"Total (oil) brings the financial backing, geographical footprint and research and development expertise that will allow the fast-growing U.S. company to pursue an "aggressive" development strategy based on organic growth, Werner told Reuters." (bron)
It is easy to see this is a bad deal. Total’s financial backing comes from selling oil to oil consumers doing so on credit, it has no other financial reserves than those that come from oil consumption. If it spends through the banking system it means waste of oil. Totals geographical footprint is a couple of offices and a bunch of heavily polluted installations across the globe, R&D in solar PV has been suppressed, we could have CIGS cells, thin film, solar purified silicon but it has all been suppressed because regular PV takes an advance on carbon output of four years, meaning more money for the coal and oil industries that supply the PV plants with electricity, and more money to spend on oil on a whole other raft of involved parties. It is a load of bull and it is clear to see.:"agressive" development strategy" after all is 100% the opposite of "organic growth".
The oil/credit system means that banks extend credit based on a plan to spend oil on producing something in such a way that the net money quantity in society doesn’t really change. The oil companies have no other means to sell their stuff and get a piece of the action than to allow the banking system to set the price and manage demand thought credit extention and control of the money supply. In rare situations oil companies can deal with users directly and get wealth without bank intemediation, like in some heavy industries. We don’t see that these are getting a very good deal, we do see that this drives energy prices down for large users in the bank mediated market.
One of the oil companies with a clear intent to drive alternativves is Technip, they develop offshore wind turbines.
Turbines are the most carbon efficient installations to make.
The oil/credit system demands use of centralized energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, centralized electricity, so that the energy flows and money flows can be managed (they flow in opposite directions). The ultimate goal is to make as much wealth available to the parties involved and anyone else that they like, a positive intention. The catch however is that centralized energy production is not natural to our planet, it has led to the addition of chemical compounds to our environment ( CO2, metals, carcinogens, radio active substances and plastics to name a few) that the life in it is not prepared to deal with. So it is a deadly paradigm that needs to be broken. The problem is it can not be broken by itself, it has to be broken by ceasing to be. Obviously the parties involved see (or do not wish to see) harm nor a phase out of their lifestyles.
The solution is the creation of a parralel money system wwith certain qualities that will generate and alternative credit cycle. This is presently impossible because on all levels people depend on the oil/credit system. The only way to do it is to have a truly independend territory with it’s own army to create it. Another way to bring it about is to change back to physical intrinsic money and hope the general public will restrict access to that money from anyone that tries to further damage our planet. Still the current manufactures like Sunpower need the consent of the fossil industry and banking system to operate. To be optimistic about its viability in this context is patently naive.