The European union was envisioned by its banker architects as a union of currency, enabling a financial transaction/leverage superhighway that extracted profits for a few multinational conglomerates. The model greatly enriched and empowered the banksters over the past 20 years, while helping to billow a massive global debt bubble that now cripples most households and countries. Debt saturated, meaningful financial recovery going forward, depends on new ideas: not adding more debt and increasing profits for the few, but rather increasing efficiency and reducing prices to increase quality of life and disposable cash flow for consumers everywhere.
The three main constants of household spending are shelter, food and transport. Implicit in all of these are energy costs. In lowering energy costs (full costs that include pollution, climate degradation, water shortages and illness), we directly improve the health and stability of life on earth for humans. A great many people are now seeing that implicit in this goal, is enabling the collection of all kinds of clean energy directly where it is consumed, as well as seamlessly sharing excess via intercontinental power grids that upload energy from millions of producers and sources so that it may be drawn down wherever needed. No more waste and burning off excess power in some regions, while others go without. The Trump government may be trying to pull America back to the energy dark ages, but Europe and most of the world is seeing the light. See: Europe’s renewable energy revolution:
This is just part of a quiet revolution in renewable energy across Europe. An international power grid is gradually developing, using power interconnectors to trade surplus energy across national electricity networks, allowing big wind power producers in northern Europe, for example, to trade electricity with large solar energy generators in southern Europe.
The UK has already plugged into the network through interconnectors to Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and there is a proposal for a highly ambitious project to connect Britain to Iceland’s abundant supply of geothermal and hydroelectric power using a subsea cable around 1,000km long.
This international power grid gives more reliable supplies, helping to smooth out the intermittent power produced from renewables such as wind and solar energy. It also gives Britain more secure power sources as old nuclear and out-of-favour coal plants are shut down.
Also see Let’s get real about alternative energy for some context on the growth potential for alternative fuels and technologies. This is a massive, productive, smart investment area that will create excellent jobs and world-improving efficiency and growth. And in accordance with Moore’s Law, output and efficiency are leaping every year. All win, win.
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