Three continents, two energy markets, two stories. Brian covered the first here, of which the emoting continues apace. The second is far more interesting.
Yesterday, 12 European companies signed a 400 billion euro (560 billion dollar) initiative to built huge solar thermal power plants in Africa and the Middle East. Munich Re, Deutsche Bank and Siemens are among the corporate giants that will form the consortium Desertec. By 2050, the solar farms may provide up to 15 percent of Europe’s electricity needs and a substantial portion of the power needs of the producer countries with carbon-free power.
Will Davies pings the cultural boundaries around this project via some mad French pornographer called Georges Bataille, no less, to rethink notions of ‘economy’ from the ground up…. or should that be, from the sun, down :
Firstly, if the next ‘phase’ of capitalism is oriented around renewable energy, what implications does this have for industrial organisation and monopolisation? Regulationists focus heavily on the shift from Fordist to flexible production that occurred during the crisis of the 1970s, but the problem that this was responding to was largely a cultural one of responding to 1960s individualism. The key philosophical entities that moved to the centre of capitalism were desire, me, identity, self, expression, meaning. By contrast, we now face a comparatively primitive economic problem concerning nature. The next phase of capitalism will be having to deal with entities such as power, exploitation, harnessing, generation, construction. The organisations that serve these purposes will be anything but ‘flexible’ or ‘weightless’
We’ve noted a few times on this blog that the neoliberal project was always a paradoxical one, requiring rolling back and rolling out. Davies, however, is thinking well beyond the culture wars to “a very primitive problem”
…concerning the original source of all economic value – the sun. The sun, as Bataille points out, is typical of all economic problems, in that its function is to overflow. The sun creates too much energy, the spare energy creates too many plants, the plants feed too many animals… and we’re now reaching the end of this chain, so we return to the start all over again (with the help of a little vorsprung durch technik)…
Crucially, the point is not so much to deny the existence of scarcity but to think outside notions of restricted economy that govern our thinking about modern problems like global warming, national wealth or class:
If EMI are allowed to profit from music that they didn’t create [by selling the Beatles back catalogue], might not North Africa have some right to profit from energy that it didn’t create? Equally, it sounds risky for a project with billions of euros of sunk costs to be exploiting a resource that is so difficult to privatise (it’s not as if there is no ‘weather’ in Europe). What happens when capital’s demand to retain surplus goes head to head with the sun’s insistence on distributing it? So here’s how capitalism ends eventually. An economic system condemned to expand through privatising the commons and extracting surpluses finally turns its attention to the ultimate commons, the ultimate surplus, from where all economic questions begin, and seeks to privatise and extract surpluses from it. In an anti-oedipal act, the sun murders this troublesome child. I can’t quite work out the details yet, but I’m pretty sure of it. Marx thought capital was a vampire. I reckon it’s Icarus.
No wonder the loom smashing cartel lovers at the Oz have been running around like headless chooks at the prospect global warming science being real: it would be another nail in the coffin of the neo-conservative utopia through (highly restricted) market ‘freedom’. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is dispensed at a deliciously constant rate… (and, yes, I know it was originally going to be ‘too cheap to meter’ but that’s not the point).
I don’t see how this is any different in principle from agriculture.
The sun may be “free” and universal, but the equipment to gather its energy and send it where it’s needed most certainly isn’t. And not all locations on Earth serve as effective collection points.
Furthermore (as I’ve argued in the past) it’s not at all clear that small-scale “personal” renewable energy will be cost-effective (particularly for electricity generation; solar hot water is a different matter).
If we’re looking at technologies that might make capitalism obsolete, I think the assembler is a far more likely candidate, though much further off.
Bataille was a philosopher and an enemy of old institutions so very appropriate to quote here. Mad pornographer indeed. He was more Bunuel than Larry Flynt.
I’ve also been thinking along these lines but have to take exception with flexible – that’s exactly what some entities have to be. And it shouldn’t be the end of capitalism but its transformation. Weightless transactions only occur in models.
Stiglitz is thinking of a formal global reserve to replace the American dollar as the default global reserve. Thinking of rents, we are actually renting the planet. If a bond was posted, the yield from that bond could keep the property in order, and fit for the next tenants. This is a primitive take on economics and value and is the place to go on the path to creative destruction. Much better than designing policies for rent-seekers who are tearing up the floorboards to keep the fire going.
Economics as scarcity keeps all value marginal instead of looking at the total. It is the contrast between happiness and satiation, between being and wanting, between livelihoods and lifestyle. We are eroding the first for the second.
400 billion euros worth of solar thermal plant doesn’t sound like an investment that is difficult to privatize. It’s easy to maintain a sparsity of electricity when it costs so much to tap into the sun’s abundant supply of energy.
Indeed, given that almost all the energy we use (fossil fuel, hydro, wind, solar, biofuel, even food, although not nuclear or geothermal) are products of the sun’s surplus energy, I don’t see anything changing much at all in a so-called “solar economy”. We have always been in a solar economy. And although the sun’s energy is plentiful, converting that energy into a useful form is never free of ‘cost’, however that cost is measured.
Meh, I should have refreshed before I posted – you beat me to it Robert.
Robert, within the bounds of ‘restricted economy’, you may well be right, but the point of the post is to think outside it.
Sure – from Coase onwards economists have accepted that weightlessness is a silly assumption. I guess it depends what you mean by flexible though. BHP and Rio Tinto are actually pretty flexible. Certainly not nimble, but able to extract value by appeasing/resisting most opposition. The CPRS guarantees their profitability (a vague notion indeed!) at the expense of genuine emissions reductions.
Sure. But there’s nothing special about solar energy that will, in and of itself, prompt such a rethink.
I can see, however, that the current impasse we find ourselves in with regards to our inability to take action on climate change, suggests that maybe we should be rethinking.
dk – flexible from the point of learning as they go, flexible in assumptions and not fixed on the old ways of thinking. Most of our institions are actually very rigid in that sense and will not take risks, thereby reinforcing the status quo (read market failure).
And Robert, I agree with dk – it’s not solar per se – could be anything. Think scale and the conditions that break some of those rigidities open. Y’r thunking like an injuneer…
One thing to realise about CSP is that it employs a lot of people cleaning and servicing mirrors. In this magnificent plan the employed people are Africans, and so this project will help to insulate Europe from the steady flow of economic refugees from African states. By providing good quality employment in their own land the onflow will be a revitalised Arican economy. The secondary benefit will be a revitalised European engineering economy. You will note that the investment goes on for decades. Win, win, win.
It is such a pity that they did not do this decades ago.
I agree with Robert Merkel.
Solar output is remarkably steady. Our means of collection and conversion are certainly constrained by land area, sea area, physical forces, technological methods, etc. It may be that farms, forest plantations and natural ecosystems, use solar energy more efficiently than human cities do.
That’s why I find this: “Think scale and the conditions that break some of those rigidities open. Y’r thunking like an injuneer…” both puzzling and worrying. Ultimately, many human activities are underpinned by engineering, at all sorts of scales (microchip to Snowy Mountain scheme).
It’s fine to dream, and I like sun-bathing too. But sun-bathing gives me only a fraction of the energy I use. I can envisage a low-energy economy, and lower-energy food production; as I’m sure we all can and have.
But practicalities, as outlined here by Robert M, Brian, Huggynbunny and a host of knowledgeable folk, can’t be ignored.
Physics and thermodynamics constrain us: upsetting but true.
Is a low-energy economy a worthwhile end in itself anyway? Climate change may make this inevitable, and reducing energy waste through efficiency is clearly sensible here, but is there something inherently better about a low-energy economy?
Oh well, looks like my attempts to think outside traditional, functionalist accounts of political economy have been unconvincing.
Yet they have a history. Do you not find that constraining? Or does the idea of constructivist realism (or ’speculative’ realism) appeal to you? Serious question, btw.
I’m not sure that flexibility was a response to the perceived (my word) individualism of the 60s. I’m not even sure flexibility exists.
The issues that confront humanity seem the same now as they did 160 years ago – in particular the relational process for the creation of value.
If that means I am thinking in terms of restricted economy then so be it.
Will asks: What happens when capital’s demand to retain surplus goes head to head with the sun’s insistence on distributing it?
I really don’t see this in the contradictory terms Will does. Maybe we need a little more to understand what this head to head is?
In fact it might just be a reprise of the old state capital versus private capital argument, occurring within the context of the present accumulation process.
There also seems to be a form of technological determinism involved here, especially Robert’s reference to technologies that might make capitalism obsolete. (please don’t quote back at me Marx on water wheels or chains being burst asunder (or whatever it was that determinists hold up.)
Certainly I think cost and profit models may well constrain us from developing timely technologies to address AGW. That may impact on our future direction – barbarism or socialism comes to mind.
I don’t see the sun as the original source of value. It is human intervention which creates value.
Certainly I don’t see the use (or failure to use, for that matter) of solar energy as necessarily destroying the particular variant of value creation we have at the moment or even creating the conditions for some sort of seamless transition away from capitalism. (And to what, precisely?)
The constraints I was referring to were economic, as per dk’s post, not physical. The points he was making do not stand or fall on whether solar power is scalable to the point of global industrial transformation. As he said it was about the political economy and that’s all my comments were addressed at. The comments above seem to suggest because the post mentioned solar, and because you all have decided it’s not scalable, the other points dk made about rethinking the economy are invalid. To me, that logic seems kind of odd.
Despite that, this lot are having a go: Desertec Because of the physical constraints I also have my doubts, but I’d rather the money went on this project than submarines and fighter jets, for instance.
To frame my comments a little better, I’m a physically trained scientist in an economic research group so don’t have any basic issues with the conservation of energy and mass, but I am interested in interdisciplinary approaches to these issues and I thought the post was thought-provoking. Maybe I’ll take back the comment about thinking like engineers, but the view beyond the silo walls seems to be occluded.
Yes, it’s important to question why things are as they are, and whether we can do better.
But I was puzzled about what about the nature of the Desertec project prompted the leap. Perhaps it’s a lack of imagination on my part.
And I guess I jumped on it, not so much because of Desertec but because I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how we finance the repair and sustenance of global life support systems, which form the invisible economy that we all depend upon.
These farms are going to be big 0h boy are they going to be big.
Another thing is they will employ lots and lots of people and they will require large dc transmission systems and if they are sited right they will supply power into Europe when it is needed.
Huggy is really really excited. Time for a lie down.
I think that Will Davies missed the bit where large chunks of the captial for Desertek are to come from what ever carbon trading scheme the Europeans are using and much of the technology has been under development by the German Aerospace body. This is being driven by a country where corporations take out cross ownership with like minded other companies to prevent takeovers. These people know how to stay in business for the long haul. If you look at the Desertek information they show 3 squares over the map of the Sahara desert. One is the area to power Germany and its nearest and dearest (I think) the next is the area to power all of Europe, and the next is the area to power the entire world.
There is no monopoly plan here, no cartel. This is about community, responsibility, and those with the know how becoming the facilitators of a surviveable future.
There is plenty of sunshine to go around. Maybe we should get us some of that!!
Good luck one and all in your practical assessments and applications!? But I put a couple of propositions about jet fighter planes and submarines…like the sun, which doesn’t hold to any form of accounting as far as I know,accept in the all and sun dry.Let me say a fighter jet on a tarmac, that may have reached a certain temperature as tarmac,is positioned exactly in the right position for a conversion of heat collection to explosive jet force,or even motor turn they have wings and a body also, plus space in the pilot’s seat to store gas under pressure caused by temperature variables etc. The parachute of airmen could be placed in wind conditions to spin and turn to give maximal energy conversion in those circumstances too whatever mechanical or other force to kinetic motor activity.Indeed whatever the fighter jet,and most planes I will suggest are doing in relationship to the ground have a potential for energy conversion for usage other than the use of energy for the design of itself as that vehicle,as can be observed in the notions of design in cars of using them as electrical generators.Now as moment of speculative generalised design the submarine within their design capacity,I am totally convinced of can do heaps more.And suggest,if you find that means,if you haven’t thought about it before..try to make some money out of it.Even the torpedoes bombs,did once come with trailing cable,and cable is universal as a means to convert through those means electrical,hydraulic and kinetic force.To not be amazed,but to explore is the instinct of the inventor developer,and it is likely some of the ideas like I am displaying here,have been put on hold.If two torpedoes hit each other ,similar to crystal deformation that translates as electrical energy,dont you think the energy systems oyster is still around with plenty of oppurtunities.The problem really today is in some way all energy systems need to be coalescing in some matter of design use or input,otherwise it is a waste of human talent.Oil refineries can be converted to hydro production or re-engineered as part of electrical power generation.Just look at the tech. in those refineries now.It is probably another reason,why Leo Simpson Editor of Silicon Chip actually allowed a promo of water desalination in his magazine. Take a look at the technology being used,and what does it remind you of!? Sadly,humanity whatever it may do,will be afflicted by unnatural loss of human life and potential,including the design errors of existing relationships between humanity and natural systems.Without mentioning the brutality of war. I thought it also strange postershere thought cleaning an advancement on mirrors was a high tech challenging job!Have any of you actually cleaned an equivalent of mirrors regularly!? Behave!? This is Australia.
The world, EU and Germany on the map. Kinda looks doable. According to this article technically not all that difficult. €400 billion (€350 billion for power grid and €50 billion to get it back to Europe) for 15% of supply by 2050 doesn’t seem impossible in terms of the amounts being chucked around for the GFC, but that’s not my area of expertise.
Desertec looks like the classic BIG engineering/private solution with the added problem for Europe of leaving it largely dependant on another potentially hostile foreign country for energy. Add price setting domination by a private monopoly/foreign country and long terrorist friendly delivery lines and there is a lot of strategic risk involved.
Some of these problems could be reduced by setting up power stations in a number of countries, public ownership by the EU and a lower dependence on Desertec.
The other extreme is the roof top solar/personal windmill approach. Far more difficult to knock out the power system but, at the moment, would cost more and have higher all of life emissions. doesn’t lend itself to molten salt thermal heat storage either.