Energy Politics, Economics, and the Lobbies

Post-Oil Energy Technology After the Age of Fossil Fuels 

Conversion is also slowed by lack of public education. It is widely believed, for example, that our lifestyle would have to change, comfort would have to be sacrificed, and mobility reduced, if we converted to a renewable energy economy. This is not true. The solar-hydrogen economy of the future will not differ from the present one. Our lifestyle will be supported by the same quantity of energy it will differ only in the source of that energy. 

Progress has been slowed by some governments refusal to provide leadership. It is unfortunate that conversion to renewable energy became a right-left issue, as if only the left of the planet is warming. On the issues of tax breaks for the oil industry, coal-to-liquid subsidies, oil shale exploration or 

Illustration of the distribution of energy use on the planet. (Courtesy of C. Mayhew and R. Simmon and NASA/GSFC archive.) 

The economics of reducing carbon emissions would be simple if all countries accepted binding emission caps, but at the 2007 UN conference in Bali, the United States and China refused to make a firm commitment to reduce emissions because they do not want to raise the prices of their products. The United States has agreed only to further negotiations. 

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