In an article by former Sierra Club director and executive chairman Carl Pope for the Huffington Post, it is stated in no uncertain terms that fossil fuels will soon become too expensive to extract, maintain, and use for any sort of extended productive lifespan. Comparatively, elements like solar, wind, hydro, and other readily available resources will become the new driving - and lighting, and otherwise electrifying - forces. Entire governments, such as India and Germany, are making strides to help their people use more sustainable sources of energy.
While fossil fuels still command a high market share, even the banks know that their time is limited. The Bloomberg New Energy Finance projection claims that over the next 15 years, 2/3 of incremental global power generation will be renewably generated. They are also quick to note, however, that the energy business infrastructure still spends big money ($674 billion was spent last year by the oil industry seeking new reserves despite them being increasingly more expensive) due to the nature of the "quasi-cartel"-style industry wanting to get all their profits before the party is over. They are dying dinosaurs staring at the solar rock hurtling towards them, but they will still eat those smaller than them.
Yet the numbers can't be denied any longer. As the Pope article notes, "Fossil fuels generate 63 percent of the world's power, renewables less than 5 percent, but 1/3 of fossil electricity now costs more than competing wind and solar." While the transition to more renewable energy will require a lot of adaptation (retrofitting homes, reworking transportation ideas, weaning off our oil dependence, and most of all changing our overall mindsets on the issue), it will be worth it to live in a world that we're not destroying just to keep it moving.
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| Image courtesy www.spurmag.com |
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