We need a unified VISION for energy and water supply.
The need for a vision arises, if nothing else, from “Gaia” suffering a clearly evident immediate circulation problem (water circulation) and slowly choking to death due to long-term reducing levels of carbon dioxide.
The long-term tendency is not the same as the short- to medium-term phenomenon of carbon dioxide increase due to (relatively short-lived) fossil fuel exploitation and the resultant global warming, which we are currently getting so excited about. The long-term reduction is largely due to carbon dioxide being trapped in rock, which due to the reducing volcanic activity as the earth core continues cooling down, is being recycled ever less. High carbon dioxide levels, which now lead to global warming, also result in faster permanent trapping of this indispensable ‘food’, without which life as we know it cannot exist. This means that we need to cut carbon dioxide levels down to the pre-industrial era levels, because this is where nature had found a level of long-term balance, and keep them there. This in turn means weaning our energy production off the use of any form of carbon, including “bio-fuels”, as an energy carrier.
However, to resolve the (water) circulation problem, we will need an abundant and cheap supply of energy – energy to restore and increase the circulation to ensure for Gaia a healthy life. We cannot afford to continue with our current irresponsible leeching on this circulation by damming up rivers and pumping underground reservoirs dry. We will need to restore the circulation by obtaining water from the sea – the very same source from which nature ultimately feeds Gaia’s circulation. But, because we need more water than nature can provide by its own means, we need to boost the circulation by desalination. And, to really improve the circulation to healthy levels, we need to claw back from the deserts one of nature’s main means of keeping up the circulation – forests. To be able to do so, we need even more water – that is, even more energy.
So far, we have lots of (fragmented) plans for energy and water supply, which all lack real vision, even less so a coherent one.
It is true that we must engage in saving energy and water as a short- to medium-term necessity, because we need time to build up to the energy and water supply capacity that we REALLY need – however, this is NOT a vision. ‘Saving’ would ultimately be a recipe not for saving, but for killing, Gaia.
Ultimately, not having to save requires an abundant supply of clean, but ‘dirt cheap’, energy. Ultimately, we are likely to find that for this purpose we will have to tap into the limitless energy coming to us from the sun. This is so, because in the longer term the only energy source that will prevail in carrying us forward to our vision is that which we can exploit at the lowest marginal economic cost.
To procure the energy and water supply that we need from the lowest marginal cost source, capital outlay should be the least of our concerns. Capital is getting ever cheaper, and with the right policy measures, we can ensure that it will get a lot cheaper in future, particularly in developed countries. For one thing, particularly in the latter countries, the population is fast ageing, requiring them to push the cash returns that they need from their investments for retirement further into the future. We need to get to a realisation that future cash flow returns are the justification for making an investment now.
There is still a vast scope for efficiency improvement, which means vast economic growth potential. We have just begun “pumping” brain power around the world with the WWW. We have to grow our economies through efficiency and sustainability, not by artificially inflating prices on stock markets with their capacity for new investment being extremely limited due a lack of political vision for growing that investment potential through expansive public policy. This would include sweeping aside the snivelling “savers” and “poverty alleviators”. What we need is growing prosperity, for the sake of the whole community of life on Earth, not myopic views of ‘saving’ and ‘alleviation’.
So far, we live off the energy of the Earth. Now we must switch to using the energy of the sun – see the visions of Michio Kaku for future generations, whose advancement is measured by their capacity to harness energy.
Now we must create a WWW of energy and “pumping water into the sky”, to claw back a healthy water circulation for Gaia. Clearly, thus, energy and water supply must become a coherent long-term strategy. This would have vast potential for creating new jobs and new wealth, but old attitudes must die first.