Myths
about renewable energy
The "scarcity" myth:
We are running out of oil. Renewable energy and other alternatives will be needed soon anyway, and the market will provide the demand for them.
What if "Peak Oil" theory is wrong or perhaps delayed? Rather than running out of oil in the near term, we may run out of atmosphere.
This IPCC chart, to the left, shows conventional versus "unconventional" sources of fossil fuel resources in Giga-tons of carbon. The "unconventnional" sources are available at higher prices but not usually included in political discussions about energy.
(Graphic adapted from IGPCC / UN 2001 report )
Also see Dr. Kovarik's essay on unconventional oil.
The "whale oil" myth:
When whales ran out, the market switched to kerosene. There was no need for government intervention in the energy marketplace then, and there is no need for government in the energy markets today.
Whale oil was scarce long before petroleum arrived. The main lamp fuel was "camphene" (turpentine and ethanol). A tax advantage of $2 per gallon over camphene spurred the oil boom of the 1860s and created the oil industry. It is historically inaccurate to say that the oil industry did not need government.
More than that, government subsidies and incentives through which energy technologies are encouraged or discouraged are fundamentally and intrinsically political.
Also see Dr. Kovarik's Whale Oil Myth
The "dependency" myth
Industrialized civilization necessarily depends on fossil fuels. There would be no civilization without coal and oil.
The modern industrial revolution was more the product of the steady accretion of mechanical skills than the advent of new energy sources. It would have come into existence and gone on steadily "had not a ton of coal been dug in England, and had not a new iron mine been opened." -- Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1934.
Water, wind and solar power were already widely developed. Even gas light was originally made from wood gas, not coal. There are renewables that can replace every use of petroleum and coal, and they have long been known in history.
The first large scale demonstration of coal gas was by Wm. Murdock for a Soho factory in 1802, seen glamorized in the 19th century style at left. Phillip Lebon created a gas lighting system based on wood in Paris six years earlier.
The "intrinsic properties" myth
Technologies rise or fall on their inherent costs and benefits, not on political considerations.
The direction a technology takes is traditionally seen as a result of pre-determined or inevitable conditions that arise from instrinsic properties of a technology. However, it is more industry preference or policy choice.
Change is often opposed by political interests. In the old days, portrayed by Thomas Nast as "moneybags" and monopolies dominating the US Senate, the political interests were more obvious.
Today change is often opposed for reasons that are made to seem lofty and well motivated.
"... A tax to prepare for a potentially catastrophic future... [is] a course of action [which] fits a particular ideological agenda, yet is entirely unwarranted..."
The "novelty" myth
Renewable energy is untried and untested. Let's stick with oil, coal and nuclear power, which we know can work.
“Though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail; they had ears, but understood not. But like shapes in dreams, throughout their time, without purpose they wrought all things in confusion. They lacked knowledge of houses turned to face the sun, dwelling beneath the ground like swarming ants in sunless caves.” -- Aeschylus 525-456 BC, refers to barbarians in Promethius Bound
The "novelty" myth (cont.)
"The time will come when Europe must stop her mills and factories for want of coal. Upper Egypt then, with her never-ceasing sun power, will invite the European manufacturer to move his machinery and erect his mills on the [banks] of the Nile...." -- John Ericcson, Mechanic and Builder, July, 1887
