Power politics

My friend Oskar made me aware of an alternative nuclear fuel a couple of days ago. Apparently thorium is a good substitute for uranium - there's a lot of it (few people seem to consider the fact that uranium is finite, and that the cost of our nuclear plants will skyrocket once we hit "Peak Uranium"), it isn't as dangerous to mine, cheaper to process and doesn't produce iffy plutonium as a convenient by-product. Not bad really. But there's a question that's rarely addressed when discussing the use of fossil and other non-renewable, non-omnipresent fuels.

Energy sources such as nuclear fission and coal, in addition to being dangerous (well, perhaps nuclear fission isn't as dangerous if we use thorium) these energy sources are finite and thus more or less scarce. They are also easy to monopolise. This means that a small group of people can control the energy needed by a large group of people (say, the entire population on Earth) and can thus wield immense financial as well as political power.

Scarce resources are quite often expensive, even more so when they are essential. This is recognised by savvy business people the world over, and is the reason why we have so many artificially created scarcities and desires. If you want to make a lot of money, make sure to somehow manufacture a demand for something, then make it scarce, turn up the price and reap the profits.

The opposite is true as well. Abundant resources are cheap, omnipresent and entirely renewable resources are next to free. This is evident in, for instance, the cost of in-home labour when performed by housewives and stay-at-home moms (or -men and fathers, for that matter). I also think it is apparent in the relatively low amount of investments in that omnipresent and entirely renewable source of energy we're all circling in space - the Sun.

Solar energy, of course, is not just harvested through solar panels. Solar energy can also be harvested, albeit indirectly, via wind and wave power. And it is there in abundance. I imagine that the only way any real effort will be put into this is through political incentive. Much like how the only way to get any economic compensation for in-home labour is through political decisions.

If you are still in doubt, consider the profit made by the power companies during the severely cold couple of weeks past here in Sweden. Or consider the limited (if any) amount of energy that is allowed to be fed into the power grid by people with their own sources of power (solar panels, wind power etc.).

Buckminster Fuller proposed that we build an international power-grid, powered by mainly wind power. This was a part of his proposed idea of dismantling all nation states which he saw as obsolete and only a hindrance in human development. While I don't really agree with some of his ideas, and can certainly see a lot of problems in building such an international power grid, the idea of connecting the world's power grids is perhaps not such a bad one. Consider the immense gain in energy - especially since by covering only 7% of the Sahara desert with solar panels, we would cover the energy needs of the entire world. Implementing something like an international power grid would require making sure that no single actor (or group of actors) could control it however.

I would also suggest (primarily to any potential Swedish readers) to actually read what Miljöpartiet says about nuclear power. Perhaps it might set some nuclear-hugging alarmists at ease (yes, alarmists are not just found among us environmental-nuts). Especially considering the idea that seem to flourish that Miljöpartiet wants to simple ban nuclear power over-night.

He who controls the power will also wield the power.