Customer Reviews

Mainstreaming Renewable Energy In The 21st Century

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A Review of
Mainstreaming Renewable Energy in the 21" Century
Janet L. Swain, World Watch 2004


Is light from a window solar energy? Is the food you eat grown by sunlight? Isn't that solar energy? If you walk or ride a bike isn't that solar energy?

Janet L. Swain's booklet, Mainstreaming Renewable Energy in the 21st Century omits such Renewable Energies. It is about electricity from photovoltaic panels and wind generators. It is very strange to steadfastly omit almost all uses of the sun that have benefited mankind for centuries and write exclusively of electricity.

Electricity is not an end in itself. It powers things we want - air conditioners, lights, elevator motors, computers, televisions. All things electricity powers compete with other services that don't use electricity. Air conditioners compete with more careful architecture, or perhaps traveling, to escape heat. Electric lights compete with windows or lamps or scheduling activities differently. Elevators compete with stairs. Televisions compete with books, conversation, or sleep.

The last sentence of Mainstreaming Renewable Energy in the 21st Century is..." The key is ambitious, forward looking; consistent government policies that drive demand for renewable energy create a self-reinforcing market and propel renewables into the energy mainstream during the 21st century".

Someone is pushing too hard. There are extra horsepower in that sentence. I think it is the banks, huge corporations and their foundations, like World Watch and the Energy Foundation, whipping the rest of us. Before "ambitiously propelling and driving", try turning off the lights in the day. Place your windows on the south of the house to heat. Open windows at night to cool. Don't drive alone. As we get short on fuels let rising prices tell us. Why must we be "driven, self-reinforced and propelled"? You can spot the agents of our deceiving institutions. They talk spearhead, forge, leverage, propel, though actually they pull strings, grease wheels, ride elevators and are nowhere near spears, forges, levers or even hammers. The public relations people, such as World Watch remain in the
USA, particularly Washington, DC, but the hammers, forges and levers have been shipped to China.

I believe World Watch pays little attention to inexpensive common sense uses of renewable energy, because the rich institutions that finance World Watch don't make enough money from them. Our wealthiest prefer to go from one subsidized monopoly to another.

What would happen if people were left to decide for themselves? Their appetite for fossil fuels might wane if subsidies were removed. What would happen if British Petroleum and General Electric couldn't promote their solar electric spell with tax money? Twenty-five years ago in New Mexico solar energy brought New Mexicans Trombe walls, solar water heaters, clerestories and add-on greenhouses. Not anymore and not in the recommendations of World Watch paper 169 Mainstreaming Renewable energy in the 21st Century. Add-on greenhouses are not mainstream like heavily subsidized hundred megawatt wind farms.

Steve Baer
September 2004