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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
VSPs of Energy
David Roberts has an interesting post
about how the “experts” massively underestimated the potential for
growth in renewable energy: wind and solar have grown enormously faster
than the Very Serious People, energy sector, predicted circa 2000. He
links this to the somewhat related tendency of the alleged experts to
predict huge costs from efforts at energy conservation, huge costs that
keep on not materializing.
Roberts suggests that it’s because conventionally-minded experts aren’t in touch with the potential of technologies that are (a) new and (b) distributed, representing choices by millions of players as opposed to a few big corporations.
Maybe. But I’d place more emphasis on a more cynical view: capture, both crude and subtle, by existing fossil-fuel interests (with nuclear power, another big business venture, somewhat similar).
It should be obvious that Big Oil and Big Coal have a stake in having the public believe that there is no alternative to ever more drilling, digging, and burning. And who employs, funds, and generally shapes the careers of mainstream energy “experts”? Who actually has a seat at the table when international organizations are putting together their scenarios?
It doesn’t have to be raw corruption, although there’s that too. It can instead be a matter of creating a mindset. And a lot of that mindset involves the sense that serious, hard-headed men think in terms of big extractive projects, that solar, wind, and conservation are hippie stuff — a sense that persists even in the teeth of contrary evidence.
The VSPs strike again.
Roberts suggests that it’s because conventionally-minded experts aren’t in touch with the potential of technologies that are (a) new and (b) distributed, representing choices by millions of players as opposed to a few big corporations.
Maybe. But I’d place more emphasis on a more cynical view: capture, both crude and subtle, by existing fossil-fuel interests (with nuclear power, another big business venture, somewhat similar).
It should be obvious that Big Oil and Big Coal have a stake in having the public believe that there is no alternative to ever more drilling, digging, and burning. And who employs, funds, and generally shapes the careers of mainstream energy “experts”? Who actually has a seat at the table when international organizations are putting together their scenarios?
It doesn’t have to be raw corruption, although there’s that too. It can instead be a matter of creating a mindset. And a lot of that mindset involves the sense that serious, hard-headed men think in terms of big extractive projects, that solar, wind, and conservation are hippie stuff — a sense that persists even in the teeth of contrary evidence.
The VSPs strike again.
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