Natural economies of scale and grid reliability emerge from a let the consumer decide energy policy. In a free society, small, medium, and large can be beautiful
The Philosophic Roots of the Paris Agreement Part V: "Small is Beautiful"
"Whenever something is wrong, something is too big." -- Leopold Kohr
In energy, what is hyped as new and transformative is often not. Renewable energies predate the fossil-fuel era--and with a 100 percent market share, no less. Wind power and solar power have a nineteenth century history, not only a twentieth. Fuel cell physics was developed in the mid-19th century. Electric vehicles dominated the transportation market until the internal combustion engine took over a century ago. Energy conservation/efficiency is as old as energy itself.
Enter the environmental panacea of smallness, the fourth strand in the philosophical underpinnings of the Church of Climate. Other movements behind the global aspirations to control climate change from the enhanced greenhouse effect in this series were Deep Ecology, Malthusianism, and Conservationism. (The political roots of the Paris climate agreement, involving Enron CEO Ken Lay and President George H. W. Bush, were explored here.)
