The Real Cause of the Energy Crisis

The Roman Empire did not fall simply because of lack of fuel or tillable land. There were political, military, economic and other reasons for the collapse. Likewise, the real cause of the upcoming energy crisis will not be lack of fossil fuels only. It will not be, as many alarmist experts claim, overpopulation. Neither will it be overconsumption. These are all symptoms of an imbalanced socioeconomic system. The real causes of these symptoms are more complex, more systemic. In large part, the main cause is due to a highly centralized economy and civilization not acting in accordance with the principles of ecology. In the words of Lester Brown: “Unfortunately, by failing to reflect the full costs of goods and services, the market provides misleading information to economic decision makers at all levels. This has created a distorted economy that is out of sync with the earth’s eco-system – an economy that is destroying its natural support systems.”

The real solution to the energy crisis is not simply alternative energy: huge forests of wind mills, solar panels on every roof top, and hydrogen cells in every basement. The real solution certainly includes alternative energy, but can better be summed up as a “whole systems solution.” We need a whole new systems approach to economics, politics, culture, values, ethics, science, and yes, energy. Ted Trainer, author of The Simpler Way, writes that “the alternative is about ensuring a very high quality of life for all without anywhere near as much production, consumption, exporting, investment, resource use, environmental damage, work etc. as our present society involves.”

Designing the New Energy Society

How our society is structured and designed effects how people live, what type of transportation they use, how much energy they consume, it even effects the amount of pollution that spills into water ways and floats into the air. The design of modern society is highly centralized. The energy grid is centralized around a few power plants. People are centralized in overcrowded cities. The economy is centralized in large corporations. Even farming is centralized on large, highly specialized industrial farms, often thousands of miles away from where the consumers live.

In times of crisis, such as the recent power grid failure in the Eastern United States, we realize how inflexible, fragile, and energy inefficient such centralized systems are. However, modern society creates other disturbing, even absurd, trends often overlooked by the average consumer: It is estimated that 47 million pounds of butter is imported into the U.K. every year, while 49 million is exported. About as many millions of kilos of pork products leave Australia as enter. Not surprisingly, per capita use of fossil energy in North America--where thousands of gas guzzling trucks transports food thousands of miles back and forth across this vast continent--is five times the world average.

Thus, economist Ravi Batra notes in his book, The Myth of Free Trade, that one of the most important contributions of a decentralized economy would be huge reductions in both pollution and the use of energy. A prominent feature of an alternative energy society will therefore be its decentralized energy and transportation grid, a feature mimicking how nature’s bio-diverse web itself is organized. Indeed, alternative energy promoters stress the fact that alternative energy by design is decentralized. However, they often overlook the need to also restructure the entire economy in a decentralized fashion. This is of crucial importance.

Otherwise, profiteering by a few huge, largely Western, corporations will again dominate the entire world economy, including energy. At best, the rich in the North will have solar powered homes and drive BMW’s with hydrogen cells, but the people in the South will still be congested, polluted, poor, and exploited. At worst, we will fail to change our energy grid in time. Millions will starve to death. The rest will be at war over dwindling resources like water, food, and left over fossil fuels. Not a pretty scenario.

A decentralized (read: localized), largely cooperative economy is thus crucial in a new energy world. Jeremy Rifkin, a strong proponent of a hydrogen-based energy economy, writes: “Power companies are going to have to come to grips with the reality that millions of local entrepreneurs, generating electricity from fuel cells on-site, can produce more power more cheaply than can today’s giant power plants.” When users become producers of their own energy, Rifkin holds, the only remaining role for the power companies would be in the form of “virtual power plants” that manufacture and market fuel cells and coordinate the flow of energy. On a global scale, Rifkin believes that cooperatives are “the best organizational vehicles” for establishing the new grid of renewable energy. “With 730 million members in 100 countries, cooperatives could help lead the way into a hydrogen era by establishing distribution generation associations in thousands of communities,” Rifkin writes. (page 232, 233)

What emerges, then, is an alternative economic structure that is akin to P. R Sarkar’s three-tiered PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory) economy, in which large and small, localized, worker-owned cooperatives serve as the cornerstone of the economy. At the bottom of this three-tiered pyramid, there are small, privately owned enterprises, while at the top there are key-industries owned by the local or state government and run on a no-profit-no-loss principle. Envision a future energy grid in which key industries produce fuel cells at very low cost, distribute the flow of energy where needed. Local cooperative enterprises will make everything from wind mills to solar panels to bio-diesel generators, and cooperatively and privately owned stores will sell alternative energy components to home owners.

Beyond Energy

The energy problem is not just a problem of energy; it is a problem endemic to our wasteful way of life, to corporate capitalism, to our reductionist and materialist worldview, to our lack of an ecological ethics, and, most importantly, lack of political leaders guided by perennial ethics and wisdom.

For some renewable energy experts, though, the goal is simple: create an abundance of cheap and clean energy from renewable sources to replace fossil fuel. Jeremy Rifkin claims that the hydrogen economy is the answer, and that it is “within sight.” Hydrogen, he writes, is abundant, it will soon be cheap to produce, and it will, by its very nature, decentralize and democratize the energy web and help shape a whole new society formed around bioregions. Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, authors of Natural Capitalism, claims we need a new industrial revolution based on more energy efficient products, the elimination of waste, and on investing in natural capital. For others, the changes needed are much more complex and far-reaching: produce cheap and clean energy, yes, but, more importantly, to reorganize our whole economy and dramatically change our lifestyle and our worldview. Trainer, an advocate of this school of thought, claims there is no scientific, quick fix to this global problem. He promotes a dramatically new economy based on The Simpler Way: less luxury consumption, self-sufficient regions, local economic independence and cooperatives.

Sarkar’s PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory) outlines such an emerging economy in more detail: a three-tiered, decentralized structure, global political cooperation, a guaranteed minimum living standard and a maximum income, an economy driven not by profit but by production for human needs, dynamic balance between economic output and environmental needs, maximum utilization of resources (closed loop industries, “cradle to cradle” industrial designs), international barter trade, and much more. In addition, Sarkar extends the spiritual perspective of traditional peoples, and the world’s mystical traditions, by maintaining that we all belong to Nature. Moreover, that Nature and the Pure Consciousness that created Her are inseparable. Thus, he declares, the Earth is the common inheritance of all: people, plants and animals. Energy, water, soil, sun light, therefore, does not belong to anyone—especially not to the rich, nor to the corporations. Thus a fundamental tenet of the new energy economy, according to Sarkar’s principles, is that these resources must be respectfully shared and appropriately utilized by all.

The ideas promoted by Rifkin, Sarkar, Trainer, Hawken and Lovins, although very different, are quite complimentary. Hydrogen must undoubtedly be part of the new economy; industrial innovation and investing in natural capital is important in order to keep the biosphere in tact; a simpler lifestyle is vital in order to reduce consumption and waste; a three-tiered restructuring of the economy is a radical new way to balance the ingenuity of individual enterprise with cooperation and collective human needs; finally, all this must be balanced with the welfare of nature.

An alternative energy society will thus consist of both high and low technology, both personal lifestyle/worldview changes as well as radical structural changes to the economy: non-polluting hydrogen cars and public transportation, walking and bicycling to work and for shopping, computer and machine parts that are 100 percent recyclable, locally produced food (even in urban areas), energy efficient houses made of local raw materials (wood, straw, sand, clay, glass) that produce more renewable energy than they use, a cooperative economy with less working hours, a dramatic reduction in consumerism, frugality and self-sufficiency, and more time for recreation, family, friends, spirituality, and fun.

All things considered, there is no quick fix. No amount of conspiratorial agitation will scare us into economic equity and environmental balance. Our best hope of averting a global energy crisis is to turn inward and to heed the wisdom and example of those who advocate and already live the radical and systemic changes that must take place in our economy, our lifestyle, and our energy consumption. At this crossroads, we are presented with a great opportunity for integral change. Whether we seize this opportunity or squander it, that is up to us.

Roar Ramesh Bjonnes is Marketing Director and co-founder of the Prama Institute. He has been an agronomist, freelance journalist and is currently a columnist for a Norwegian Newspaper and contributing editor for New Renaissance (www.ru.org). His articles have appeared in books, newspapers and magazines in the US and in Europe. He can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.