nuclear-news

Leggett points to the collapsed oil price, the falling costs of renewable-energy generation and potential government action on climate change as key factors that could persuade an oil corporation to jump ship. His comments were excitedly shared online by anti-fossil fuel campaigners.

But hang on a minute. Would this really be good news? To avoid catastrophic global climate change, we need to leave at least 80 per cent of known fossil fuels in the ground, and renewable energy will have a major part to play in that. But do we want our new, clean energy system to be owned and operated by the same corporations that have got us into our current mess? Do we trust the likes of BP, Exxon and Total to develop renewables in a fair and sustainable way?

To answer this question, we don’t need to look far. All over the world, companies and governments that have grown rich on our current fossil-fuelled system are doing their best to slow down, interfere with, co-opt and control the growth of renewable energy. We need to fight back with a different vision: of a democratically controlled, people-focused clean energy system built from the grassroots up.

A renewables revolution? 2014 felt like a big step forward for renewables. The amount of wind and solar power installed around the world grew by 15 and 32 per cent respectively. Solar electricity is now cheaper than the grid average in Spain, Italy, Australia, Chile, Germany, Brazil and at least 10 US states. UBS, the world’s biggest private bank, told its investors that large, centralized power stations are on the way out in Europe, to be rendered redundant by rooftop solar panels and home energy storage in the next 20 years. Meanwhile, the governments of India and China have announced solar- and wind-power schemes large enough to send panic through the Australian coal industry, whose expansion plans were reliant on exports to those countries.

These could be early steps towards a better energy future. Last year, I helped develop an online infographic2 showing how it is technically possible for everyone on the planet to have enough energy for a good quality of life, using only renewable technology that already exists.3 However, this will only be possible if the wealthy minority – mostly in Northern countries – stops overconsuming energy, so that everyone else can come up to a fair and sustainable level. This isn’t currently happening; instead, barring a blip for the 2008 financial crisis, total energy use in OECD countries has been steadily rising.

In order to avoid runaway climate change, our new cleaner energy sources would need actively to replace fossil fuel generation, not just add to it. There’s little point installing a solar-powered radio in a diesel-fuelled SUV. The current blossoming of renewable energy has dented coal use in a few countries – notably the US and China – but has so far failed to make much impact on a global scale. Between 2010 and 2013, the annual production of renewable energy grew by around 0.5 PWh (equivalent to a million million kilowatt hours) to 20 PWh per year; in the same period, annual fossil fuel use grew by 8 PWh – 16 times greater – to reach 128 PWh/year.⁴

The trouble is, these necessary steps to a safer future – ramping down fossil fuel use, cutting Northern overconsumption and sharing clean energy fairly across the globe – fly directly in the face of our current growth-based economic system. As writer and activist Naomi Klein puts it: ‘What the climate needs now is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands is unfettered expansion.’⁵

Renewable energy does offer us a (solar) ray of hope amidst the climate doom and gloom. These technologies give us the potential to build a new, decentralized, democratic energy system that meets the needs of the many rather than providing profits to the few. But there are powerful economic forces and vested interests lined up against us, ready to steer renewable energy in a very different direction………. http://newint.org/features/2015/03/01/renewable-energy-keynote/