The
Myth Of Alternative Energy
By Peter Goodchild
24 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Alternative sources of energy
will never be very useful, for several reasons, but mainly because of
a problem of "net energy": the amount of energy output is
not sufficiently greater than the amount of energy input. Alternative
sources simply don't have enough "bang" to replace 30 billion
annual barrels of oil.
A further problem with alternative
sources of energy is that conventional oil is required to extract, process,
and transport almost any other form of energy; a coal mine is not operated
by coal-powered equipment. It takes "oil energy" to make "alternative
energy."
The use of unconventional
oil (shale deposits, tar sands, heavy oil) poses several problems besides
that of net energy. In the first place, even if we optimistically assume
that about 700 billion barrels of unconventional oil could be produced,
that amount would equal only about 15 years of global oil demand. Secondly,
the pollution problems are considerable, and it is not certain how much
environmental damage the human race is willing to endure. Thirdly, since
conventional oil is still cheap and profitable, government and industry
will not be motivated to begin serious work on the development of unconventional
oil until conventional oil is no longer available - at which point any
effort will be too little, too late. In fact, at the moment, unconventional
oil is only a tiny fraction of the world's petroleum production, and
there are no major technological breakthroughs in sight. Even if all
these problems could be solved, the human population will continue to
increase, and developing nations will be trying to industrialize. With
unconventional oil we are, quite literally, scraping the bottom of the
barrel.
More-exotic forms of alternative
energy are plagued with even greater problems. Fuel cells cannot be
made practical, because such devices require hydrogen derived from fossil
fuels (coal or natural gas), if we exclude designs that will never escape
the realm of science fiction; if fuel cells ever became popular, the
fossil fuels they require would then be consumed even faster than they
are now. Biomass energy (perhaps from wood, animal dung, peat, corn,
or switchgrass) would require impossibly large amounts of land and would
still result in insufficient quantities of net energy, perhaps even
negative quantities. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical
limits. Solar, wind, and geothermal power are only effective in certain
areas and for certain purposes; such types of power, in any case, are
only of significant value when converted into electrical energy, requiring
the use of disposable batteries - a practice as ecologically unsound
as the use of fossil fuels. Nuclear power will soon be suffering from
a lack of fuel and is already creating serious environmental dangers.
Petroleum, unfortunately,
is the perfect fuel, and nothing else even comes close. There will never
be a solar-powered airplane. The problem with flying pigs (as in "when
pigs can fly") is not that we have to wait for scientists to perfect
the technology; the problem is that the pig idea is not a good one in
the first place. To maintain an industrial civilization, it's either
oil or nothing.
Another unrealistically optimistic
thought is that we are shifting from an oil-based culture to an information-based
one: computers, we are told, will soon replace trucks. To say that high
technology reduces mankind's need for petroleum, however, is an act
of faith that is not born out by the figures on world consumption of
oil.
The quest for alternative
sources of energy is not merely illusory; it is actually harmful. By
daydreaming of a noiseless and odorless utopia of windmills and solar
panels, we are reducing the effectiveness of whatever serious information
is now being published. When news articles claim that there are simple
painless solutions to the oil crisis, the reader's response is not awareness
but drowsiness. We are rapidly heading toward what has been described
as the greatest disaster in history, but we are indulging in escapist
fantasies. All talk of alternative energy is just a way of evading the
real issue: that the Industrial Age is over.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Chicago Review Press has published Peter Goodchild's
_Survival Skills of the North American Indians_, _Raven Tales_, and
_The Spark in the Stone_. He has an M.A. in English from the University
of Toronto. For ten years he was a teacher in both English as a second
language and computer skills; two of those years were spent in Japan.
He now owns and manages a market garden in Irondale, Ontario, where
he is involved in issues of self-sufficiency and localized economy.
He can be reached at: [email protected]