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The last twenty years have witnessed an overwhelming emphasis upon extending the use of markets to develop and allocate the world's energy resources. SERIS thinks markets are a fine thing – in their place: if we want to buy a new suit, enjoy a good wine, book a holiday in Spain, there is no better mechanism than the market to serve our needs. But SERIS takes the view that energy is just too important to human life – and the environment – to be left to the market alone.
Governments (provided they are accountable to their citizens) regional and local authorities and community-based organisations must not be excluded from decision making in industries whose activities underpin just about every aspect of our lives. We could survive, without our new suits, wine and foreign holidays; but check out life without electricity, or gas supplies!
However the centrality of energy to our everyday lives, indeed our very existence, is accompanied by a dilemma, Almost all forms of energy production and consumption (even renewables like tidal barrages and wind farms) involve some degree of environmental hazard. This is yet another reason why energy simply cannot be ‘left to market forces’. In particular, energy conservation, the only certain means of resolving this dilemma, is unlikely to progress very far without a much greater degree of involvement of public authorities at all levels than is evident at the present.
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