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As in the Medieval past, scarcity will likely define our present, facilitated by our “net zero” economy. This brave new world will support fewer people, juggling between them expensive resources, less food, and uncertain energy production. Perhaps the biggest struggle will be over electricity, the preferred energy solution of our ruling green hierarchy.
Already electricity demand has become ever more precarious as western countries continue to place their hopes on “renewable” fuels while rejecting nuclear power and relatively low-carbon sources like natural gas, the dominant factor in reducing emissions in the West. Despite this, the green lobby, and their oligarchic backers, are campaigning against natural gas and nuclear power necessary to power their investments in electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.
The consequences of this struggle could prove to be catastrophic, both economically and socially. Businesses in the UK, according to Financial Times, already are having problems getting extra juice. Yet Britain’s shift to EVs are projected to double the demand for electricity by 2040; the government is looking to ban the use of home chargers during peak hours. By 2050, state consultants have suggested that total energy demand will skyrocket, by some estimates rising 60 to 90 per cent.
The electricity demands of artificial intelligence technology will only add to this burden. Microsoft alone is already opening a new data centre globally every three days. These power-hungry operations are expected to add from 4.5 per cent of energy demand to 10 per cent by 2035.
Oligarchic tech firms and extremely wealthy consumers won’t bear the full brunt of increased prices, but the same cannot be said for everyone else. As electricity usage rates rise, and stability of the grid weakens, the brunt will be taken by the carbon economy – manufacturing, logistics, construction, agriculture – which depend on reliable, affordable electricity. Ultra-green California, which has lost nearly a million industrial jobs and suffered stagnation across its blue-collar economy, provides a glimpse into the dark mirror of the future.
In the EU, where nearly a million industrial jobs have been lost over the past four years, business keeps migrating to countries like China and India which freely use fossil fuels to keep costs down. Britain’s path is particularly troubling; since 1990 the manufacturing sectors share of GDP has dropped roughly 50 per cent along with several million jobs. This parallels a two thirds drop in UK energy production, while consumption has fallen by only a third; three decades ago a net energy exporter, the UK increasingly depends on imports from the Middle East and other unstable regions.
To be sure UK, EU and US emissions have dropped, but the consumption of energy-intensive goods has not. Instead industry has moved from highly regulated economies to China which is on a coal plant building spree and emits more GHG than all developed countries put together. This helps produce less expensive “green” cars while the West’s own products sit, unwanted, on car dealership lots.
The net zero agenda, particularly the assault on gas-driven cars, represents a direct assault on the West’s already struggling middle class. Overall, electric cars use 30 per cent less domestic labour in the US. New electric cars companies like Lordstown are already gone, Fisker is not likely long for this world, Lucid and much hyped Rivian likely won’t go far either. Tesla, the all-powerful leader in the sector, is also facing faltering sales and has announced large scale layoffs.
In contrast China, which already produces twice as many EVs as the US and the EU combined, is the big winner. It is expected to overtake Japan as the biggest car exporter worldwide, as recently reported by the South China Post. China also seeks to leverage its total domination of the solar-panel industry; its battery capacity is now roughly four times ours. This is no surprise considering that the country exercises effective control of the requisite rare earth minerals required for processing them.
Even for those who don’t work in the auto plants, the shift to EVs will not likely fit the budgets of working class people; two-thirds of all EV owners have incomes in excess of $100,000 and even many of them seem to prefer less expensive, more flexible hybrids. If the coming grid wars reward only the EV producers and AI giants, the future for everyone else could prove remarkable, well, Medieval. Even the Washington Post recently admitted, electric vehicles are hastening the return to conditions where the automobile becomes once again an aristocratic luxury.
Not everyone will object to this, particularly the greens. Making cars more expensive promotes one of their long-lasting goals: a radical reduction in auto use. With this accomplished, the dream of wiping out bucolic suburbs and replacing them with apartment blocks also looms on the horizon.
What net zero and higher electricity prices will accomplish will be sparking ever more class conflict. The former Third World countries, for the most part, are not embracing “net zero” as it is totally infeasible for them and will likely resist western lectures on climate policy. In the West opposition to net zero is surfacing in the UK, Germany as well as Italy and Poland. There’s even some dissent from unions in the United States, some of whom still concern themselves more with jobs rather than sucking up to DC bureaucracy.
Some Democrats, like analyst Ruy Texiera, suggest that the party will have to abandon its current energy policy and become “realists”, if they wish to hold onto middle and working class voters. Certainly the absurdly high price tag to pay for the transition – at least $80 billion in California alone – will soon come into conflict with the demands of key Democratic constituencies, such as the recipients of transfer payments, teachers and government bureaucracies.
The grid wars, and the battle over resources, will dominate future global as well as local politics for the decade to come. Right now, the West is losing out because while the other side is playing the game to win, our elites have become too enlightened to take head of reality, or recognise the refusal of voters to become neo-serfs.
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The post Electric grid wars are a direct assault on the Western middle class appeared first on Energy News Beat.
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