Ahead of the curve /or/ Put the wind up the oil baron

I spent some time recently thinking about renewable energy, partly because it’s research for my novel (which is set on a windfarm) and partly because of this post from Nash. It is of his usual stellar quality, and ruminates on the eventual need of humanity to spread beyond this pleasant orb and seek new places to pillage and despoil beyond Earth’s orbit. It looks quite a long way into the future but it made me think hard about some of the issues that address us as a species right now. Chief among them was the possible energy crisis that awaits when we run out of fossil fuels, and the more I thought about it the more I thought: well, that’s bollocks, innit?

Don’t get me wrong, it seems pretty likely we’re going to run out of fossil fuels sooner rather than later. It’s unlikely we’ll even be able to accurately predict when they will reach critical levels, because so much of their future usage will go into the developing economies of India, China and Russia. No one knows for certain how the economic needs of the world will evolve so we don’t know how much energy we will need, past the broad estimate of a flippin’ shitload.

The obvious alternative, therefore, is renewable energy. In fact, it is the only alternative: we can’t just let everything run dry and grind to a halt.

Before the switchover is complete it seems some people expect an era of crisis: we won’t have enough fossil fuel left to sustain the world’s current energy needs and we won’t have enough renewable energy to cope. My question is this: what about current business practice makes this seem likely?

Some good examples are the American railway companies, many of whom collapsed as America’s primary travel method switched from rail to road. The railway companies were selling a product: travel by rail, and when the need for that product disappeared the company was doomed to follow. Business in general learnt a harsh lesson: that no matter how solid and essential a particular product might seem, it can always, always be replaced, and that it is impossible to foresee what form its replacement might take.

The answer? Sell not a product, but an idea. Don’t sell train tickets, sell travel. A good current example is British Telecom, who have to occasionally put out advertisement reminding you that you even have a landline: the product on which their company is based. That they are still a success, despite the fact that a significant fraction of households don’t even bother to use their landline anymore, is down to idea vs product mechanic. BT don’t sell phones, they sell communication.

It seems unlikely to me, therefore, that when the oil starts to really run out, executives at the major fuel companies are just going to stop bothering to show up for work and start seeking employment at the nearest bio-mass depot. It seems rather more likely that the major fuel companies will already own the renewable energy sources, and will have for some time.It also occurs that the fuel companies are in the best position to estimate how much oil is left in the ground, and plan accordingly.

There is plenty of power in the sky and the sea. Enough, in fact, to supply the world’s energy needs several times over. Getting at it will require quite a lot of money, but here’s the thing: the fuel companies actually have quite a lot of money, and they’re willing to spend a bit to make a lot more.

So basically, energy crisis, schmenergy crisis. At first glance this looks like quite a good thing. We switch environmentally damaging energy sources for nice clean renewable ones, everyone feels a bit better and breathes a bit easier and can still keep their iPod charged. Win win.

Except. Except I’m not a massive fan of most fuel companies. I don’t really like the way they operate, or the product they currently endorse. I’d much rather they started making serious investment in renewable sources now, and left the fossil fuels in the ground. But of course they won’t, because that’s not currently how the money is made.

The problem with necessity being the mother of invention is that you have to stick with the person that does the inventing. If you invent things well in advance you can shop about a bit, and choose someone who’s not a colossal twat for your future inventing needs.

The question I’m posing to you, then, is how can we get ahead of the capitalist curve in this? Is there a way of making companies, and I’m talking the big boys here, not Flancrest Enterprises and Jim and Sally’s Family Wind Turbine Store, stop following the shortest route to profit? They’re going to have to change eventually, but only when there’s no money left in doing things the old way. Can we persuade them to do it a bit sooner?

As far as I can see this is the most important aspect of consumer choice. Getting things cheap is a fair goal, especially for those for whom money is in short supply. It’s perfectly within your rights to seek out the cheapest option for a particular product or service. I can’t help thinking, however, that companies will do much of the work in that regard for you. Companies want your money, and they will do anything they can to get it, and if that means lowering their prices then they will. Unfortunately the chief way they manage this is by lowering their overheads and passing on the savings, and in the standard business model the main way to lower your overheads is to start fucking someone else over even harder than you were before.

The only way to encourage large firms to act in a more ethical manner is through mass movement. This is a sentiment more easily made than acted upon and everybody knows it, but my point is this: eventually some firms are going to have to start acting in a certain manner. The problem is that in the meantime the world may have changed into a less hospitable place. It is in all our interest to encourage them to jump the gun.