Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Sources: index mundi Commodity Food Price Index, 2014; BP, Statistical Review of World Energy 2013, Historical
data workbook
Biomass energy is not providing scalable energy, but it is making it difficult for farmers to provide scal-
able
food
.
Here's the bottom line with solar, wind, and biofuels—the three types of energy typically promoted
in renewables mandates. There is zero evidence that solar, wind, and biomass energy can meaningfully
supplement
fossil fuel energy, let alone replace it, let alone provide the energy
growth
that is desperately
needed. If, in the future, those industries are able to overcome the many intractable problems involved in
making dilute, unreliable energy into cheap, plentiful, reliable energy on a world scale, that would be fant-
astic. But it is dishonest to pretend that anything like that has happened or that there is a reason to think it
will happen.
To be sure, solar, wind, and biomass may have their utility for niche uses of energy. If you're living off
the grid and can afford it, an installation with a battery that can power a few appliances might be better
than the alternative (no energy, or frequently returning to civilization for diesel fuel), but they are essen-
tially useless in providing cheap, plentiful, reliable energy for 7 billion people—and to try to rely on them
would be deadly.
And yet our leaders propose massive bans on fossil fuels with the promise that
these
radically inferior
technologies will be replacements. That reflects an ignorance of, or indifference to, the need for efficient
energy and the value of cheap, plentiful, reliable energy. Any leader who is thinking about making policy
decisions with our energy, and ultimately the energy and therefore the opportunities of 7 billion people,
had better take the truth about renewables into account.
