Energy Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Greenwashing in the Amazon: Debunking False Green Solutions

August 7, 2025/3 Comments/in Climate Change, Corruption, Energy, Environment, Governance, Ideology, Inequality, Politics, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Mauricio López

The concept of greenwashing has gained unfortunate relevance, especially regarding the energy transition. Greenwashing occurs when companies, governments, or institutions promote products, services, or projects as ecologically responsible, while minimizing or hiding their negative impacts. The inhabitants of the Amazon, particularly Indigenous peoples, are witnessing how greenwashing is not only problematic from an environmental perspective. It is also detrimental to human rights and social justice.

Renewable energies, such as solar,

Technocene Ground Zero: Counties Face Off with Data Centers

July 24, 2025/5 Comments/in Climate Change, Consumption, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Limits to Growth, Materials use, Steady State Herald, Technology, Water /by Alix Underwood

by Amelia Jaycen

In counties across the U.S.—rural and urban, democrat and republican—communities are living up close and personal with data centers. And the new neighbor is a real nightmare.

The number of data centers in the U.S., whether planned, under construction, or operating, is 3,897. This is by far the most anywhere in the world, and the number is increasing weekly.

We are hitting our heads on the ceiling of limits to growth.

Introducing the Natural Resources and Electricity Cap-and-Trade Act

July 10, 2025/7 Comments/in Consumption, David Shreve, Economic Policy, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Materials use, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Economy Act, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by David Shreve

In cap-and-trade systems, the government places a “cap,” or limit, typically on pollution or resource extraction. The amount of pollution or extraction is then divided into “allowances,” which are allocated to the polluting or extracting corporations. These corporations can trade their unused allowances in the marketplace.

Cap-and-trade policies promise significant abatement at an optimally low cost. But does experience with cap-and-trade systems vindicate this promise?

The United States and other countries have tested a variety of cap-and-trade systems.

Unsafe at Top Speed: “SAFE” Summit Shoots Off the Rails

April 10, 2025/1 Comment/in Brian Czech, Climate Change, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Ideology, Limits to Growth, Politics, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology /by Alix Underwood

by Brian Czech

The 2025 SAFE Summit in Washington, DC, was anything but. Sure, the hallways of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center were free of hooligans, and the attentive staff kept the floors cleared of banana peels. Yet if your idea of safety is big-picture, long-term—as expected at an energy-security conference—you could have left the summit fearing for your children’s future.

The three main themes percolating on stage were “energy dominance,” “all of the above” (as in all forms of energy),

“Landman”: Hollywood Meets the Growth Dilemma

February 27, 2025/1 Comment/in Climate Change, Economic Growth, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Owen Cortner

The new TV series, Landman, offers a window into the rugged world of the oil industry in West Texas. Billy Bob Thornton plays Tommy Norris, a “fixer” for an oil company, who roams the high-stakes territory of “The Patch,” a.k.a. the Permian Basin. Norris navigates shady deals and dangerous gambles, most of them highly cinematic (if occasionally thinly written). Packed with tension and drama,

Energy and Wildlife Conservation: A Two-Pronged Approach

February 20, 2025/8 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Consumption, Endangered Species, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

At the 2024 conference of The Wildlife Society (TWS) in Baltimore, I was struck by the prevalence of one topic: low-carbon energy development. There were eight sessions with “renewable energy,” “solar,” or “wind” in their titles, and issues related to these energy sources permeated many other sessions. At a policy priorities meeting, low-carbon energy dominated the discussion, with professionals and academics from across the country sharing their unique concerns.

Winds of Change in Lincoln County

February 13, 2025/7 Comments/in Climate Change, Dave Rollo, Energy, KEEP Our Counties Great, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Technology /by Alix Underwood

by Dave Rollo

Rolling hills and wide-open plains typify eastern Oklahoma. Gulf Coast and Canadian air masses converge over these plains, creating a near-constant pressure gradient called the low-level jet (LLJ). The result is perpetual air currents in the central U.S. “wind corridor,” which make the region ideal for wind energy projects.

The United States’ top five wind-energy producers—Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Illinois—form a southwest to northeast diagonal through the center of the country.

Will DC Break Free of Its Methane-Gas—and Economic-Growth—Shackles?

January 9, 2025/7 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Climate Change, Corporate Reform, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Politics, Pollution, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

How do we stop climate change? One decommissioned fossil-fuel pipe at a time, via hard-fought local battles to change energy infrastructure and decrease energy consumption. Who do we fight these battles against? Profit-hungry corporations that monopolize energy markets and back-pocket politicians that help them guard the fossil façade.

In the U.S. capital, the climate-change rubber hits the road as activists pressure an obscure and unelected decision-making body,

The Fracking Free-Market Fallacy

August 8, 2024/9 Comments/in Energy, Herman Daly, Ideology, Pollution, Steady State Herald, Water /by Alix Underwood

by Helene Langlamet

In 2007, the Marcellus Shale Play was opened for production in Pennsylvania. The fracking of the shale unlocked massive fossil fuel reserves previously considered inaccessible. But it also unleashed an especially expensive and wasteful extraction process that involved flushing hundreds of millions of tons of highly toxic chemicals a mile deep into the ground and into the water table. And it brought up natural gas contaminated with unprecedented levels of radioactivity.

Approaching the Energy Cliff

December 21, 2023/17 Comments/in Dave Rollo, Energy, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Dave Rollo

Warn anyone in the USA about the coming energy crisis and you’re likely to see eyes roll. “What energy crisis? That was half a century ago! Markets and technology won. Today we’re back among the top oil suppliers!”

All true, but the response gives a false sense of security that has policymakers and publics sleepwalking toward a cliff. An energy crisis is likely ahead, no matter our rank (currently third) among oil supplying nations.