It’s not easy being green.
Kermit the Frog
Helping keep the lights on often means making some hard choices about the resources needed to do that. When we live in an energy-dependent world, the choice to go renewable often requires exploiting non-renewable resources.
Few make the explicit distinction between sustainable and renewable. The renewable rush may be at the expense of future generations. How are these costs considered?
It is rarely just an either-or situation, but a case of trying to do more with less over time. In many cases the renewable bit is simply swapping out energy transformation technology to meet our needs. For a long time hydrocarbons have been used, but geologic time scales essentially make them non renewable for us.
The cost of alternatives has been coming down, and scale is being achieved. But it is a balance when we continue to consume non renewable resources to do so. While there is a transition to renewables, this needs to be done on a least cost path with sustainability in mind.
So some of the financial analysis really needs to integrate these competing revenue and cost streams. I have been getting some insights recently on how to do this.
#economics #renewables #energy #resources
Lytton Advisory 