The Future of Renewable Energy

In his discussion of my recent post on the need for a sane energy policy, Marc Vendetti comments on the importance of energy storage:

One of the larger impediments to renewables being viewed as a complete replacement for fossils….is storage. Here is a Gates Foundation-backed company about to roll out a battery storage product that is relatively inexpensive, sustainable and environmentally-friendly.  This company will be joined by many others in the coming years and the technology will continue to improve. If we really embraced innovation and change in this space, our transition to renewables could be swift.

I think you’re exactly right here, Marc.  In fact, I predict that storage, along with smart grid, the adoption of electric transportation, high-voltage transmission, and the continued decline in the price of wind and solar will make this transition happen much more quickly than most people believe to be possible.  I’m betting we’ll see a phenomenon not unlike the explosion of cell phones that took the world completely by surprise a few years ago.

On top of all the drivers named above, keep in mind that there are other enormously powerful forces welling up from the deep.  One is the re-regulation of the utilities, based on the distributed generation phenomenon.  The so-called utility “death spiral” (also discussed here) is right around the corner from causing a wholesale rethinking of what we’re asking of these entities and how we’re willing to compensate them for it.

Another huge force is public awareness of environmental issues, which, while it’s not an important ingredient right now, could become so at any moment.  What happens when the common American comes face to face with the realities of climate change?  No one knows the answer, but it has the potential to be quite profound.

Not everyone agrees with me on this, of course.  If you read the predictions of the great research firms, for example, you see coal-fired power plants still operational in the year 2100.  Not a chance.  I’d like to meet a single one of them who foresaw this adoption curve for cell phones.

Researchers tend to look at the future as if it’s an extension of the past – to which I point out: the future always looks like the past – until it looks like something completely different.