It’s hard for average Americans to make sweeping changes to their lifestyles when there isn’t a lot of incentive. We’re told to do a number of things to lower our energy consumption, but in the end, we are always compromising on some part of our lives, always doing something for someone else, so energy consumption is part of a long list, and not such a very important item on the list to most of us. So what’s another $50 per month. To many that’s a lot, but for many others – usually families with large houses, three cars, and little reason to conserve — $50 or $100 per month, or even $200 per month, is no reason to keep the house colder, or not run the lawn sprinkler.
The only way to get change at a critical mass level is for the cost of energy to sky rocket, for every single person rich or poor to get hit hard, real hard, in the wallet. We saw this happen for a fleeting moment with gas prices last year. Until the market drives change, until the cost of fossil fuels skyrocket and suddenly cost more than alternative sources to light your house, heat your house, wash your clothes and drive your car, things will pretty much continue as is.
It’s hard to picture how the current dominating energy industries will one day fall to these comparably tiny alternative fuel companies. The buzz is out there, the talk is constant, yet the market hasn’t really shifted in any big way and no frontrunner has come close to displacing the current power structure. But if we look to our history, we find hope easily.
The dominating industry source for petroleum has been displaced once already in the United States. For centuries Europe and the United States depended on whale oil to light their lamps. The whale oil industry was giant, employing some 70,000 people in this country in the middle 19th century.
It wasn’t necessarily the scarcity of whales that led to the industry’s demise. It was more the increasingly high costs of whale expeditions, while at the same time new sources of oil were being discovered, shifting venture funds from whale expeditions to new investments, like kerosene. As whale oil began to lose its market share, the industry launched a PR blitz to discredit oil from other sources as inferior and flawed. The shift in the market eventually took down the industry. By 1890 there were only 200 U.S. whaling ships, down from 700 some 40 years earlier.
This didn’t happen because people cared about saving the whales. This happened because people cared about their bills.
That is why smart people in government (yes, there are smart people in government) see over the horizon what is in store for our future with the status quo and current mindset about energy. Tax incentives and rebate programs have been put in place in New York and other states (see www.dsireusa.org to find out what’s available in your state) to drive the early adopters to implement alternatives. The idea behind tax incentives and other programs is to kick start the industries of tomorrow we need today.
Markets shift much faster today. We’ve seen iconic giants like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers – names we’d expect to last several more generations –- disappear overnight. That same thing can happen to our energy giants overnight. The will of the people looking for environmental solutions won’t do it on their own, but the current momentum needs to be in place to push along the market forces. So when it’s time, the new, cheaper sources of energy – maybe wind, solar, fuel cells, geothermal, or something we don’t yet foresee – will be positioned to overtake the market. It may be one alternative source, or two, or all of them. It may take decades, or may happen in a year. But rest assured, it will happen – hopefully sooner than later – and we all need to keep doing what we can, including banging our heads against the wall – to usher in this new age. We don’t have an alternative planet.
There are countless companies at all points of the delivery system and all sizes – from GE making wind turbines and fuel cells to small startups making more efficient non-silicon solar cells. The number and quality of corporate initiatives nationally and internationally is encouraging.
Google.org, for example, has a few initiatives focused specifically on developing electricity from renewable energy sources that is cheaper than coal-generated electricity with the goal of producing one gigawatt of energy capacity – enough to power a city the size of San Francisco. Called “RE<C,” Google.org provides grants and influences public policy to advance the effort.
The ultimate goal is to put on the market renewable energy that can retail for less than fossil-fueled electricity. For starters, they’ll focus on solar thermal power, wind power technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems. But they’re open to other game-changing technologies. Got an idea? Need funds? Support? Contact renewables@google.com. For a closer look, read their project brief.
Along the same lines, Google’s project RechargeIT, according to the web site, “is focused on accelerating mass commercialization of plug-in vehicles by seeding innovation, demonstrating technology, informing the debate, and stimulating market demand.” Launched more than a year ago, they purchased a fleet of hybrids to test, announced over $1 million in grants to support plug-in vehicle adoption, and turned on their 1.6 megawatt solar installation to power their own buildings, which is comprised of 9,212 solar panels.
For more on Google’s commitment, go to clean energy future.
