Dot Commies With Voltage  

Bruce Sterling has some snark about the emerging class of green energy baron - Green Power Execs Start to Swagger. I think Bruce maybe getting a little ahead of himself for now. A usual, Bruce's stuff is marked with ((())).

Okay, three things will happen. First, "alternative" energy won't be framed as "alternative." It will be energy that works and pays people in your own country instead of fleeing toward Russians and Arabs. So it'll be "patriot energy" or "affordable energy," something like that.)))

(((Then, the green energy crowd will stop asking government for subsidies. Being of the left they're used to governments doing something useful, but governments no longer do; if you want subsidies now, you're vastly better off asking Larry or Sergei or Bill or Vinod or Sir Richard, you know, somebody serious.)))

(((Some short time after that, fossils continue to decline while renewable continues to soar, and we've got a new entrepreneurial class of dot-green energy wildcatter moguls. They owe nothing to anybody in particular, they are much smarter than anybody else, they are the local economic mainstays of the glum desert regions that supply their wind and solar, and they are gonna be insufferable. Tomorrow's green energy barons; they're like dot-commies with voltage.)))

Planet Ark: Alternative Energy Execs Dream Of Oil Crunch
UK: May 23, 2008

LONDON - While most companies are watching soaring oil prices with an eye on rising costs some renewable energy executives are licking their lips at the prospect of "spectacular" growth. ((("Disruption?" Hey, we make money from "disruption!")))

Oil sped above $135 to a new record for a third straight day on Thursday. That and new forecasts of a higher floor price has some alternative energy suppliers dreaming of an era of peak oil when global crude output starts to fall.

"Our time is very definitely coming," said Jeremy Leggett, chairman of British solar power company Solar Century and former environmental campaigner. "The world is going to be beating a path to our doors ... The oil crunch is coming soon. The drivers are going to be spectacular." (((Is he right? Why not go down to the gas pump and check? If you can afford to get there.)))

Thursday's record oil price knocked world stocks to a one-month low as concerns grew that rising raw material costs would hit companies and consumers in an economic slowdown.

In their latest rally since May 1 oil prices have risen 20 percent. In that time the MSCI index of the world's biggest stocks is up 1.5 percent, while a ABN AMRO index of renewable energy stocks has climbed 9.5 percent.

But support for renewables has been jittery after months of hype helped fuel valuations at a time of tight credit. (((That jitteriness is why this space is gonna swarm with swashbuckling pirates.)))

In particular, solar power stocks dived as much as 50 percent in January as investors feared that a credit crunch would make "big ticket" solar panels unaffordable and that over-capacity in the sector could swamp demand. (((The smart operators are already buying their own solar because at least they don't have to invade Mesopotamia to control it.)))

"There's obviously been underlying concern in the renewable energy markets that valuations are inflated, (asking) are we in the middle of a green technology bubble," said Merrill's head of carbon emissions trading Abyd Karmali. (((How many bubbles does that make? Credit bubble, real estate bubble, oil bubble, currency bubble, commodity bubble and banking bubble. It's all bubbles. It's all been bubble-ized, it's bubble all the way down. If there's no beer you better learn to swim in the froth.))) ...