Oil, Profits, and the Question of Alternative Energy

Humanist, Sept, 2000 by Richard Rosentreter

Time magazine recently published a special issue entitled "The Future of Technology." In a section depicting the future of the automobile, surprisingly, there was no mention of cars powered by solar technology or any other alternative fuels. Could it be that the fate of alternative energy has been sealed by an industry that would crumble if it were to face competition from other sources?

At the end of the movie Back to the Future, a brilliant scientist called "Doc" refueled a DeLorean with a handful of household trash. It is a fantastic concept that falls into the same category as solar energy because it is nonprofitable. According to the July 7 Fortune 500, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motors, and General Motors are some of the top profit-making corporations in the United States, and they wield a great amount of economic and political clout. Although there are alternative energy sources and related technologies available for development to meet our growing energy needs, there is currently not enough profit in them to be an attractive alternative for corporations. Perhaps renewable energy, too, is destined to become fossilized.

RELATED ARTICLE: Running on Empty

With the flap this summer over gas prices in the United States, I feel impelled to ask why anyone is actually surprised. Petroleum is a finite resource and hence, before it runs out, it's only natural that the price should go up. Current estimates, based upon today's rate of consumption, indicate that cheap oil will be gone within fifty years. Therefore, as that time approaches, local conditions and price gouging can be expected to cause painful spikes in what U.S. consumers pay at the pump.

We must adjust to reality by reducing demand and converting to alternative sources. Higher oil prices today are a wakeup call to the fact that infinite growth is impossible and population growth is approaching the limits of what the environment can acceptably support.

The standard of living of individual societies results from conversion of available natural resources into useful products through technology. These natural resources have limits that can be temporarily exceeded by importing them from regions with a surplus. But when such reserves have also been consumed, only the development of new technology to utilize renewable resources will preserve or improve a traditional standard of living.

Unfortunately for the people with underdeveloped economies, resources that are necessary to raise their living standard are being consumed by the developed economies. For the people living in the underdeveloped economies to raise their standard of living now, new technological advances are required on a magnitude comparable to those that made fools of earlier predictors.

World population was about one billion in 1800 when Thomas Malthus predicted that starvation would halt population growth. He was wrong because he didn't anticipate the technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution, which raised Western living standards and increased life expectancy. World population was about four billion in 1960 when Paul Ehrlich wrote his book The Population Bomb, in which he also predicted that starvation would stop population growth. He, too, was wrong because he didn't anticipate the technology that became known as the green revolution.