Clean Energy — Looking for Accelerators
We frequently come across the concept of “accelerators,” i.e., forces that cause certain phenomena to speed their way into our lives. Recent examples are the adoption of the Internet and cell phones, both of which exceeded analysts’ expectations by an order of magnitude.
This hasn’t slipped past the notice of the venture capital firms, who are busily looking for the next “killer application” in mobile commerce and social media. But while I’m sure they’re barking up the right tree, it’s not where my interest lies. For my money, we have all the convenience and entertainment we need right now as a society.
Having said that, it sure would be good if we could run into one or more accelerators in clean energy and sustainability. But what would they look like? If you’re looking for them coming out of government, you’re likely to be disappointed. In the US at least, the powers that oppose clean energy have done a more-than-adequate job at poisoning the atmosphere, and eliminating the possibility of a consensus in which the public sector leads the way here, as it did with the construction of our highways, the Space program, the development of the Internet, etc. Instead, we’ve come to look at those in government as incompetent, evil, or both.
So where the heck are those accelerators? I know I saw them around here somewhere.
Sometimes something you’re looking for turns up where you least expect to find it.
Maybe it’s cost, plain and simple. Even without incentives, the cost of PV is under $1 per Watt (and continuing to fall). With efficiencies rising and new technologies coming along at an ever-increasing rate, we’re approaching the point of “grid parity” at which the levelized cost of energy from PV will be identical to what it is from fossil fuels. Solar energy grew 109% in 2011 from 2010, and 2012 looks very strong as well.
Could it be that the biggest accelerator of them all is right there in front of us?
Craig, you make a good argument for free market selection of winners. Government involvement even in worthy causes tends to put confusion, fraud and red tape into the equation when reason alone should prevail.
Grid parity is the point where the reason of the market overwhelms side issues of global warming and centralized control of energy production.
Try as it might, government nudging before its time has come has done little to cause wide spread sustainable adoption of solar or any other technology.
When you can take the numbers to the bank without a government subsidy, the public will enthusiastically adopt the future that you and I have seen as being just around the corner for the last quarter century.
University research in clean energy of all kinds has been beneficial in my opinion and does not go beyond the scope of government. But,the market place decides what works and does not work.
Great response Larry, 100% agree
Of course, the military, firefighters, police, the prison system, and national highways all would have been more efficient and less corrupt without government… right?
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the arm of the people in favor of the corporate world’s very long and very woeful track record in terms of ethics and corruption whenever there’s cash to be made or saved. For profit’s sake, everything is justified in the corporate ‘mind’.
Are there examples? Here are just a few among many, from news stories that largely escaped mainstream attention in recent decades:
• Ocean-Spray was reportedly caught “cross-hauling” (using trucking contractors who were known to be filling up trailer containers with highly toxic chemicals and hauling them in one direction, and then filling the very same containers with juice ingredients to haul in the other direction – with merely a quick soap-and-warm-water rinse in between loads)…
• A whistleblower revealed that Beechnut was selling colored sugar-water labeled as apple juice for our infant children…
• A coal-mining firm in Tennessee had apparently figured it was cheaper to pay the EPA fines than to properly contain its vast pool of accumulated toxic sludge – the predictable impact was hideously disastrous…
• Evidence shows that our importers show little concern about the lead in the Chinese toys that they sell to our children…
• Texaco chose to use antiquated and lethally polluting processes and practices within the headlands of the globe’s largest river, thereby decimating wide swaths of virgin wilderness and poisoning thousands of local people – and then, just like Union Carbide in Bhopal, and so many other similarly guilty firms, it simply sold its local assets and walked away…
• Those fanatically publicized but mythical Obama “death-panels” have instead long existed in head offices of medical insurance firms – in the ghastly and ethereal shape of care denial strategies and coverage cancellation practices…
Note that not a single one of these organizations has ever had its charter revoked for its callous and willful assaults upon innocent life.
Yet now the GOP appointees on our nation’s highest court have allowed the filthy, grasping and rending claws of soulless and unreal creatures like these to simply buy our democratic republic out of hand.
The private sector could never have prospered without the public sector, just as the competition and hoarding in modern life would never have been possible without the cooperation and sharing of the ancient village. We’d still be stuck in hunter-gatherer mode. (Some of us still are.)
Laws are always made necessary by the inability of persons to restrain their passions. Now, it is necessary that We the People wrest our public powers away from the corruption of bribery that has long – and increasingly – been inflicted upon that public power structure which began as a uniquely American institution.
Thanks, Cameron. In your closing remarks, it sounds like you are referring to MoveToAmend, which, if passed, will provide us with at least the glimmer of hope of the restoration of our democracy: http://movetoamend.org/. As I’m sure you know, I’ve been a long-standing supporter.
I’m pleased to contribute to the discussion, Craig.
I understand that over 250 municipalities have already enacted measures of support for the goals of that laudable organization (which I also support) – containing widely varying quantities of toothsomeness and depth.
I too share your glimmer and hope it flares to brilliance.
The above “Anonymous” response was my own.
Cameron