Hey there!,

I share with you a TED Talk from Donald Sadoway regarding the missing link to renewable energy. It solves the problem of storage caused by the energy flow intermittency. Generally speaking, the wind blows a little bit more at night and the Sun sheds its energy during the day, and our societies need a constant, uninterrupted energy flow in order to put on through with all our activities. Sadoway and his team (mainly students) invented a battery which is created by simple manufacture techniques, and which materials are earthly abundant, hence, thinking big and cheap.

However, it is frustrating how, sometimes, our governments seem to take one step forward and then two steps back… For instance, Spain is one of the world leaders in investigation and application of renewable energies in the energy grid. But these days, one of the first measures taken by their Industry Minister, José Manuel Soria, to try and stop the energetic deficit was to approve a law by which every subsidy given to renewable energy power plants are abolished… It sucks… after all this country has advanced in including renewable energies into the energy grid, it gets scared by the economic pressures of the system… Read –if you want to- the article on this issue.

“This requires a shift in priorities regarding the assignment of economic resources on behalf of the environment. This demand, derived from reality, contrasts with financial tendencies and derived public priorities, as well as with the adjustment politics destined to fulfill the commitment with the external debt.

The adjustment politics generate a thick contradiction within a false protection politic or environmental deterioration reversion: these international demands in favor of reducing public expenditure contradict the need for larger amounts of state funds destined to the environment. (…)

The intense economic crisis cannot be the excuse to avoid the need to tackle environmental problems (…), in which we should apply the axiom that says that, in the long term, it is better safe than sorry.” – Los Fundamentos de las Ciencias del Hombre. Medio ambiente urbano en la Argentina. (The Human Science Foundations. The Urban Environment in Argentina) María di Pace, Sergio Federovisky, Jorge E. Hardoy, Sergio Mazzucchelli. C.E.A.L.. Chapter X: Conclusions and Recomendations. Pages 177 y 178.

In other words, whenever countries start to react on how to tackle environmental issues, they get scared of the system who says where are you going? Don’t you go and invest in something new when you still owe me money, aye?, you hear me? And don’t you dare invest in something that makes you not depend from me. The country no longer responds to the frugal interests of the people, to supplying the basic needs…

Society (individuals, families, institutions… the entire community) is no longer the top priority for governments –although these were created by society, as a conclusion of the human thinking regarding the need to get organized to secure the survival of the species-; the government now responds to a higher power…

Governments used to have money which imparted at will (the will of the people) taking actions which benefited the individuals as a whole. But today, the big companies have gained more money than governments. It is logical that the governments now respond to the interest of these companies (they are the ones who put the money for all this circus to work), allowing the excessive extraction of natural resources, exploiting the working masses, and not giving a damn about ethics, morals, spiritualism, frugality, and what is good and what is absolutely WRONG. What some numbers say in an Exxon Mobile Corporation environmental impact report (a mayor oil company), or what 3.000 scientists agree about the imminent global humanitarian emergency. What is good, and what is wrong…

I don’t know, I leave it to your own criterion…

Cheers,

Brian Longstaff.-

Comments