The following is a response to an article titled “How (Not)
to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone” and the comments
initiated by myself. The article was
written by Kris De Decker for publication in his Low-Tech Magazine and reposted
on the Resiliance website hosted by the Post Carbon Institute. The article and comments can be found at the
following link: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-09-14/how-not-to-run-a-modern-society-on-solar-and-wind-power-alone/
I know I promised not to come back here, but I have been
pondering my own and other comments from folks on this topic and felt a need to
perhaps apologize (as one commenter pointed out) for getting pissed off and
taking it out on the author Kris De Decker and the Post Carbon Institute, or
maybe confess my own guilt in having committed the “sins” I have accused others
of committing, but more than likely just gloat about my own righteousness. Use or lose any of this as those who bother
to read it see fit, or feel free to abuse me, for daring to revisit these
pointless accusations.
So, let me start over for whatever that is worth (which is
probably not much), maybe clarify my points, and perhaps expand on what several
folks asked for in what I would propose as an alternative.
I believe that the thesis of Mr. De Decker’s article is contained
in the opening two paragraphs where he points out: “the potential of wind and
solar energy is more than sufficient to supply the electricity demand of
industrial societies, these resources are only available intermittently.” Because of the intermittency and other
factors like difficulty in meeting peak demand and need for storage, he
concludes that “matching supply to demand at all times makes renewable power
production a complex, slow, expensive and unsustainable undertaking”. However, “if we would adjust energy demand to
the variable supply of solar and wind energy, a renewable power grid could be
much more advantageous” and that “modern technology” could provide a way to
take advantage of these energy sources and keep a version of our industrial
society in operation into the future.
The article then goes on to document the variable nature of
both wind and solar power, via references, statistics, graphs, and charts. It also explains how meeting existing power
demands with the variable source wind and solar would require an extremely
large infrastructure and backup fossil fuel plants or storage systems all of
which “would be just as CO2-intensive as the present-day power grid”, “have a
high impact on the land” and “require a significant amount of energy and other
resources”, leading me to believe that they would not be good for the
environment nor us.
In the concluding section of his article titled “Adjusting
Demand to Supply”, he proposes “this doesn’t mean that a sustainable renewable
power grid is impossible. There’s a fifth strategy, which does not try to match
supply to demand, but instead aims to match demand to supply. In this scenario,
renewable energy would ideally be used only when it’s available.” And “if we let go of the need to match energy
demand for 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, a renewable power grid could be
built much faster and at a lower cost, making it more sustainable overall.” He claims that this adjusting demand renewable
energy supply system if built and operated in the United Kingdom, would only
result in electricity shortages on 65 out of 365 days of the year (18% of the
time).
Throughout the article there is little if any indication, data,
statics, or hints at what the impact would be on the ecosystem of building this
“sustainable” system and the new infrastructure it would need to operate. Was this by design or neglect or simply not
necessary? I however am quite sure that
the impacts would be similar to, those occurring currently and in the past from
our industrialized society. So things
like climate change, spices extinctions, loss of habitat, dead zones in the oceans,
wars, and other calamities will carry on as long as we treat our planet and our
neighbors as resources to use to keep our technology alive and our plundering
possible, even if those technologies are “renewable” or their usage is now
paced to match the variable rate of supply.
Based on this understanding of the energy supply system that
Mr. De Decker was proposing, I concluded in my pissed off state of mind that a summation of the proposal was that we
could “keep our "modern" society powered into eternity with
"green and clean" energy, ignoring the fact that this industrialized
society that views the planet and people as resources to plunder to keep the
profit in the pockets of the power-elite is the source of our problems.
Ignoring the impacts plundering the planet to obtain the resources needed to build
the "green and clean" infrastructure is the only way this works out
with a "happy" ending. Thinking it might be time to stop following
the "green washing" being put out by Resilience and the Post Carbon
institute.
Several commenters responded negatively to my and other commenters
labeling the article and others published or publisized by the Post Carbon
Institute as “greenwashing”. Asher
Miller (who I assume is the executive director of the Post Carbon Institute)
responded to this accusation with “I find comments like these truly baffling. I
think anyone with an open but critical mind would be hard-pressed to lump
PCI/resilience.org in the "greenwashing" or
"techno-cornucopian" camp.
Usually, we're accused of being Luddites/Malthusians/doomers. To me, comments like the above show laziness,
ignorance, and/or a hardline view of collapse that is utterly fatalistic and
very likely wrong. And I'm always left wondering, why do you come here?”
Obviously Mr. Miller was indeed familiar with some of my
best character traits (or worst depending on who you ask), and it was indeed my
lazy nature that prompted me to react with the original abbreviated response. It was also ignorant of me to assume that
other people had the same understanding of the term “greenwash” or the other
concept that came out in the commentary like “techno-cornucopian”. I actually prefer the term “techno-fundamentalist”,
and wished I would have used that term in any of my comments to point out that
it is that world view that I believe dominates Mr. De Decker’s article and others
I have seen publicized by the Post Carbon Institute. And I am indeed resigned to the fact that
like all the other complex civilizations before us, ours is indeed heading into
an unavoidable collapse, as we too have fallen into the trap of letting fools
have all the power in our society. So,
to make up for my ignorance and initial lazy response, below are some
definitions that I hope clarify what I mean by these terms and the words that
make them up.
Greenwashing– “a form of spin in which green PR or
green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an
organization's products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing)
Technology – “the practical application of knowledge
especially in a particular area” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology
Fundamentals – “any
intellectual/political/theological position that asserts certainty in the
unquestioned truth and/or righteousness of a belief system.”
“technological fundamentalists are those ‘unwilling,
perhaps unable, to question our basic assumptions about how our tools relate to
our larger purposes and prospects.’”
Perhaps I am incorrect in applying these terms to the
article in question and the Post Carbon Institute. I do admit that I am indeed guilty of
accusing them of what I know for sure I am guilty of and that is the practice
of greenwashing influenced by my own technological fundamentalist
upbringing. I have worked most of my
life as an environmental engineer or specialist, working for industry,
consulting, and government. I used to be
convinced that this was noble work, that what I did was to preserve and protect
the environment by helping to design equipment and treatment plants to clean up
our wastewater and keep our rivers and lakes clean. I kept this same ethic to guide me working
for government environmental regulatory agencies enforcing the rules and
regulations that I believed were designed to keep our environment safe. About 12 years ago, after 20 or so years of doing
this type of work, and seeing the state of the planet, I started to question
this. I began to wonder if that is what
I was really doing. It seemed to me that
my work was much more about covering up the messes that our industrial society
was creating, than it was about protecting and preserving the planet.
And to answer Mr. Asher’s question about “why do you come
here?”, it was at this point in my life I was first exposed to the work of the
Post Carbon Institute at a conference I attended on Environmental Sustainability. I don’t remember the name of the speaker from
the Post Carbon Institute, but I remember the thesis of his talk which was
basically that in the age of peak oil and climate change we needed to rethink how
we focused the goal of our societies and our priorities away from economic
growth and towards meeting the needs of people.
I liked that message and I looked up the Post Carbon Institute and began
following the work that folks who worked there were putting out. It seemed like a safe and sane place to go to
learn what I thought could be a new calling on how to make our way of life more
sustainable.
And I found other resources
and learned about concepts like “greenwashing” and “techno-fundementalism” and
I realized I had been and continued to practice them and get paid to keep doing
them. I also realized to make a living
in our modern industrialized society, that if you didn’t practice them to a
certain extent or believe in them you would not make a living or maintain some
semblance of sanity. In other words,
despite my attempts at looking for ways to making a living in various places, I
could not find any place to work in my line of work that was not guilty of
these practices, nor am I aware of any such “utopias” existing within our industrialized
society. Based on this, it seems obvious to me (perhaps influenced by
my own insanity) that indeed we all our guilty of these practices, whether we
want to admit it or not.
What do I propose as an alternative? It is indeed ignorant and arrogant on my part
to even assume that I can solve the worlds environmental, societal, or energy
problems. I believe that the problems
with our societies and those of the past are indeed a result of giving the
power to make such decisions into the hands of few people or even a few
organizations or institutions. I also do
not believe that a solution will come out of the systems that have created
these problems. Looking to alternative
energy fueled systems to sustain the same old but modernized version of industrial
society is not where I will be looking for a solution. The solution is also not going to come from
focusing on whether we need a newer, simpler, older, or varied technology or
changing or modifying our tools. I think
that the solution will come from asking ourselves what do we really need as
human beings to thrive, living on a finite planet, within a fragile
ecosystem? And then individuals within societies
will need to determine what tools or technology should be used to obtain what
it is we all need.
Sorry if I am wrong, and best of luck to all in finding a
more meaningful way of life, as our society enters the world of collapse. And with that I really am done.
