Why We Don't Have A Largely Renewable Grid
Okay, I feel with the current discussion with people who are angry about Solarpunk but refuse to actually research any of this, one topic kind of got lost. And I feel a lot of people do not quite understand it. And that is capitalism and how it relates to renewable energy.
The people who vent about Solarpunk will usually claim that it is pro-capitalist. Which it explicitly is not. Though a bunch of people who mostly like Solarpunk as an aesthetic will also not understand that Solarpunk in its nature is anti-capitalist.
And I think this does connect to one specific issue about how capitalism relates to renewable energies - and which generally speaking is not talked about.
A lot of people think the reason that renewables might allow people to be more self-sufficient in regards to energy, meaning that everyone could just have their own energy source and no longer rely on big suppliers.
But that... is actually not true.
Yes, depending on how well of you are, you might be able to complement your energy consumption with some photovoltaic panels on your roof. But that is only viable if you have your own roof with your own photovoltaic panels. Most people who currently are living are renting apartments, and do not have access to this. Yes, these days you might have also the ability to put two smaller cells onto your balcony, and yes, that helps, sure. But it is still not enough to live off of.
The vast majority of renewable energy comes currently from renewable energy "farms". That means photovoltaic farms, so big fields fully covered in photovoltaic panels. Parks of wind turbines (especially effective if it is off-shore). And hydro dams (that actually are not very good environmentally speaking, btw). All of those are still owned by capitalist entities.
Which does open the question: why do we not have more renewable energy? It is cheaper, after all. Especially wind energy, but photovoltaic has become quite cheap as well. Would it not be in the interest of the capitalist elite to build a whole lot of wind farms and photovoltaic farms given they can get more return on investment?
And here is the thing that most people do not see - because it never gets explained to them: fossil fuels are staying, because the literal worth of capitalism is tied to them.
The core issue that people need to understand is this: capitalists do not own money. They own assets. If you want to go all Marxist: they own the means of production. Which is partially true - and partially a bit too simple.
But yeah, if you hear about how "rich" any given person is, you imagine that their bank account is showing numbers that are very long. When you hear "Elon Musk has a Net Worth of 440 billion dollars!" you imagine his bank account holds 440 billion.
Musk himself is actually a great example, because he tends to be very cash strapped. He does have little money on his actual bank account. From what people say, he likely will not have more than a few million which he actually can access as cash on a bank account or similar.
No, the reason he is "valued" of 440 billion is that he owns assets. His biggest assets are his shares in Tesla, but there is obviously other investments as well. There is also gonna be a privat jet, a yacht, and stuff like that.
Whenever he wants to buy something he goes into debt. Because he can just march up to a bank (or, to be more real, have some guy he is paying, march up to a bank) and say: "Hey, I need some money. I have stuff. If I do not pay you back, you can have my stuff." And then the bank is gonna say: "Well, you do have a lot of stuff. Okay, we are gonna loan you 20 billion."
Which is why Musk would go broke if the Tesla stock ever fell under $120 per share. Because that is the number at which a lot of his debt is tied. If it goes other, banks will start to doubt he will be able to pay them back and start grabbing his stuff, basically.
This does however also relate to renewable energy. Because here is the thing: while you probably know the names of the Silicon Valley billionaires, you likely have never heard of Chris Cline, Oleg Deripaska, Matt Ridley, Clive Palmer, Gautam Adani, Yao Junliang or Gina Rinehart. In fact, out of the billionaires with large holdings in fossil fuels the only ones you likely will know are Warren Buffet and the Rothschild family.
Still: a lot of very rich people largely are considered rich because they hold assets whose entire value is related to humans largely being dependent on fossil fuels. They own coal mines, coal plants, chemical plants, oil wells, and many associated things. And them being rich is tied to those things being valued highly.
If we collectively decided that actually we do not like fossil fuels anymore and will just not use them anymore, the value of those assets would instantly drop to ZERO. And sure, most of those people would not be poor if that happened. They largely still own enough other shit to be considered millionaires afterwards. But they would no longer be the SUPER RICH.
And this is where the double bind comes in: this entire thing creates a game of chicken. Because in the moment when one of those big investors in the energy sector would decide to just sell their holdings in fossil fuels to exchange them for holdings in renewables, the value of those things would collapse. Because remember: they do not have inherent value. Coal is in the end just carbon rocks. If you cannot use it for energy, then... oh well, there is literally not much you can do with it. It would just become dirt.
And this is why capitalism does not want to switch to renewable, sustainable energy. Because the people who hold all the money and power are depending on fossil fuels having inherent value. Because it turns out them being rich is tied to fossil fuels being valued.
It really is not that much about whether some people could be self-sufficient on renewable energy. That is not the big issue. The big issue really is that too many influential people have too much depending on fossil fuels being the main source of energy.
Of course, even outside of the energy question Solarpunk is anti-capitalist in quite a lot of ways, given that Solarpunk as an ideology is also about sustainable living outside of energy. It is about using clothes for longer, and no longer using fast fashion. It is about making food and housing available to everyone. It is about creating libraries of things, to which people can just go if they need tools for anything. It is about mutual aid, and taking care of people because they are people - and not because you can make money of it. It is about community - and actual community is much less exploitable than a fragmented individualist society.
But the reason why renewables and capitalism do not go hand in hand is what I explained above. The simple fact that a lot of very rich, very powerful people are only very rich, and very powerful as long as we are depending so much on fossil fuels.
(All artsworks come from the Solarpunk Seed Library, by the way.)
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