Where There’s Renewable Energy There’s Inexpensive Energy – But Is There a Causal Relationship?

Here’s a good article that points out that places that have lots of solar, wind, etc. have inexpensive energy generally, meaning that there is some sort of correlation between renewables and cheap energy.  The important word here (as the author makes clear) is “correlation”; there’s no implication that one causes the other, i.e., the author did not commit the logical fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” (after that, therefore because of that). 

The most likely explanation in my estimation is that, sadly, most of the places around the globe that have incredible wind resources have very little energy demand.  Here in the U.S. we have the plains states; in Northern Europe, they have Denmark (pictured) with a total population of six million (more people live in Missouri than Denmark).  This creates a configuration of supply and demand that virtually guarantees cheap wind energy, and therefore cheap energy generally.

All, this, is just a kind of side-note on the main event here, i.e., the plummeting cost of energy from renewable resources, the economic boom associated with the development of clean energy, the advent of electric transportation and other forms of energy storage, the re-writing of the rules by which we define what we expect from the power utilities, etc. – all the good stuff that I covered in “Bullish on Renewable Energy.”