Consultants on "Alternative Energy"
The alternative energy consultants tell us
that the transition from the petroleum driven economy and society will not be a
smooth one, on the whole. The amount of - new technologies and infrastructures
that need to be developed and built is staggering even as Germany achieves
powering "10%" of - the entire nation through the use of - wind turbines and solar
arrays.
Even as corporation after corporation is springing up, helped by
various governments' tax breaks & rebate incentives, to drive forward the
alternative energy mission. We have lain dormant on alternative energy on the
grand scale for so long that we now have to scramble to play catch-up as access
to cheap oil lurks ever closer to being a thing of - the past.
Consultants on
alternative energy also tell us that we need multilateral, international
efforts in concert with one another in the direction of - getting away from the
heavy almost total dependence on fossil fuels. They are poised to become too
expensive, burning them is polluting the atmosphere, and digging for them is
disrupting the natural environment.
We have about 30 years left of - reasonably
cheap oil and gas and consultants say that within 20 years beyond that point,
we had better be at least 90% independent of them. Unfortunately, at the
present time the world is mostly not acting as if - this is the case. The thirst
for oil is growing, not slaking, and it is growing faster now than it did even
in the 1970s.
One of the major problems of - transition, the consultants point
out, is that higher oil and gas prices stimulate the economy (This flies in the
face of what many energy so-called “experts” and many members of the public
believe, but the fact is that oil and gas are found and manufactured and
transported by huge corporations who employ multitudes of - staff workers and
contractors; and from their huge profits their stocks remain lucrative on Wall
Street.).
Alternative, or “green” energy has to become more marketplace
friendly, more profitable to investors and would be employers. Wall Street does
not like change; so there is resistance to this much needed economic
transition. It is because of - this that many consultants are saying that we need
an international, governments backed initiative put into place.
We are told
that we cannot expect the new economy to spring forth overnight, all clean and
polished and perfected, from the black ashes of - the fossil fuel economy
phoenix. It is most imperative that the
wealthy, big production nations such as the US, Japan, Western Europe, and
others be the ones to spearhead the effort to get off of - the fossil fuel
dependence.
Smaller, poorer nations are very simply never going to achieve the
level of - energy production through coal and oil that these nations have for by
the time they would be ready to, the cheap access to the fossil fuels will be
gone, & they will never be able to sustain their newly risen civilizations at
that time as we have been able to do.
The time for transition from black to green is now.
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