Feeling Good About Energy and Transportation

I deeply appreciate the growing rush of informed comments on the 2GreenEnergy blog. Frequent guest Arlene Allen (whom I had the pleasure to meet recently) writes:

Normally, I would do my best to add something positive to the discussion. Quite frankly, I feel that the transportation industry in the USA is already positioning itself to inflate consumer expectation and subsequently slam them into the embankment as hard as is possible.

Thanks, Arlene. Sometimes I read things that cause me to agree with you 100%. I know I’ve been hugely pessimistic – even cynical – about the direction that renewable energy and electric transportation is going. But strangely, I have a good feeling about this overall. And it’s not because of positive intention and honesty of our corporate and government leaders, but rather the strength of the business case. The cost of all this is crashing like a stone, and, fortunately for mankind, I don’t see that anyone can do anything about that.

I’m looking at dozens of business plans, some of which feature truly transformative technology. Yes, they need funding – and in some cases, huge amounts of it. But the numbers in some of these cases are so compelling that they will ultimately receive the capital they are requesting, enabling the generation of clean power at a fraction of the cost of energy that comes from dirty and/or dangerous sources. I know it’s too early to declare victory, but I’m feeling very good about the transportation and energy industries.

I’m under NDA on a lot of these, but look at technologies that are already on the streets, like solar thermal with molten salt energy storage. The lies that Big Energy are spreading include the notion that this may be nice, but solar is inappropriate for baseload power. This is simply not the case. My point is this: That lie has a finite shelf-life. It’s just a matter of time until the truth gets spread so broadly that the lies will evaporate like the morning fog here in valleys of Central California.