Is there such a thing as a large-scale energy project that doesn’t have unpleasant side effects? It’s hard to come up with one.

Coal pollutes the air. Hydro dams flood good farmland and otherwise disrupt or destroy whole valleys.

Nuclear? Gigantically expensive and ominously dangerous. Produces radioactive crap that takes forever to break down – in effect. And more, if you believe its opponents. None of this seems to deter the proponents of a nuclear plant near Peace River.

Renewables such as wind and solar? Safe enough, and non-polluting, at least, though they do tend to chew up large amounts of land and aren’t pretty to look at.

Natural gas? Much cleaner than coal, but it still pollutes. It’s going to run out eventually, as well.

Nothing comes without a cost, but if we’re looking at safety and not polluting, renewables make the most sense. Wind and solar are of course less reliable than other methods, depending on weather as they do.

The technology will improve, though. That’s probably true in all cases, but a flooded valley is still a flooded valley. And radioactive waste can take thousands of years to lose its deadly power.

There are a lot of questions around this topic, and not a lot of satisfactory answers. Maybe we should add one question – something along the lines of how we got here, and if we should re-think where we’re going.

What’s really important, in other words? Must we always have more, more and still more?

More of everything means more pollution, more loss of land and so on.

If never-ending growth is more important than anything else, then we get what we asked for.