Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 10:20:05 AM - by Nate Lew

The Toronto Film Festival winner, Collapse, is a big hit, for all the wrong reasons.

It documents the collapse of major economies, specifically America, with the advent of Peak Oil. What is particularly objectionable to me is Ruppert’s view, that alternative energy is a pervasive (and elusive) myth that will lead us into a false sense of security.

Alternative energy, particularly solar, is far from a myth. The obstacles that face it – lack of interest and funding on the part of government (75 percent of subsidies still go toward fossil fuels) – could easily be removed, and rather quickly, if those who have the money to make a difference weren’t convinced they will survive the coming meltdown without any oil (or any help from the rest of us).

Of course, there’s always coal. At least, that’s what the coal barons keep telling us – enough coal to last 240 years. Unfortunately, this estimate is severely skewed toward the positive, and a June article in the Wall Street Journal indicates that extractable reserves may be half that previously estimated.

Even if it were correct, the U.S. cannot continue to burn coal and implement a cap-and-trade carbon plan. Nor can it afford the environmental costs of coal mining and coal-fired generation without instituting some very costly and unproven “fixes”, from retrofitting old coal generation plants with pollution controls to sequestering carbon dioxide underground (a method that strikes this writer as similar to putting a bomb under a bed to escape injury).

Hydrocarbons as a whole are a bet on a winning racehorse that dies at the finish line. Solar, which delivers energy without pollution, is a racehorse hampered by having its legs tied. Surely, if a solar thermal installation in Africa (Desertec) could power 15 percent of Europe, a solar installation in the Mohave Desert could power all of California, with parts of Arizona and Oregon thrown in for good measure.

The obstacle, in both cases, will be environmental policy, but surely there are parts of American deserts that don’t represent critical habitat, or at least parts that could be withdrawn as critical habitat (and the rest put into solar) that would save us from the probability of Ruppert’s Collapse.

Another obstacle is transmission. This obstacle, created by decades of public utilities paying shareholders and CEO’s instead of tending to infrastructure upgrades, could be easily solved by taking some stimulus money and matching it with utility profits, which could be repaid through another form of renewable energy credits.

The secret is to get all the power brokers sitting at the same table to give up their egos and their private agendas to preserve what is currently the most endangered species of all; man. The prevailing idea – that there are too many of us – is one supported by Malthusian malcontents who think they will be preserved from the great decimation by virtue of their: wealth; status; point of view; or worthiness.

None is true. Humanity is a house of cards, or – as John Donne noted – an island. America now needs to mount a concerted effort to insure its own island isn’t swamped by the effects of Ruppert’s Collapse, and there is no better way to do that than by promoting alternative energies like solar with an unbeatable team of power, money, expertise and a willingness to think outside the box of environmental strictures.