Long-distance trade has of course been common since ancient times. Archaeologists often find Byzantine-made glassware from the sixth century all the way out in India, China, and even Japan. Or beads from seventh-century Southeast Asia all the way out in Libya, Spain, and even Britain. Yet such long-distance trades often involved goods that were entirely unique to particular areas — gems, spices, indigo, coffee, tea — or were sufficiently valuable to make the high costs of transportation worthwhile, such as expert-made glassware, silks, and muslin cloths with impossibly high thread counts. Long-distance trade may have been ancient but was restricted to luxuries. It did not involve the everyday goods of life.
Good article, until I came across the following fallacy:
"What this also implies, however, is that given the supply of renewables is also so regional, then boosting that supply should also be able to lower a whole region’s energy prices."
This is an important point many in the energy debate are missing, and non-experts have a hard time grappling with because the headlines suggest the quote above is correct. However, it is not correct. The more a region relies on renewable sources of energy, the higher that regions energy prices go. This is due to the intermittent nature of renewables, and the lack of economically viable energy storage solutions (like batteries). An electricity system/grid therefore has to backup the renewables. Europe basically runs two systems, a renewable system and a fossil system which backs it up. So while the point source of electricity generation from wind or solar is cheap, while the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining, the cost to deliver reliable energy for the entire grid is much much higher.
Like the coal trader said. The problem with wind and solar is not merely that they can't be transported effectively from region to region. They also can't be transported across time. There is no way to store solar energy for the night, much less the winter.
Local-only energy may also avoid the malicious attention of foreign interests that globally transportable energy tends to bring (which seems like a form of resource curse). Seems like local energy investments would in theory produce elites with stronger local ties compared to oil and coal oligarchs whose markets and interests are global.
Egypt preferring to deprive its citizens of electricity to export to Europe is an example of this.
From the link in your post:
> In June, the country signed a deal with Israel and the European Union to boost gas exports in exchange for €100 million ($103 million) in food aid
To me the "food aid" just seems like a bribe to Egypt. Were the energy source more local, like wind or solar, this would have been avoided.
White collar jobs -- middle class jobs -- in the "first world" may decline but I doubt for the theoretical economic supply/demand argument in the article. Many of these jobs are already heavily duplicated and redundant as it is. So they can't serve a purely utilitarian economic purpose, at least not a straightforward one. I think rather they are a sociological phenomenon: They exist to provide middle class jobs in the first world. So if they decline then that would reflect class conflict or shifts in geopolitical power.
Good article, until I came across the following fallacy:
"What this also implies, however, is that given the supply of renewables is also so regional, then boosting that supply should also be able to lower a whole region’s energy prices."
This is an important point many in the energy debate are missing, and non-experts have a hard time grappling with because the headlines suggest the quote above is correct. However, it is not correct. The more a region relies on renewable sources of energy, the higher that regions energy prices go. This is due to the intermittent nature of renewables, and the lack of economically viable energy storage solutions (like batteries). An electricity system/grid therefore has to backup the renewables. Europe basically runs two systems, a renewable system and a fossil system which backs it up. So while the point source of electricity generation from wind or solar is cheap, while the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining, the cost to deliver reliable energy for the entire grid is much much higher.
Like the coal trader said. The problem with wind and solar is not merely that they can't be transported effectively from region to region. They also can't be transported across time. There is no way to store solar energy for the night, much less the winter.
Local-only energy may also avoid the malicious attention of foreign interests that globally transportable energy tends to bring (which seems like a form of resource curse). Seems like local energy investments would in theory produce elites with stronger local ties compared to oil and coal oligarchs whose markets and interests are global.
Egypt preferring to deprive its citizens of electricity to export to Europe is an example of this.
From the link in your post:
> In June, the country signed a deal with Israel and the European Union to boost gas exports in exchange for €100 million ($103 million) in food aid
To me the "food aid" just seems like a bribe to Egypt. Were the energy source more local, like wind or solar, this would have been avoided.
White collar jobs -- middle class jobs -- in the "first world" may decline but I doubt for the theoretical economic supply/demand argument in the article. Many of these jobs are already heavily duplicated and redundant as it is. So they can't serve a purely utilitarian economic purpose, at least not a straightforward one. I think rather they are a sociological phenomenon: They exist to provide middle class jobs in the first world. So if they decline then that would reflect class conflict or shifts in geopolitical power.
A green Sahara happened before - not even that long ago, at civilizational scales ! - and it will happen again :
https://www.livescience.com/will-sahara-desert-turn-green.html