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Ecological Economics
Post Carbon's recent report Searching for a Miracle was cited as a source in this commentary disagreeing with Bill Gates highly publicized TED talk.
From the article:
There are two problems with Gates’ dichotomy between innovation and insulation. The first is the more obvious but the second is more meaningful. (Also, see Joe Romm and Sean Casten for further Gates critiques.)
1. Insofar as there’s a distinction between developing new technology that helps generate more/cleaner/cheaper energy and using energy more wisely, we obviously need to do both. Just as efficiency alone will never get us to our goals, neither will new generation. Richard Heinberg at the Post-Carbon Institute argues, in his report “Searching for a Miracle,” that ...
... there is little likelihood that either conventional fossil fuels or alternative energy sources can reliably be counted on to provide the amount and quality of energy that will be needed to sustain economic growth—or even current levels of economic activity—during the remainder of the current century.
I don’t know if Heinberg’s right. I’m inclined to think there’s greater potential in renewable energy than he allows, but I’m too keenly aware of my cognitive shortcomings to get into the Math’n'Graph Olympics. Either way, it’s a safe bet that whatever breakthroughs in energy generation technology arrive in coming decades, they won’t be able, in and of themselves, to keep up with rising population and affluence. And it would be sheerest folly to depend on their arrival.
Photo credit:redmaxwell via Flickr
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