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Discord Invitation
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A Thought Experiment on Collective Energy Security
The Question:
What trade-offs would humanity be willing to accept in exchange for ongoing quality of life and creature comforts? That is to say, what political arrangements would nation-states be willing to countenance in order to retain industrial-technological civilization as we know it today?
Nation-states have long been jealous of their sovereignty and exceedingly reluctant to commit themselves to any robust arrangement of collective security, but if the requirement for national autonomy is balanced against the existential need to act on a planetary level of cooperation in order to enjoy the present level of civilized comfort on a sustainable basis, would the nation-states of the world prefer energy insecurity to cooperation, or vice versa?
The Background:
Given that the concepts of energy security and collective security are both pervasive in contemporary geopolitical thought, it seems likely that the two would eventually be joined in a conception of collective energy security.
Energy security is difficult to define. The complexity of the problem has been outlined in a paper, Competing Dimensions of Energy Security: An International Perspective, by Benjamin K. Sovacool and Marilyn A. Brown, who observe:
“Scientists and engineers characterize energy security as a function of strong energy research and development, innovation, and technology transfer systems.10 The World Bank, in contrast, tells us that energy security is based on the three pillars of energy efficiency, diversification of supply, and minimization of price volatility.11 Consumer advocates and users tend to view energy security as reasonably priced energy services without disruption. Major oil and gas producers focus on the “security” of their access to new reserves, while electric utility companies emphasize the integrity of the electricity grid. Finally, politicians dwell on securing energy resources and infrastructure from terrorism and war.”
Collective security has a bit more of an established theoretical basis, and admits of a clear definition:
“…collective security refers to a set of legally established mechanisms designed to prevent or suppress aggression by any state against any other state. This is achieved by presenting to potential/ actual aggressors the credible threat, and to potential/actual victims the reliable promise, of effective collective measures to maintain and if necessary enforce the peace. Such measures can range from diplomatic boycotts to the imposition of sanctions and even military action. The essence of the idea is the collective punishment of aggressors through the use of overwhelming power. States belonging to such a system renounce the use of force to settle disputes among themselves but at the same time promise to use collective force against any aggressor. In all other respects states remain sovereign entities.” (International Relations: The Key Concepts, by Martin Griffiths and Terry O'Callaghan, pp. 38-39)
This characterization of collective security could easily be adapted for a discussion of collective energy security, such that nation-states renounce the use of force to settle energy disputes among themselves, but at the same time promise to use collective force again any political entity that threatens energy security, while remaining sovereign entities in all other respects.
I want to explore the idea of collective energy security by way of a thought experiment in which such a collective enforcement of energy security would be a real and pressing problem – as it is, in fact, today, even if we do not realize the collective energy security is a central (perhaps the central) issue of planet-wide industrial-technological civilization.
The Setting:
Anyone who bothers to make the calculation can easily see that there is more than enough solar energy falling on Earth every day to supply our energy-intensive civilization many times over. The problem with solar energy is the efficiency of solar cells – an efficiency undergoing continual technological improvement – and the problem of energy storage. But the problem of energy storage is only a problem when we view the problem of energy security from a local, even parochial perspective – in other words, from the perspective of geographically-defined nation-states. Globally, half of the planet is always facing the sun, and half of the planet is always in darkness. For a truly global energy grid, there is no storage problem for solar electricity, only a distribution problem, which, like the problem of the efficiency of solar electric cells, is subject to continual technological improvement.
The Thought Experiment:
Suppose, then, that it becomes technologically possible to construct a global energy grid entirely supplied by solar electricity, with electricity from the day side of Earth supplying both the day side and the night side, so that whatever portion of the Earth’s surface is facing the sun, there is always enough generating capacity to supply the planet entire. This would require something like high-temperature superconducting distribution lines that could be submerged in the world’s oceans much as telecommunications cables are today. We do not have this technology at present, but there is no reason to view this as an insuperable engineering challenge. Assume that it is possible, and that sufficiently cost effective solar electricity is possible, and that it is more feasible to construct a global energy grid than to create storage of solar electricity on the scale that would be required by half the planet’s industrialized economies.
Would this technological promise of practically unlimited, clean, and sustainable electricity for the entire world, making possible standards of living and creature comforts that how characterized the most advanced industrialized nation-states available universally, be a sufficient motivation for the nation-states of the world to enter into an agreement on collective energy security based on such a system? Note that this thought experiment in diurnally shared solar power could be conceivably realized without the surrender of national autonomy and national sovereignty, though it would require continual and ongoing cooperation.
In my post on the 2014 IBHA Conference Day 3, I noted the use that Joseph Voros made of the idea of “energy disciplined societies,” which I took him to mean forced conservation in a world of increasingly intensive energy usage and increasingly expensive energy. The scenario I have described above constitutes another kind of energy disciplined society, in which energy would be available in abundance, but only at the cost of planetary cooperation. Would cooperation be possible if it did not require the full surrender of national sovereignty, but only so much sovereignty as would be required to maintain a global energy grid?
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