Green technology. Yuck, right? I mean, Greener rarely means ‘better’ – it usually means worse, not as good as, not quite as awesome but in return you use less energy, contributing something impossibly tiny to the global efforts to cope with what is, in fact, the limit of existing means of generating energy.

The abundance of usable energy is intimately linked to success for life on this planet – food, light and heat for example. The same is true for humanity – the cheaper our energy, the richer we all become. This is because cheap energy frees up resources for other uses, and so is an increase in the total volume of work that can be done – whether it’s boiling kettles 30 seconds faster or moving two hundred people from a to b in half the time, or even just continuing to washing clothes by pressing a button.

Any cap or limit on energy, whether imposed by man or nature,  increases the cost of energy. That makes us poorer, and it decreases our quality of life. In fact, if we’re to share the available energy with all people on the earth equally, we’re going to experience a serious decrease in the quality of life.

The more expensive energy is, the less we have to spend on other things. Eventually we also have to reduce our energy usage – often at the expense of time but sometimes it’s less obvious signs of reducing wealth: Having to accept slightly sub-standard, not quite as enjoyable versions of things we once took for granted – like cars, bulbs and even 50″ plasma screens. Okay so maybe it’s not a life or death matter – but it is a sign we’re getting poorer. Having to switch to a super economical micro-mini and scrap your hulking sports saloon because you can’t afford to run the latter? It’s because you’re poorer. You used to be rich enough not to even think about the running costs.

Energy is used in the manufacture of everything. If you increase the cost of energy, you’re increasing the cost of everything.

So it’s simple: The cheaper energy is, the richer we are. The more expensive it is, the poorer we are.

So this is what the Green Movement’s up against when they want to increase the price of ‘bad’ energy to get us to use less. They suggest this course of action because they believe the earth will react badly, making the planet unable to support human life – or worse, it’ll support human life but every other animal and plant will die, and then we’ll have to live with the guilt forever.

So here’s some common ground between evil free market types like me and the eco-hippies – neither of us rate the existing energy supply as adequate. That’s where the common ground ends.

Many push wind and solar as viable alternatives, but the truth is these in their current form make our energy more expensive, not less. So they’re making us poorer. Thanks to stupid communists’ attempts at running Nuclear Power stations and our complete inability to figure out what to do with the radioactive waste, fission of uranium isn’t exactly a popular – or cheap – or sensible – alternative, despite being a CO2 free.

We need better energy. A source that’s practically limitless and so cheap we barely notice paying for it. This is the holy grail of technology, the economic nirvana.

Those brain boxes at MIT appear to be onto one such winning strategy: Storing solar energy. I like this. I love it, in fact. I don’t give a monkeys whether or not it’s ecologically sound – I do care about the fact that this looks like it’ll be extremely cheap, which makes it win in my book. This is the sort of ‘Green’ technology I can love, because it’s a natural progression of what came before, rather than a reactionary retrograde step.

Call me a hippy, but if something Green can make me richer I’m suddenly all for it. I’m off to go put flowers in my hair..