In several earlier posts I wrote about some very high level, Institute for Advanced Study type level, research that has been done on energy and societal collapse. I recommend you go back and look at those posts covering the work of Tainter among others. Here’s the point though: You can be a supporter of clean energy but still have a strong reality principle and understand that it will be impossible for the world to meet the energy needs of its advanced civilization and not use lots of fossil fuels. This is because unlike as I’ve suggested with computing power Moore’s law does not apply to energy so there’s no quick fix technologically to our energy needs and things like solar and wind are, whatever their environmental merits (and I m not opposed to them at all–the more energy choices the better, we need all of them), are much less efficient sources. So unless we want our civilization to collapse we need fossil fuels. The societal collapse model is so politically severe that even if someone has an image of an utopian return to a primitive blissful, in harmony with nature society thats not at all what would actually happen—societal collapse is the worst nightmare imaginable.
Now, unfortunately, in Spain it now appears that what I warned against is actually happening. In the rush to clean energy they have made the country vulnerable to major energy disruption as seen in the recent power grid failure which is a big deal for an entire country. This is interesting because Spain has been the exemplar of trying to make this change to only clean energy too quickly. Politicians ignore the science and instead base decisions just on ideology and getting elected and who knows possibly there is a certain amount of corruption in that they often, and this may not be the case here, gain directly or indirectly in the huge government fiscal spending that often goes into such infrastructure projects.
There is good news, however. Most of the world is not in fact trying to do this change to clean energy like Spain is super fast, nor should they. They understand that clean energy can only be a part of the overall energy options not the sole source. But here’s the really good news. Faced with reality the leaders in Spain have just announced that they are going to reintroduce nuclear and gas energy and not try to use no fossil fuels at all for the nation’s energy. Hopefully, reality will lead to countries pulling back from too extreme a course and thankfully with energy that is always an option.
Disclaimer– the information discussed is simply one person’s opinion nothing more or less. It is only for entertainment purposes. By using this blog you assume all risks associated with using this advice, suggestions, information, conclusions and everything else contained here-in and that you completely and fully understand that you and you alone are 100 per cent responsible for anything that occurs from using this information and material in anyway whatsoever–regardless of how you interpret any discussion, conclusions or advice contained here-in. Any discussion of actual stocks or investments is in no way a recommendation and is only for educational purposes. You should listen to many competing opinions, consider all the counterfactuals to what is argued, seek out always if necessary professional advice, and of course ultimately make your own decisions about the markets.