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There have been apocalyptic predictions through all of recorded history. In the past, they were generally based on offense to the gods or immoral behavior, also an offense to the gods. In the present age, when God is dead and the dominant atheists are in charge, the predictions of universal destruction are based on the violations of natural law, determined by science.
It turns out that contemporary science is as much of a religion as Lutheranism or Hinduism. It's based on a similar mythology. But that's not actually the point. The focus isn't on a mythology, it's about money.
The energy business, the business that keeps the giant gears of commerce turning, is a very new one. The first commercial oil well was drilled near Titusville, PA, in 1859, only 164 years ago, its product being used to produce kerosene for home lighting. Shortly after that engines were developed that ultimately led to vehicles like the Chevrolet Corvette and Volkswagen Beetle. Despite some fits, starts and bankruptcies the world came to embrace fossil fuels for powering transportation, electrical generation, home and commercial heating and eventually the majority of energy used in the developed world.
In science, business and government nothing stands still for very long. Hydro power, one of the oldest forms of energy production, remains to this day a very minor one. Related to geographical and geological elements, there are no new sites usable for the necessary dams.
Nuclear fission power has been successful but the fear that it inspires imposes huge and expensive issues in siting, regulation, construction and maintenance. Many plants are being shut down. Even those operating under current licensing can only produce electrical power and don't make a meaningful contribution to transportation.
Fossil fuels, hydro power and nuclear power are mature industries. The players involved are very much involved. There are no openings for new operators. The multi-billion dollar major oil companies, while engaged in a certain amount of competition among themselves, have no fear of an entrepreneur setting up the exploration, development, refining and marketing that enables them to be profitable. People complain about "big oil" but that's the only kind there is. There's no such thing as "Mom and Pop oil".
Hydro power is a cooperation between utilities and the government. It is what it is.
Nuclear power is also a cooperative effort between utilities, the regulatory branch of government and the contractors able to build and maintain nuclear reactors. Its unlikely that any new companies will enter that field.
That's what makes the war on CO2, climate change and renewable power so important. It's an environment open to new players, just as the fossil fuel industry was a century and a half ago. However, in that era, fossil fuels only had to outdo wood, sperm oil, sails and water wheels. It was easy. Fossil fuels advantages were quite apparent and they became dominant except in the most isolated situations.
Those advantages still exist. All things being equal, renewables of whatever kind can't improve on the performance of fossil fuels at this time. The renewable advocates must develop a strategy that allows them to join and surpass their fossil fuel enemies. It's climate change.
The forces that have joined the renewable push and fossil fuel elimination are formidable. The leaders are academia, the government, media, business and legal industry. Academia, in an age of unquestioned scientific and technological wonder, may be the most trusted division of western culture. They are the researchers that discover the problems to be faced and construct the needed solutions. This means that they are showered with funding both public and private that enables them to build facilities and hire employees. They have discovered that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, 421 parts per million and rising, is likely to rapidly raise the global temperature to an extent that life on earth will disappear. Forcibly removing a portion of the current atmospheric CO2 and eliminating it as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion are necessary for survival of life.
Government, always on the alert for opportunities to expand its power has become closely involved in renewable resources.
The media, using academia as a source for its apocalyptic predictions, feels a need to broadcast them in lieu of "It's another nicer day, today. The Kardashians are out getting some sun".
The entreprenurial spirit, constantly in search of new opportunities, has embraced renewable power with a vengeance. Solar power, on and offshore wind turbines, fusion power, battery-powered electrical vehicles and whatever comes next are relatively undeveloped fields that are receiving substantial research and funding. The American fetish with the "new" also plays a part in the rapid adoption of untested solutions to imaginary problems.
The legal industry, omnipresent in every aspect of American life, will, as always, extract its toll from each transaction or dispute.
The most interesting feature of the renewable craze is that those involved with the four components identified above move seamlessly from one to the other, back again, and to another, multiple times. Academics and institutional figures move to government, then to business, sometimes to media, and are often members of the bar. They are all taking advantage of the opportunity that academic researchers have given them by identifying an innocuous gas as the most dangerous thing on earth. This isn't about science, its about money.
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