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The Politics of Energy

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Published in Atlantis Rising magazine No.16, 1999
by Jeane Manning

It’s a high-concept story, to use the language of Hollywood: Inventor wants to save the world from ecocide - from choking on oil fumes, roasting under greenhouse gases or being poisoned by nuclear waste. However, oil merchants, nuclear power lobbies and fuel-tax-supported governments don’t want inventor to get the help needed to develop and mass market his Fuel-less Energy invention. At least not while they’re raking in the money and looking for untapped customers in the Third World.

Variations on this story are occurring in real life in various parts of the world. If the mass media were reporting it, the public would take notice. Ever since a Hebrew named David faced up to the Philistines’ champion killer, the public has relished the drama of Underdog vs. Giant. Today, for example, the media report every nuance of Microsoft-as-Goliath tactics, while smaller software companies prepare technological slingshots and the United States government takes a few shots using anti-monopoly laws.

The little-known battle waged by energy researchers and inventors has higher stakes than Bill Gates and his industry could ever create. At stake is the right of independent innovators to compete on a level playing field — in a multi-trillion-dollar game dominated by giant fossil-fuel companies. (Today the field is not level. Revolutionary new energy inventions are denied patents, and their researchers in most cases are denied funding while billions of dollars go to development of harmful energy technologies. Adding further insults, most “experts” deny approval for non-conventional energy research, thus discouraging investors who may have funded the independent innovator who has depleted his or her own resources. Then the media quote the old-paradigm experts and ignore or ridicule the anamolous discoveries. To survive these rebuffs, individual researchers need strength.)
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