There’s a new player in town … and it could be the best alternative yet

We need to stop lying to ourselves about the current energy crisis.

Without question, the war in Ukraine exacerbated things in recent months. It didn’t just rub salt on an already-massive wound, it created hundreds of new wounds in the process. I mean, Russia had been supplying almost a quarter of the oil EU countries import before the invasion, so duh. Now, though, thanks to a litany of well-earned sanctions, it’s considerably less.

And the world is freaking out because of it.

Gas prices are historically elevated and, in some places in the world, good luck getting gas at all.

There are other issues, of course.

If you’re living in the U.S., you know energy has been politicized ad nauseam. It’s unbelievable. Well, maybe not if you’ve been paying attention to the gun and abortion issues — America has a bad habit of politicizing anything and everything it can pin on the other party — but it’s pretty hard to believe. Let’s just say that.

The lie, though, is that the war created this energy crisis.

It didn’t.

To circle back to the salt-in-wound analogy, Russia’s war on Ukraine only sped up an energy crisis already spinning out of control.

We are killing the planet … and ourselves

Instead of making the world a better place — a safer and more sustainable place thanks to technological breakthroughs and numerous scientific advancements — we’re making it considerably less so.

Just breathing in many parts of the world is scientifically proven to be bad for your health.

Weather is getting extreme as severe flooding, drought or heat are making certain parts of the world uninhabitable. Animals, insects, and entire ecosystems are getting wiped out left and right and humans, despite all our advantages, ultimately won’t fair better than any of the other species if we don’t band together and find a way to turn things around.

That’s something that has to happen. Finding a way to heal our planet instead of continuing to damage it more than we already have is no longer a suggestion. It has to happen or humanity, one day, will literally be cooked.

Enter sustainable energy: The obvious first step

Fossil fuels, and our dependency on them, have more than a little to do with the degradation of the planet. The answer, obviously, is to pivot from oil and gas to greener solutions.

Fortunately, they’re starting to catch on in the form of wind and solar. Wind farms — massive expanses with hundred of huge turbines — are popping up across the globe and solar panels are slowly creeping into mainstream construction.

In Europe, the war in Ukraine is forcing countries to speed up their efforts as reliance on Russian oil and gas seems more and more like a thing of the past with each passing day.

In America, roads are filling up with electric vehicles and, eventually, will be traveled on with nothing but EVs. The problem isn’t with the solution. It’s with the speed of implementing the solution.

Finding more solutions is helpful, too

When most people think about sustainable energy, they think about wind and solar. The use cases are well documented and, well, they’re easy to understand. The wind blows the blades of massive turbines to create electricity. That turbine is loaded with all kinds of complex mechanisms, but, on the surface, the process is simple.

Same with solar panels. They collect the sunlight and convert it into electricity. Complex, yet simple when boiled down.

But, did you know there’s a third pawn on the clean energy chess board? It’s water. Tidal turbines to be exact. Think wind turbine, only instead of wind pushing the blades, it’s the ocean’s currents doing the work.

Tidal turbines are starting to attract investors

Just this week, Scottish engineering firm Orbital Marine Power said it secured nearly $10 million in funding. Half came from the Scottish National Investment Bank and the other from Abundance Investment in the form of more than 1,000 individual investors.

Here’s what Orbital had to say about the deal.

“These debt facilities will be serviced by the long-term sale of electricity from the turbine, forecast at around 100 gigawatt hours of clean predictable energy, delivered to the UK grid or hydrogen electrolysers over its project life.”

Tidal stream energy, baby!

Obviously, as you can glean from the story about the funding, building machines that turn ocean currents into clean, dependable energy is not a cheap process. The shift to clean energy, in general, is going to come at a major economic cost when all is said and done.

Isn’t the planet worth it, though?

In my opinion, the more capital these clean energy companies can secure, companies like Orbital Marine Power, the better. The processes of turning wind, the sun’s rays, and the ocean’s currents into clean energy are well documented at this point.

The sooner we can speed up investment, the sooner these alternative energy solutions can come to market and really make a change for the better.

If only we could stop politicizing everything and just start doing what makes the most sense for the most people, I think we’d be OK.

If only.

Disclaimer: I’m a market participant, not an analyst. This is not financial advice.