Renewable Energy

Dr. Benjamin Senior

On the 8th of September 2006, on behalf of ILBS, I attended a congress for Erneuerbare Energien¹ in Marburg, Germany. This congress brought together a range of speakers across the political, business, and legal spectrum.

The groundswell of public interest in green technology and a peaceful future is being undermined by the fear of climate change and terrorism. This is a situation which no longer pressures governments to decentralise and empower, but which allows natural tendencies towards increased centralisation and control to manifest themselves. It seems essential that those behind Erneuerbare Energien (EE) must share a common sense of purpose and direction in order to support one another in the problems they face. If the speakers are indicative of a broader situation, however, then EE is building on an unstable foundation. My overriding impression was of poor communication and a lack of shared vision.

I shall briefly introduce the speakers and their ideas. In the first half :

The politician's idea of EE was biomass. The argument amounted to not much more than "we have lots of trees and crop stubble, lets burn some of that". No mention was made of alternative forms of EE, such as wind, solar or water. Perhaps this is because biomass plays to an existing (farming) constituency, and avoids the controversy of installing wind power. Perhaps it is because the ministry for Umwelt, ländlichen Raum, and Verbraucherschutz² is simply of too nebulous and unfocused a form to be able to take action decisively across a wide range of technologies. Perhaps it is because the politicians are content to watch the politically combative Mittelstand³ sector being smothered under a bureaucracy, which only larger and more politically cooperative corporations can contend with. Perhaps it is because there exists a hidden agenda for the resurgence of nuclear power as in the UK and US.

The Hauptgeschäftsführer⁴ of the Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft⁵ was clear that EE represents an opportunity for the mittelstand, but visibly closer to the politician than his own constituency. The main emphasis lay once again on biomass, and no mention was made of the specific grievances felt by the mittelstand firms he represents, nor was any vision forthcoming about how the mittelstand could continue to build on its worldwide market lead. Naturally, Herr Behnke represents an enormous range of different businesses, but the absence of "insights from below" was surprising.

Next, the retired scientist showed how dramatically household energy expenditure could be cut (up to 70%) with simple improvements. As a pioneer behind solar in the region, he also demonstrated how radical change can be adopted through practical measures with the support of politicians and local communities. Whilst he considered bio-diesel an essential replacement for oil, as indeed it is when one wishes to produce oils and plastics rather than just electricity, he raged against its use as fuel for highly inefficient auto transport.

Milan Nitzschke, Geschäftsführer⁶ for the Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energien⁷ is clearly an ambitious and capable proto-politician with a passion for EE. Although throwing his weight behind the need for an EE "energy mix", where energy is drawn from a wide range of distributed sources as and when available, he preached that biomass can replace oil immediately.

Günter Benik, Geschäftsführer Energieteam Lichtenau is a natural born fighter who has built an international network of collaborating businesses spanning almost all forms of EE. This type of business, should it survive the assaults and attempted strangulations of the existing energy cartels, bears the hallmarks of a new type of international energy company. His message could not have been simpler. The political process in Germany is actively undermining EE, the deeds and laws do not reflect the words. For example, having spoken beforehand to an installer of wind-turbines, I discovered that they cost in the region of 2.2 million Euros. Over 200k of this can easily be spent on bureaucracy, over 200kg of paper per installation. Furthermore, as Herr Benik points out, it is not possible to upgrade existing wind power sites without a completely fresh application. Given that for most sites it is necessary to lay access roads and high capacity energy lines before even considering building the tower, this dramatically threatens any capital investment in infrastructure. Equally with biomass projects and even solar - where the laws do not make life almost impossible, EE businesses often run up against officials who deliberately and illegitimately undermine application processes.

The Rechtswissenschaftlerin⁸ Prof.Dr. Monika Böhm pointed out that in law there are various implements which could be used by the EE community to accelerate adoption and to succeed in planning applications. However, it is universally true that those who make the law can ignore it if they are not held to account. That is the kernel of Herr Benik's message.

Finally, Prof. Dr. Georg Freund promised to tackle the interesting ethical aspects of EE. And failed to do so. He also made the mistake of equating EE with biomass, which should still have given him ample ammunition for revealing society to itself. In practice, however, only the most shallow possible pseudo-religious analogy was drawn between biomass as a source of heat and a source of food. The entire argument could be reduced to "Is it right to burn food when others are hungry?", and his eminent conclusion was [sic] "neija⁹".

THE PROBLEM WITH BIOMASS

Placing too much focus on biomass as an EE is a looming disaster. It is a crucial and valuable technology that is being falsely sold as a total replacement for oil, with horrific social and ecological consequences.

Let us quickly tackle this issue of biomass, it does not need to take long. Oil and coal *are* biomass. They are millions of years worth of plants and animals compressed under unimaginable geological pressures into substances that store a great deal of usable solar energy. The trees and crops that grow in the space of a few years, by comparison, have accumulated almost no energy. In fact, the amount of energy we extract from oil - *each year* - is equivalent to four centuries' worth of plants and animals [Jeffrey S. Dukes, 2003 - Burning Buried Sunshine]. In other words, biomass is not an Erneuerbare Energie if we attempt to use it to replace oil. We will simply consume all the forests and exhaust the land faster than it can regenerate itself.

Biomass plantations are already coming on stream, mostly in poor countries where we cannot see the effects they are having on the ecology and local populations. They almost universally use palm trees as the production plant. To quote Friends of the Earth : ?Between 1985 and 2000,? it found, ?the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia?. In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia." Furthermore, intensively farmed palm trees quickly exhaust the soil on which they are grown of nutrients.

So why use biomass at all? Because solar and wind are only useful for generating electricity. Oil is used for far more, such as plastics and lubricants. Biomass can be used to synthesize equivalents, but it must be used sparingly as it contains only a very limited amount of energy and its industrialisation can be environmentally devastating. It is not renewable if the forests and nutrients of the fields are consumed/replaced faster than they can be regenerated - particularly when climate change and water shortages may well adversely affect the ability of the natural environment to regenerate itself in its current form.

Seen in this light, the use of biomass for transport is scandalous, as there will never be enough just as there has always been an expanding demand for oil! In effect, one can see clearly that over the last century reduced transportation costs simply lead to more transport - with larger corporations controlling ever larger and more remote centers of production/assembly/distribution in order to maximise nothing more than the profit of their owners.

In other words, to regard biomass as an Erneuerbare Energien is extremely misleading. For politicians to believe in biomass to the exclusion of other technologies is extremely dangerous. For groups within the EE movement to expound it, will simply undermine their own credibility in the eyes of the public and politicians. To regard its wholesale industrialisation as an ethical problem regarding "burn or eat" is to ignore the role our overconsumption plays, the that yet again - the ecological and social costs of biomass will be borne by the economically enslaved nations of the poor.

MISSING FACTORS

I was surprised also by what was absent from the congress.

Much was made of the need for end-consumer efficiency, yet there was almost no mention of industrial consumption although industry represents by far the largest consumer of energy. There was therefore no mention of the link between industrial energy expenditure and its relationship to the "over-consumption" culture we propagate.

Just three or four generations ago, our grandparents and great grandparents lived a life we might now classify as peasant. Nothing wasted, everything saved. The consumerist culture is a recent phenomenon. Can it and should it be rolled back to a sustainable energy footprint? What are the consequences, if not war, oppression and our own spiritual depredation, of not doing so? The orgy of consumption we perpetuate - simply the way we live - is the single greatest source of our own destruction. This is a way of life we have already promoted to developing countries, is it too late to moderate or withdraw it without setting a radical example ourselves?

Equally, no mention was made of fusion or fuel cells. Fuel cells are only an answer to pollution, not the energy problem. They are simply a way to transform gas into electricity, but that gas must still come from oil or biomass which are not the solution. Fusion will, someday, occur. But for a long time it will only be affordable to a tiny handful of economic blocs. The poor, the rest, will need EE. We are already running out of oil.

Ethically and morally, many questions present themselves on this basis. Do we have to change the way we live? Should we be investing 50% of our energy research budget in fusion - to sustain our growth rate at the expense of technologies the poor can afford? What sort of a world will we inhabit should we have unlimited energy? Would it not be a horror, and a very hot one at that as all energy is ultimately reduced to heat (just think of the effect that air conditioning already has in cities!)?

Facets of EE

There is an ethical basis for pursuing EE. Relative peace, global coordination, relative survival. The alternative is the brutal suppression of the weak and war between the powerful.

To introduce EE in a widespread way requires a hugely diverse array of technologies and approaches which may be introduced according to environmental niches anywhere in the world.

The fact is that these technologies, and the companies to refine and specialise them, exist! But they are not being supported, they are being hindered.

It requires energy networks that can connect them and distribute their production as efficiently as possible. For example, in the 60's, Buckminster Fuller suggested a single global energy grid to distribute solar power from whichever side of the planet was currently sun facing. That may or may not be realistic, but is it any more ridiculous than to ship potatoes from China to Germany?

The fact is that companies specialising in connecting and distributing energy exist! But where is the political will, drive, and investment for even regional transitions?

Perhaps because to do so is to acknowledge the seriousness of our situation. Technologically, it requires massive improvements in device efficiency without engaging exorbitant costs - and these energy models must be widely propagated. But politically and socially it requires new patterns of behaviour, and probably self-sacrifice.

What, for example, of our global transport infrastructure - a massive consumer of energy. It is not more energy efficient for the machines capable of production to be transported rather than their products? For production to be decentralised to the nations in which the products are needed? All our global institutions are pushing for ever greater global trade to promote growth, but this a framework for constant, uncontrollable, unsustainable expansion followed by an explosion. These trade patterns cannot, however, be changed too radically as thousands of businesses and lives have grown up around the new trade routes - for which there are no backup supply plans. Can the world's rich stomach the idea of rapidly transferring the right and ability for poor nations to process their own raw materials, and risk becoming autonomous - risk them no longer feeling the need to supply us! I suspect that most politicians in the know are only too aware of the vengeance that could rightly be wrought upon us.

It seems the powerful few, particularly U.S. neo-conservatives, would rather provoke another world war in a vain attempt to recapture the American Golden Years. As the last standing, they seem to assume they will once again have the lion's share of the worlds wealth - as post-WWII. But the situation is radically different - the resources are scarce, the populations larger, the technology more powerful, knowledge and communication more widely spread.

OPPORTUNITIES

Leaving aside the broader picture for a moment, the congress also presented great opportunities that are being missed.

At the grass roots the business people and scientists are saying "it can be done". The lawyers are saying "there exist mechanisms to see that it *is* done". The heads of the verbands¹⁰ are close to the politicians and may well be able to influence them. The Politicians themselves, however, are the unknown quantity.

Theoretically, the politicians are our democratic representatives. Not the government. As such they exist to keep us informed and to use their position of visibility to engage and direct the masses against or with the government as our interests dictate, not the interests of those who seek to use the government for their own personal gain.

The best the politicians can do is to shine the light of publicity on the issues at hand, by supporting those with the courage to tell the truth. To shine the light on their departments own processes to expose those abusing the bureaucracy. Sadly, however, most politicians are very effectively co-opted into the government and kept entirely ignorant about the processes which exist in their own departments. They can choose between an easy life being flattered by big business and big bureaucrats - letting them get on with running things - or a hard and unappreciated life bringing the hard truth to the people who will probably vote them out of office if they come to notice who they are voting for!

At its base, however, the pyramid of influence can be constructed with better cooperation. A single view of the world to motivate the politicians, with legal, scientific and business influences to keep the representatives truly informed and fighting on the right side.

These, as far as I can see, are the only means open to us in a democracy. Could ILBS help to promote this process through mediation?