Renewable energy generation depends on cloud capital rather than land rents

Evidence

Renewables, in contrast, are best deployed in a decentralised fashion, with solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, geothermal units and wave-powered devices all horizontally integrated as part of a network. With little need for licences that incur ground rent, their productivity depends instead on digital infrastructure running on sophisticated software utilising artificial intelligence. In short, green energy is cloud-capital-intensive, much like the electric car industry. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 536

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the green transition structurally hand more of the economy’s surplus to cloud platforms, meaning decarbonisation strengthens technofeudalism?
• SEED: Article angle: the uncomfortable implication that the renewable-energy transition is simultaneously a wealth-transfer toward cloud platforms.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 536