THE SEVEN ENERGY-RELATED WORLD CRISES

By Hermann Scheer

[This article published in: W & F, Wissenschaft und Frieden 2008-2 Migration and Flight is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.iwif.de/wf208-10.htm. Hermann Scheer is president of EUROSOLAR and director of the World Council for Renewable Energy.]

Advocates of the fossil-nuclear axis of the world make their calculations without the worldwide crises generated directly and indirectly by nuclear and fossil energy. Seven momentous crises demand rethinking and reorientation.

1. The World Climate crisis: The final declaration of the 1998 World Conference of Climate Researchers said the world with its fossil energy consumption staged an experiment whose consequences are nothing short of a global nuclear war. The number of increasingly powerful individual catastrophes – storms, floods, droughts – soars. These catastrophes often strike earlier than predicted.

2. The Exhaustion- and Dependence crisis: The most explosive problem of fossil energy supply is the growing dependence of more and more countries on less and less energy, above all petroleum and natural gas. The US today depends on imports for 56% of its energy needs, Germany 80% and Japan 95%. The oilfields that can be exploited relatively easily and cheaply will end in a few decades. This is also true for natural gas. Declining resources on one hand and growing demand on the other hand lead inevitably to higher energy costs. Major dangers for the world economy threaten to tear to pieces the social fabric of societies. Conflicts over control and wars for the remaining “cheap” resources are pre-programmed in this development.

3. The Poverty crisis: Without their own fossil resources, the majority of developing countries must pay the same as everyone else for energy imports on the world market. Their per capita gross domestic product is 10% of western industrial countries. At the same time they are even more dependent on petroleum. The after-effects of energy poverty are over-exploitation of bio-mass, steppe formation, rural exodus to overflowing city slums, destruction of social structures and state corruption or disintegration developing into international conflicts.

4. The Nuclear crisis: Since the 1990s, more and more countries seek nuclear weapons. Even after the end of the East-West conflict, the nuclear weapon states have held fast to nuclear armaments. Access to nuclear weapons and hiring specialists have become easier than ever. The step to nuclear weapons can be taken quickly. Only three months notice is necessary for cancellation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Thus the dividing technical and political line between civil and military use can be suddenly crossed. In addition there is the growing danger of nuclear terrorism.

5. The Water crisis: The whole water supply of the globe remains constant. But the freshwater condensed in the atmosphere and falling as rain in the ocean becomes saltwater. The freshwater crisis in many regions of the earth goes back substantially to the nuclear and fossil energy supply. Three-quarters of water consumption in Germany and 50% in the US is used for nuclear- and fossil power plants. The problem in water-poor regions is even more serious. Considerable amounts of water are used in washing coal and producing petroleum. Therefore the water crisis in large part is a result of the nuclear-fossil energy system.

6. The Agriculture crisis: The same is true for the crisis of modern agriculture. Through conversion from domestic production to chemical energy, economic dependence has grown constantly in agricultural production. The costs for buying energy and fertilizer have soared and reduce the income of farmers. Further production enhancements through expanded use of fossil energy and fertilizers are a reaction – an ecological and economic vicious circle.

7. The Health crisis: That health injuries arise through exposure to radioactivity in the normal operation of nuclear power plants is contested. Damages to health in uranium mining are uncontested. Health injuries through fossil energy are unequivocal. The health of a quarter of humanity has been harmed through energy emissions. According to a WHO estimate, 1.8 million premature deaths occur annually in Africa alone where children and women are especially affected by “indoor emissions,” that is by traditional wood burning in houses and huts for lack of technical energy alternatives.

The Combined crisis infection: The sketched crises often occur simultaneously. The greater the energy consumption, the more the problems are kindled. One need not invoke the horror scenarios that northern Europe will lose the warm Gulf Stream and therefore freeze, that worldwide coastal regions will be flooded and permanently uninhabitable or the dangers of another nuclear reactor meltdown. These dangers are probably though still rated as hypothetical. The increasingly frequent crisis escalation is no longer hypothetical.