The dawn of the age of
renewable energy is arriving sooner than expected, and that’s good news
for most of us. After more than a century of overreliance on
hydrocarbons to fuel the world’s economic growth, we're now seeing the
cost of solar and wind power drop sharply toward price levels
competitive with oil, gas, and coal. The critical transition from fossil
fuels to renewables is gaining momentum.
This is the hopeful prognosis of Al Gore, now chairman of the Climate Reality Project. In a current Rolling Stone article, “The Turning Point,” Gore makes the surprisingly optimistic case that we are now reaching a critical inflection point in the price of renewable energies. As their costs continue to drop, they bid fair to leave oil, gas and coal in the dust as the world’s energy source of choice.
Renewables will be even more competitive when we build the real health and climate costs of carbon pollution into the price of oil, whether through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system.
The unexpectedly rapid rise of solar and wind technology is great news for most of the world’s people. It means cheaper, cleaner energy for growing and developing economies from China to Chad. African nations in particular may leapfrog to renewable energy technologies without ever passing through a prolonged period of dirty industrialization as Western countries have.
News of the rise of competitive renewables is not so welcome, however, in regions such as Greater Texas (or TexLaHoma) and the petrostates of the Middle East whose economies still pivot around the carbon industries. I doubt, for instance, that the rising sun of renewables is being met with hearty hurrahs in carbon capitals like Houston-Dallas or Riyadh, where petroleum industries have reigned supreme for decades. Nor are we likely to hear cheers of celebration from coal states such as Wyoming or West Virginia either.
Here in Houston, the news of competitively priced renewables is met with the same awkward silence that previously attended news of scientific consensus regarding carbon’s role in creating anthropogenic climate change. Climate change has been, until very recently, the dinosaur in Houston’s living room, and talking about it openly has been an unspoken taboo, shattered abruptly by a recent better-late-than-never editorial in the Houston Chronicle courageously (for Houston) affirming the reality of carbon-generated climate change while not denying that Houston is where much of that carbon is coming from.
In most other places, of course, the reality of human-generated climate change is old news. Texas doesn’t get out much.
The boosterish talk in Houston’s media is still mainly about the “exciting” revolution in fracking and horizontal drilling, and the thrilling prospect of a giant KXL sludge pipe descending through America’s midsection from the tar pits of Canada.
Local media enthuse profusely about how stimulating these new developments are for the Growth of the Houston Economy (the holy GHE). Greater Dallas, where ExxonMobil hangs its stetson, is rejoicing with Houston following the success of their aggressive joint drilling of Texas’ Eagle Ford, Barnett, and Permian Basin shale formations, which pump billions of dollars each year into the Texas economy.
Texans don’t seem quite as enthralled with the rise of solar energy as the rest of the world is likely to be. Maybe it’s because the increasing affordability of solar, wind, and other alternative energies will challenge black gold (a.k.a Texas tea, liquid carbon) as the power of the hour. The threat of a serious challenge from renewables would surely kill the fracking buzz here.
So the rise of solar seems to bode ill for the economies of Texas and the rest of North America's carbon belt, which runs from Texas through the Great Plains to North Dakota, on through the tar sands of Western Canada, and north to Alaska. (Not coincidentally, these are all red states or conservative provinces governed largely by their dominant industries.)
In this North American carbon belt, the economic boom ushered in by the fracking revolution could turn suddenly to economic bust as oil investments become stranded assets, as Gore notes, and this may happen sooner rather than later.
But here in Houston, we try not to think about future hangovers while the fracking party is still rocking. Its eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may crash. (For one such scenario, see former GOP Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's "The Coming Climate Crash" in this weekend's Sunday New York Times.)
Rarely acknowledged here is the morally uncomfortable fact that what's good for the Houston metropolitan area (less than 1/1000 of the world's population) in not necessarily good for the world, and vice versa.
On a world scale, the OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are also looking at tougher economic futures as the world carbon economy goes into decline, with potentially dangerous implications for their economic and political stability, and for the world's security. The Saudis, much to their credit, have begun investing heavily in the expansion of their solar industry. Could the new Saudi Arabia of solar energy be Saudi Arabia itself?
Texas, sadly, has neglected its potential for solar development, despite suffering no shortage of golden energy from heaven above. The state’s solar industry is seriously lagging the state's far more progressive rival, California.
On the redeeming side, though, Texas does currently lead the nation in wind power, so there’s hope that affordable wind could blow through to replace some of the longer-term losses that seem inevitable in the Texas oil business's future.
Ralph Nader once wryly predicted that we’ll get solar power when oil companies find a way to own the sun. Happily for most of us, it’s looking like Nader was wrong … unless, perhaps, the oil giants, with their deep pockets, figure out a way to horn in on the rising renewable industries and drive out competitors without jeopardizing their sunk investments in their vast underground oil and gas reserves.
So far, though, the sun and wind still belong to the Earth and its inhabitants (or to no one), and not to the owners and stockholders of carbon companies.
It’s dawn in America and around the world, thanks to the growing affordability of solar and other renewables. But in Texas and other command posts of the world’s hydrocarbon economy, it’s starting to look more like dusk.
-- originally posted in Danagram
Also from this author, see "Big Green and Big Carbon" and “The Saudi Arabia of Metaphors.”
This is the hopeful prognosis of Al Gore, now chairman of the Climate Reality Project. In a current Rolling Stone article, “The Turning Point,” Gore makes the surprisingly optimistic case that we are now reaching a critical inflection point in the price of renewable energies. As their costs continue to drop, they bid fair to leave oil, gas and coal in the dust as the world’s energy source of choice.
Renewables will be even more competitive when we build the real health and climate costs of carbon pollution into the price of oil, whether through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system.
The unexpectedly rapid rise of solar and wind technology is great news for most of the world’s people. It means cheaper, cleaner energy for growing and developing economies from China to Chad. African nations in particular may leapfrog to renewable energy technologies without ever passing through a prolonged period of dirty industrialization as Western countries have.
News of the rise of competitive renewables is not so welcome, however, in regions such as Greater Texas (or TexLaHoma) and the petrostates of the Middle East whose economies still pivot around the carbon industries. I doubt, for instance, that the rising sun of renewables is being met with hearty hurrahs in carbon capitals like Houston-Dallas or Riyadh, where petroleum industries have reigned supreme for decades. Nor are we likely to hear cheers of celebration from coal states such as Wyoming or West Virginia either.
Here in Houston, the news of competitively priced renewables is met with the same awkward silence that previously attended news of scientific consensus regarding carbon’s role in creating anthropogenic climate change. Climate change has been, until very recently, the dinosaur in Houston’s living room, and talking about it openly has been an unspoken taboo, shattered abruptly by a recent better-late-than-never editorial in the Houston Chronicle courageously (for Houston) affirming the reality of carbon-generated climate change while not denying that Houston is where much of that carbon is coming from.
In most other places, of course, the reality of human-generated climate change is old news. Texas doesn’t get out much.
The boosterish talk in Houston’s media is still mainly about the “exciting” revolution in fracking and horizontal drilling, and the thrilling prospect of a giant KXL sludge pipe descending through America’s midsection from the tar pits of Canada.
Local media enthuse profusely about how stimulating these new developments are for the Growth of the Houston Economy (the holy GHE). Greater Dallas, where ExxonMobil hangs its stetson, is rejoicing with Houston following the success of their aggressive joint drilling of Texas’ Eagle Ford, Barnett, and Permian Basin shale formations, which pump billions of dollars each year into the Texas economy.
Texans don’t seem quite as enthralled with the rise of solar energy as the rest of the world is likely to be. Maybe it’s because the increasing affordability of solar, wind, and other alternative energies will challenge black gold (a.k.a Texas tea, liquid carbon) as the power of the hour. The threat of a serious challenge from renewables would surely kill the fracking buzz here.
So the rise of solar seems to bode ill for the economies of Texas and the rest of North America's carbon belt, which runs from Texas through the Great Plains to North Dakota, on through the tar sands of Western Canada, and north to Alaska. (Not coincidentally, these are all red states or conservative provinces governed largely by their dominant industries.)
In this North American carbon belt, the economic boom ushered in by the fracking revolution could turn suddenly to economic bust as oil investments become stranded assets, as Gore notes, and this may happen sooner rather than later.
But here in Houston, we try not to think about future hangovers while the fracking party is still rocking. Its eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may crash. (For one such scenario, see former GOP Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's "The Coming Climate Crash" in this weekend's Sunday New York Times.)
Rarely acknowledged here is the morally uncomfortable fact that what's good for the Houston metropolitan area (less than 1/1000 of the world's population) in not necessarily good for the world, and vice versa.
On a world scale, the OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are also looking at tougher economic futures as the world carbon economy goes into decline, with potentially dangerous implications for their economic and political stability, and for the world's security. The Saudis, much to their credit, have begun investing heavily in the expansion of their solar industry. Could the new Saudi Arabia of solar energy be Saudi Arabia itself?
Texas, sadly, has neglected its potential for solar development, despite suffering no shortage of golden energy from heaven above. The state’s solar industry is seriously lagging the state's far more progressive rival, California.
On the redeeming side, though, Texas does currently lead the nation in wind power, so there’s hope that affordable wind could blow through to replace some of the longer-term losses that seem inevitable in the Texas oil business's future.
Ralph Nader once wryly predicted that we’ll get solar power when oil companies find a way to own the sun. Happily for most of us, it’s looking like Nader was wrong … unless, perhaps, the oil giants, with their deep pockets, figure out a way to horn in on the rising renewable industries and drive out competitors without jeopardizing their sunk investments in their vast underground oil and gas reserves.
So far, though, the sun and wind still belong to the Earth and its inhabitants (or to no one), and not to the owners and stockholders of carbon companies.
It’s dawn in America and around the world, thanks to the growing affordability of solar and other renewables. But in Texas and other command posts of the world’s hydrocarbon economy, it’s starting to look more like dusk.
-- originally posted in Danagram
Also from this author, see "Big Green and Big Carbon" and “The Saudi Arabia of Metaphors.”
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