The documentary written and produced by Jeff Gibbs and promoted by Michael Moore has certainly generated a lot of heat. If we could tap into that effectively we might solve humanity’s energy crisis.
As someone that has been blogging about alternative energy and sustainability for the past 8 years I feel I have a very keen appreciation of both the points made in the film and the reaction of the outraged critics who have attacked it quite viciously.
As with all Michael Moore documentaries the film does take an extreme view which is not completely supported by the facts on the ground; but it has at its core enough kernels of truth to hopefully make people think. That’s what Michael Moore’s all about.
For example, in perhaps his most famous documentary was there any logical reason for him to drag two victims of the Columbine shooting that had bullets embedded in their bodies from that horrendous tragedy to a K-mart to claim a refund by trying to “return” the bullets? Of course not. But did that sequence make us think about the morality of selling ammunition in a department store to anyone with a 10 dollar bill or a credit card? Did it make us think, just for a moment, about what share of responsibility the merchants that profit from selling the weapons and ammunition for those weapons have when they are used to perpetrate senseless acts of violence?
In my viewing of “Planet of the Humans” there are three central themes presented.
- The environmental movement is misleading the general public with regards to how effective available green energy technologies such as solar and wind are when it comes to weaning an industrialized society off of fossil fuels.
- The environmental movement has become entangled with various billionaire investors/supporters as well as the industrial complex that has grown up around manufacturing and installing solar panels and wind turbines and companies that consume vast amounts of fossil fuel energy to transform corn into ethanol or chop down and burn forests to create biomass energy.
- That the only way to prevent the destruction of the planet and to reverse climate change is for humanity to drastically reduce its energy consumption. “Green” energy is not a solution. Green energy is not even “green” when full cycle costs are properly accounted for.
If one accepts the conclusions of the film then the future looks pretty much hopeless. And I think a brutally honest assessment of where we are at with the development of alternative energy sources and energy storage systems might justifiably lead us to that conclusion. But that is not where I land on this issue.
With regards to claims that the popular media and literally thousands of “green energy” and environmental web sites publish overblown and hysterically inaccurate claims of alternative energy success, I say “guilty as charged”. I myself have identified many such claims and, unlike the film, I provide data that proves they are inaccurate or, at best misleading. Examples would be exaggerations about the impact of wind energy generation in Denmark , statements that confuse “nameplate”capacity with actual production of electricity and praise for the success of the German Energiewende.
Transitioning to a sustainable energy environment will be hard work. Really hard work. And we will need every Dollar, Pound, Euro, Yen and Yuan to be applied in the most effective way possible to have any hope of achieving this goal in the next hundred years.
In 2016 Bill Gates announced the creation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition with a great deal of fanfare and optimism. He declared that there were many different paths that might lead to sustainability.
Three years later, having focused his very considerable intellect and support resources on the problem he had become much less optimistic. In a video posted in November, 2018 the interviewer made the following comment;
“a lot of people are very optimistic as you know with wind and solar, the renewables cost coming down, the batteries cost coming down – you think that’s enough?”.
Gates’ response: “That’s so disappointing!” He went on to explain just how far we are from workable solutions. Orders of magnitude. The entire interview is definitely worth watching.
My concern has always been and continues to be that commentary that blames governments for not just getting on with the deployment of readily available and effective “green” technologies misses the point entirely. There are no readily available and effective “green” technologies that can replace the combustion of fossil fuels in our steel plants, electricity generating stations and automobiles. There are solutions. Some of them are even readily available. But they are not effective in terms of the long game.
Is widespread deployment of solar and wind technology going to reduce the real time consumption of fossil fuels to generate electricity? Yes – considerably. No argument there.
Considering all of the fossil fuel inputs to manufacture, transport, and install those technologies is there a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions? Much more difficult to assess but I believe that there is a significant net benefit.
Will the deployment of these technologies allow us to fully retire all fossil fuel based electricity generation? No chance. Not now. Not anytime in the next 3-4 decades.
As noted by the film and in most discussions about the intermittency of renewable energy sources the availability of incredibly cheap, reliable, and massively scalable energy storage systems is the key. If we had storage most of the other problems go away. Unfortunately there are no such systems available.
To provide a sense of what is required using current NREL estimates the cost to provide battery storage to replace the nighttime output from a relatively small 180 MB electricity generation plant would be on the order of a billion dollars. And that doesn’t include the cost of the solar or wind inputs required to charge those batteries.
Having said that I for one believe that we can develop energy storage systems that will meet the criteria of incredibly cheap, reliable, and massively scalable. But it will take a dedicated, generously funded and globally coordinated effort to do so – the clock is ticking.
The second theme of the movie calls into question the motivations of the environmental movement in general and specific organizations such as the Sierra Club or the 350 Organization. I do not agree with those criticisms.
Those organizations may exaggerate the value of the solutions they promote but they do not exaggerate the dangers of continuing with “Business as Usual”. Having identified technologies such as solar and wind that they believe can help us transition to a sustainable society it only makes sense that they be aligned with business interests that are implementing those technologies. The fact that those same business interests profit from the promotional and educational activities of organizations like the Sierra Club does not diminish the value of those activities. The fact that those same business interests may donate to environmental groups does not, in and of itself, corrupt those groups.
From what I have seen, the people working for environmental groups, whether as paid staff or on a volunteer basis, are motivated by a love of this planet and by fears regarding the environmental legacy we will leave for future generations. They may have too much optimism about the progress we are making and they may not appreciate all of the challenges that have to be overcome but I believe their intentions are good and their work is commendable.
Michael Moore and producer Jeff Gibbs are not distancing themselves from the environmental movement or specific “green” organizations. In a response to criticisms of the movie Michael states that he continues to have “huge admiration for all our fellow environmentalists” and states that “its only your friends that can tell you when you’re messing up.” That response is also very worthwhile watching in its entirety.
With regards to the third theme of the movie I would agree that conspicuous consumption is a big part of the sustainability problem but I do not agree that discussions about restricting population growth make any sense at all. Many if not most environmentalists and environmentally focused organizations understand the importance of and promote the traditional three “R’s”. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. And everyone accepts that the first “R” is the best “R”.
There are many initiatives at every level of society, both in developed and developing countries that are aimed at making progress on the three “R’s”. Do we still have too many dollar stores where inexpensive products are purchased in many cases only to be thrown away within a relatively short period of time? Absolutely yes! Do we allow the cheap price of goods from far off sources blind us to the negative environmental impacts of transporting consumer goods half way around the planet? Yes we do. But are we making progress on developing new recycling techniques, reducing packaging, banning single use plastics and in many other areas? Yes we are.
I hope that conversations triggered by “Planet of the Humans” will end up making people somewhat more cautious with regards to the solar and wind technologies that are currently the only “green” technologies really getting much attention. I hope they will come to the conclusion that other more consistent technologies such as geothermal and hydro-kinetics and geoexchange need a closer look. Most importantly I hope that those conversations lead to a clear understanding of the need for a much more effective global effort to develop innovative energy storage solutions. If any of those things happen then the film will have served a useful purpose in my opinion.
For my thoughts on how to transition to a truly sustainable energy environment you can check out my Sustainable Energy Manifesto.
