Green Illusions

Green Illusions will open your mind to the true nature of our problem with energy by explaining the potential dangers and inefficiencies of alternative energy sources like wind, hydrogen, solar, and nuclear, and identifies the real culprit of our energy crisis and how to stop it.

But alternative energy sources are renewable, so what could be wrong with that? One of the biggest problems with these energy sources is that the equipment and processes to actually produce power are not so renewable.

For example, a hydrogen-powered car might seem like the perfect solution for making our transportation green. These cars get their power from a hydrogen fuel cell that only emits water. But the hydrogen production for the fuel cell needs significantly more energy than the cell itself can provide. This is because refrigeration and high pressure, which need huge amounts of energy, are the only way to convert hydrogen gas into liquid.

Wind energy comes with similar problems. The wind might be free and renewable, but the turbines that turn the wind into energy aren’t. When you actually look at the energy it takes to produce and transport the energy, you see that wind turbines actually need a lot of conventionally produced energy.

And while people might argue that it leaves less of a carbon footprint, they’d be wrong. The CO2 emissions that happen during the production of turbines are so high that the carbon footprint is often as much or more than conventional energy.

We push for alternative energy but are ignoring the true core of our energy crisis: our huge demand for energy. But this is like treating the symptoms instead of the disease itself. Rather than find ways to make more energy, wouldn’t it be better to find ways to use less? Believe it or not, improving energy efficiency can actually increase the demand for energy. With the invention of the steam engine in the 1800s, coal demand skyrocketed. When inventor James Watt created a more efficient steam engine in 1865, people thought coal consumption might decline. But as the Jevons Paradox states, the efficiency of the engines actually made them more popular and affordable, and coal usage increased. Similarly, making modern devices more efficient makes energy cheaper, and this brings us back to where we started: with high consumption and not enough energy supply. If we know this, why do we prefer solutions that only address energy production rather than reduction? The author thinks this is because our economy is dominated by productivism. This is an attitude that values the production of things as this is what makes the money. The bottom line is that we can’t commercialize and sell energy reduction ideas. Which means…