One would assume that with the torrent of money wrung from hard-pressed taxpayers and ratepayers alike—money shovelled with industrial enthusiasm toward wind and solar projects—their high priests would no longer flinch at fluctuations in the prices of the base metals those contraptions devour in astronomical quantities. One would think that, having gorged themselves on the lifeblood of the public, they’d be insulated from such petty concerns.
But no. Even now, as we are squeezed chalk-white, as every drop of vitality is extracted from our lives, as our bank accounts are plundered and our economic future mortgaged to fund the next round of “sustainable investment,” they still wince at the slightest twitch in commodity markets. These are the same people who claim to be building a “renewable” future—yet their precious renewables are anything but.The materials required to harvest this so-called clean energy are scarce, difficult to extract, harder still to replace, and often impossible to recycle. There is nothing renewable about it—except, of course, the consumer’s eternal obligation to pay. That, it seems, renews itself beautifully, with the grim regularity of a tax bill and the quiet efficiency of a leech.