Myth 1

Renewables are renewable using renewable energy

Only by doing several (presumably fatal) experiments is it possible to know what will break the back of a camel.

Is it doubtful, based on the laws of physics, whether a battery or any other renewable source can be made without a surplus supply of energy.

Economics tells us we can increase our GDP simply by increasing our material wealth utilising such methods as increasing the debt coefficient inherent in the cost of housing, by increasing the velocity of money or by using concentrated solar energy to capture diffuse energy by the means of other physical infrastructure such as ‘renewables’.

This growth in GDP does not mean the GDP fueled economy is energetically sustainable and in fact, logically, it points in the other direction. From a purely economic view, things tend to get more expensive as scarcity increases.

From an energetic viewpoint, using the stored solar energy of a few hundred million years, to create a storage system, with hugely negative environmental side effects, that lasts for 15-20 years is the height of folly.

A focus on maintenance rather than growth would quickly disabuse the market of the ‘renewable based on an Infiniti supply’ myth.

The myth of the energetically sustaible economy is popular and strong because it tells us everything will remain the same, only better.

Which is of course what we want to hear, imagine someone telling you that half of the worlds stored energy had been used to create an infrastructure, with a 50-70 year lifespan totally dependent on being recreated by the half we have already used.

Next time you ride under that freeway, wonder how it will be recreated in 30 years or so, from a a solar panel that wore out 10 years ago