Energy Transition: revolution or decadence?

In Switzerland, as in many countries in the industrialized world, the energy transition is fashionable. A revolution is going on, which means a radical indictment of the current model without any plan for the future other than a dogmatic statement. With no progress in sight. For the first time a regression is proposed that will artificially increase economic hardship. No excuse for this folly!

Energy Transition: revolution or decadence?

22 July 2013 Politics, Society issues Comments (1)

Upcoming neo-Soviet

In Switzerland, as in many countries in the industrialized world, the energy transition is fashionable. It will be made of getting out of nuclear power, averting climate catastrophes by reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide emissions, and becoming independent of oil and gas producers. To achieve this it is planned to install production capacities for renewable energies and to implement conservation programs. In Switzerland, where almost no electricity is produced thermally – except where it combines heating steam with electrical power production – the goal is primarily to manage the phase out of nuclear power plants, accounting nowadays for 40% of consumption, and to face the open European market, currently with excess capacity. But if one wants to heat homes with heat pumps rather than fuel oil and to drive with all-electric vehicles an increase in production capacity will be necessary, although also some savings will be realized elsewhere.

For my part, except the independence vis-à-vis oil producers, I have not been convinced of the merits of the other objectives. Nuclear is an energy that can be improved and that does not pose a short-term problems, otherwise all plants should be stopped immediately; and the negative effects on climate due to the increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration are hypothetical and dependent on models and scenarios that remain poorly validated.

But no matter, the Truth is on its way and woe to him who would doubt. But we can still ask the question whether this new dogma leads to a revolutionary leap forward or to a decline, or even decadence.

From the beginning of the industrial era every technological progress has led to the well-being of people. And when I write well-being we must realize that I’m not talking about happiness, which is a state of mind of each person. This resulted in workload reduction, time and physical efforts, and provided access to previously impossible thus unthinkable activities. If a nineteenth century stonecutter or laundry washer would be reborn today they would see real progresses, a word that has a meaning. The impossible has become possible: global mobility, almost immediate access and exchange of information, health and life expectancy have never been so good. One should have to be in bad faith for not recognizing this. Of course, as technologies were developed at very large scales, some significant unintended consequences have resulted too, such as pollution of air, water and soil, or accidents; other technologies, investments, and jobs were needed to deal with that. Also evil has become easier to perpetrate, with more dramatic consequences: disinformation, war, terrorism, crime syndicates, this is the well-being of effective villains.

But whatever example is taken from the history of technology each step was accompanied by a cost reduction, less labour or money, and combined with an appreciation of the outcome in the form of a more attractive price or of a new feature. This is the value of innovation, and this is where the problem of the energy transition hurts: it will deliver the same 220/380 volts at 50 Hz in (sorry gringos: 110V, 60Hz) each house or each plant to operate the same equipment, no innovation in sight. The only difference is that it will cost more because after dismantling what exists and works well it will need reinvestment in significantly more expensive technologies. This is a quadruple penalty: lost amortization of existing plants; mobilizing capital for substitution, including reserves and storage for intermittent energy sources, and higher bills for consumers and taxpayers; and may be restrictions by quotas in case of under-capacity because all projected conservation objectives will not be met. Our best competitors cannot wish us a better destruction of our competitiveness.

One will argue that so-called green jobs will be created and a “clean tech” new economy will arise. What is forgotten here are the jobs that will be eliminated by the closures related to the changes, and also the fact that there is no new value-adding technology in going for solar and wind power or developing hydroelectric; these are mere shifts of well-known things, with some added challenges in organization (“smart grid”) and funding (subsidies). Perhaps only green chemistry involving genetically modified organisms (plants producing new compounds, microbes digesting lignin and cellulose) may be the subject of a true technological leap. “Clean tech” is nothing more than a buzzword to describe what technology has never ceased to be: developing, but this time duly fostered and certified. In contrast, I’m not aware that the production of food, watches, pumps, drugs or computers would be “dirty tech”!

A revolution is going on, which means a radical indictment of the current model without any plan for the future other than a dogmatic statement. And without progress.

It is also a decline; for the first time it is proposed to regress and to artificially increase economic hardship. And this is known in advance: there is no excuse.

So what are the motives animating those people organizing such follies?

First there are the famous alert launchers: the Earth is in danger by the fault of Mankind, we must do penance and reform. Here and now! Each of these proposals is grossly wrong, but this does not matter because through constant repetition it became a truth. Among these alert launchers there are scientists who are honestly concerned about some observations they make, but there are also smart guys using scientific literature to help develop models and the most hair-raising scenarios that will impress the public; this is called manipulation and misinformation. A strange alliance has developed between the scientific world, unwilling to hypothetical extrapolations, and spin doctors who reinforce scientists by giving them an unexpected importance. Sincere scientists become useful idiot, companions on the way of the green revolution. And scientific activists – a painfully real oxymoron – have sold their soul to the devil manipulating opinion. Who dares to ask questions or express doubts is under the immediate danger of being stigmatized as the person who diverges from the line. The violence (not only verbal) that we see in this debate proves that it is not an intellectual one. A perfume of bolshevism.

Then there’s the public opinion. With the relay of compliant media (not all are like this, but all are more or less affected) national and supranational governmental organizations, infiltrated by non-governmental, instigate agitprop: there is not a week without a brief or a more substantial announcement being published to animate the flame and repeat the dogma. Since it is difficult to resist such a barrage, political parties follow the bandwagon, exercise in which they are the champions. How else to explain the policy of a Swiss Christian Democratic party leader, member of the Swiss Federal Council, who actively helps to put everything in place to cut the branch on which she sits and to weave the ropes with which we will be hanged? The re-election seeking Chancellor does the same in the large Northern Canton, despite or because of her youthful experience in DDR.

And please don’t tell me that I have complots paranoia. There is no need for hidden strategies and organizations similar to the Komintern for a neo-Soviet ideal to appear: what do mean expressions like alternative, occupy, base citizen decision, other than an appeal for forms of political power that are different from the current democratic and legal systems, in which the citizens meeting will be either anarchic and sterile (cool) or at the order of the Central Committee of the Party of the Pensée Unique that sets the line to follow (that’s how it will work, less cool). There is even no need for a secret organization to orchestrate this: international conferences on climate, biodiversity, industrial risks, etc. are sufficiently attended by NGOs whose representatives populate committees and prepare draft agreements and final statements that will be in line with strategies that they don’t hide at all. Against this, little protests are heard; such bodies have well learned to turn a deaf ear.

The Western world is in decline, is it with an exclamation point or question mark? When in a struggle for power those who are going to lose it provide their help to the process of its destruction then it is highly probable that it is the end of an era. Asia, Africa and Latin America will take over, with concerns more oriented to progress rather than to decline.

Speaking of continents, the ice mass of Antarctica is growing and nobody really knows why.

Merci de compartir cet article

1 thought on “Energy Transition: revolution or decadence?”

jacqueshenry says:

27 September 2013 at 09:28

Je réponds en français à votre excellente analyse que je partage entièrement. Depuis la conférence sur le climat de Toronto la situation n’a fait qu’empirer. Le Danemark a été le premier pays européen à tomber dans l’illusion en installant des milliers de moulins à vent qui sont ingérables et n’ont conduit à aucune fermeture de centrale électrique thermique, ce qui était pourtant le but du projet. Puis l’Allemagne se trouve confrontée au même type de problème avec de surcroit un réseau électrique inadapté après avoir installé également des milliers de moulins dans la mer. Même situation aux Pays-Bas. La France, dirigée par un gouvernement socialo-marxiste téléguidé par les sbires de Greenpeace, a vu il y a quelques jours son président partir dans un délire invraisemblable de réduction de l’énergie sous toutes ses formes, tant nucléaire que fossile. Je ne connais pas précisément la situation de la Suisse, mais l’Italie et l’Espagne se sont engagés à réduire la part du nucléaire dans leur package énergétique. Bref, quand bien même on ferait des économies “artificielles” telles qu’elles sont perçues en Europe à propos de la transition énergétique brutale qu’a du subir le Japon (où je me trouve en ce moment) en fermant ses 50 réacteurs nucléaires, transition qui “doit servir d’exemple” pour les pays européens, les verts et Greenpeace ou encore le WWF oublient de mentionner que le Japon accuse un déficit commercial considérable dû à l’importation d’hydrocarbures non seulement pour que les utilities produisent de l’électricité uranium-free mais aussi pour que toutes les entreprises qui se sont équipées de groupes électrogènes puissent également participer avec l’esprit citoyen de tous les Japonais à éviter un black-out généralisé. On réalise ainsi que l’abandon du nucléaire dans un pays comme la France, même partiellement, précipiterait la chute du pays. Maintenant, je me pose toujours la question du pourquoi de cette mascarade climatique et j’ai quelques idées que j’exposerai prochainement dans mon blog.
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