But really, there were many complex ancient societies – and not just Western ones.  The Mayans, Egyptians, and Chinese come to mind.  As for dominion over nature, regardless of whether it’s good or bad, I don’t think we actually have it.  We may think we do, but massive destructive storms and impending climate change disprove that thought.  I recently watched a video that illustrated this fairly well – in a community meeting in Hawaii, several people of European descent argued for trying to divert a lava flow despite a poor track record of success with this technique, until native Hawaiians reminded them that lava doesn’t work that way – it’ll go wherever it goes and you can’t control it.

In conclusion, I think the myth of progress and the myth of apocalypse, while seemingly opposites, actually share the same narrative as a premise.  I don’t think that this premise is accurate, however, which is why the myths’ predictions are not accurate. 

The Illusion of Limitlessness

In my last post, I discussed the phenomenon that brought us to our current state: the more energy was available to us, the more we used, and the more we grew to depend on having that level of energy.  But there is an additional, and, in my opinion, more dangerous, thing our energy usage patterns have taught us.  In addition to become accustomed to large amounts of energy, we also became accustomed to the fact that energy availability always increased.  As such, our societies and economies became based on the idea of growth.  On page 47 of The Energy Reader, its authors compared this practice to a global Ponzi scheme, and I think that comparison is accurate.

In addition to, or perhaps because of, our being accustomed to energy increase, our lifestyle is based on a general idea of limitlessness. We consider an economy to be successful when it is growing.  We constantly consume resources as though they are endless.  As Barbara Kingsolver says in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, we seem to be a people allergic to limits.  This is expressed in many ways, and exists to differing degrees in different countries.  The US, from my observations, seems to be more afflicted by the idea of limitlessness than other countries.  Politically, the US places more value on concepts of freedom than do other countries, especially Europe.  In some ways this is good, as when we value individual rights, but in some senses it exemplifies an idea that everyone deserves to be able to do whatever they want, without regard to the negative consequences others will suffer.  Economically, we certainly buy into the delusion of capitalism that you are entitled to whatever you can buy, and limited only by inability to monetarily afford something.

People are beginning to realize that we are running out of money and other resources, but their proposed solutions still follow the narrative of limitlessness.  Some people (as evidenced by the Unbridled Energy summit in Louisville Kentucky, discussed on page 34 in The Energy Reader), are striving to find ways to getting the most energy we can out of existing sources of hydrocarbon-based fuel.  Others put their faith (which The Energy Reader points out as, ironically, unscientific) in solutions based on science and technology.  The solutions are based on the idea that if we just invest more energy, expertise, and innovative skill into the problem, we will solve it.  The issue there (at least, if we agree with The Energy Reader’s argument) is that word “more” – a problem created by assumptions of abundance cannot be solved by yet more abundance.  The way to solve the problem, then (at least according to The Energy Reader, is first to accept that we are limited.

Energy Availability

While I’m familiar with many of the concepts in The Energy Reader, it is teaching me new perspectives.  I had not previously thought of the agricultural revolution, or the industrial revolution, in terms of energy.  The concept of energy slaves is an important one.  We know that our current lifestyle requires a lot of energy, but when we think of how it came to be that way, we usually think that it is solely because of scientific and technological progress.  But, reading this book, I am now seeing the role that easy access to energy played in these lifestyle changes, and in population booms as well.

The book also discusses some of the political effects of energy availability.  It comments on how, in the pre-Civil-War era, Northern abolitionists could afford to be such because their access to carbon made them, in contrast to their Southern compatriots, not dependent on agriculture – and thus not dependent on slave labor.

I hypothesize, then, that energy availability and lack thereof has greatly shaped history over the past 12,000 years, and especially the past few centuries.  Agriculture enabled the development of cities and of armies, for instance.  I hypothesize also that societies that had access to large amounts of energy also possessed power, and had military and technological advantages over those that did not.  I am interested in looking at history through the lens of energy availability and learning more about this.

The ideas presented in The Energy Reader are similar to those presented in Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.  In that book, the author also discusses the development of our current society, and frames things in terms of a cultural shift from “Leavers” to “Takers.”  He pins the impetus for this change on the development of agriculture.  However, after looking at this from the perspective of energy availability, maybe it was not a large cultural shift, but that people simply became Takers because now they had the ability to take that they had not previously had.

There were several lines in The Energy Reader that made me pause or stuck out to me as important, especially this one: “With the dawn of the fossil fuel age, the average person was able to command amounts of energy previously available only to kings and commanders of armies.”  This really brings into clear focus the reasons for the rapid societal and technological changes that had occurred within the past century, and especially the past few years.  And now, ironically, that power is endangering its own source.

Chapter 17 - Work and Leisure

Though I have only recently begun thinking about the cultural and structural systems of work in America, I’ve long thought that the cultural and structural systems of schooling are deeply problematic and unhealthy.  Work for its own sake is unhealthily glorified in the US.  I think that this may come from the culture of the Puritans and others who first settled America.  The narrative is that work is virtuous, and that it will lead to the American Dream.  In the Puritans’ situation this made sense; they were trying to farm and settle a new land, and their work enabled their endeavor to succeed.  However, this value of work ethic has morphed into something different in the current age. 

Work is necessary for many things to happen – for us to obtain food and shelter, to educate young people, and many other things.  But viewing work as a virtue for its own sake leads to a society where people devalue their health, relationships, well-being, and communities, and instead through themselves into work that may or may not need to actually be done.  I am not saying that we should be lazy and sit around watching TV all day – I think that would be very detrimental both to individuals and society.  Humans certainly should be doing things – and thinking and creating – but work as it is currently structured is probably not the best way.  Ironically, people are so overworked that when they finally have a moment of free time, they often only have the energy to sit and watch TV.

The phrase “free time” itself should alert us to the destructive and problematic nature of our current work structure.  Shouldn’t all of our time be “free?”  Who owns this time of ours?  And why are we okay with them owning it?

We are taught that work must be this way, and that it is somewhat expected that one will not particularly enjoy one’s work,  but that the work must be done in order to obtain money for food, clothing, shelter, and entertainment.  But what if there were a different way to obtain these things?  Maybe not Marxist communism, exactly, but some form of restructuring so that people had access to what they need and want in life, and freedom to pursue what they enjoy and feel is worthwhile, without the having to match one’s interests with the tasks that those who already have money value.

From what I have seen, it seems that most Americans, regardless of place on the socioeconomic scale, are struggling financially.  Even families with high incomes and large houses are struggling to make ends meet, because of increased expenditures such as university education and mortgages.  Why is this the case?  Are people compelled to spend so much that they are on always on the brink, regardless of how much money they have?  If so, is someone or something deliberately compelling them or has it happened by chance?  Either way, there is something clearly problematic about this.  In addition, it means that people are under constant stress, both in striving to make ends meet and in ensuring that they continue to do well in their jobs, because otherwise, their family will be in a lot of financial trouble.

I think we need to change the way work is structured, because I think there are better, healthier, and more meaningful ways for people to contribute to our world than the way we currently structure work.