Birthing the Solar Age

This morning, I viewed an amazing video that reflects the exciting,  renewable energy paradigm  that is rapidly unfolding  around the world, but particularly in Europe, Japan, and China. It's happening in America as well, but progress is being  undermined by the utility industry and traditional providers of energy. The Koch Brothers own much of the tar sands oil production in Canada.. These two men, who are already worth about 50 billion dollars, are determined to use their money to block the progress of clean energy in America.

Despite the resistance of the energy old guard, the trends are inevitable. The cost of solar power has dropped precipitously over the last decade, to the point where energy from the sun can be produced  increasingly, for even less than energy from nuclear, coal, oil, or natural gas. 

The intransigence of deep pockets, dirty energy providers is the primary impediment to the rapid adoption of wind, solar, and other clean energy technologies. I'm happy to report that there is huge momentum among institutional investors to sell off the parts of their portfolios that are mired in dirty technologies. Now, if we could just get rid of the corrupt politicians in Washington that are brought and paid for by energy giants like Exxon Mobil.

Cost of Solar Energy

Check out this very encouraging video from Yale Climate Forum...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUNnW2DH_M


Here's a bit of additional evidence of the swift emergence of solar energy from the Earth Policy Institute... http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2014/highlights47

The Zero Marginal Cost Society

The sub-title of Jeremy Rifkin's latest book is The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Collapse of Capitalism. Provocative to say the least.  This new book is a logical and worthy successor to Rifkin's last, which was titled, The Third Industrial Revolution. Rifkin has become something of a world class guru on the clean energy revolution that is well underway.  It's about fossil fuels and a market driven economy giving way to a world powered by clean, inexhaustible renewable energy resources like solar, wind, and hydropower.

 

 

 

In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, Rifkin sees industrial capitalism and materialism as giving way to an era that is far more inclusive, empathetic, and sustainable;  a new age in which the cost of goods and services are driven down to near zero by technological innovation and the very market forces that have shaped the world that we know. The millennials, the first generation raised in this new era, are less interested in the accumulation of property and possessions, and far more interested in seeing the world as a collection of commons - like the air, the water, and the biosphere -  that we all depend on and all have a collaborative stake in nurturing.

Many of those that have gotten rich as the facilitators and minions of market capitalism are often quick to dismiss Rifkin's suggestion that they are on their way to being marginalized. But the case he makes is exceedingly compelling.  The profound, global scale changes underway are built on the information internet, the emerging internet of energy, and the just developing internet of things.

Rifkin's credentials are formidable. His more than 20 books have been translated into 35 languages. He has been an advisor to the European Union for more than a decade and has had a significant influence on Europe's adoption of his 'Third Industrial Revolution' vision.

I find the transition Rifkin sees as already underway as reason for hope. Rifkin believes that humanity can weather the storm we have created for ourselves with regard to fossil energy dependence and climate, egregious human overpopulation, resource scarcity and conflict that arises from it, and the perversion of governance by a small number of super rich sociopaths, who use their wealth to prevent change that is contrary to their own personal interests.  The latter, to me, is the biggest threat to Rifkin's positive vision. An example of this: the Koch Brothers, two pathological siblings, who are worth $100 billion between them.  They and their ilk are determined to use their money to pervert history and stand in the way of the kind of change that is critically needed in our world.  The Kochs - who own a massive part of Canada's tar sands -  are heavily involved in fostering climate skepticism and bolstering the Republican party, which has become an almost entirely obstructionist force in American politics.

If the reassuring vision that Jeremy Rifkin illuminates so persuasively in The Zero Marginal Cost Society is to be fully realized,  the ability of the super rich to use their money to derail the transition to a post-market, collaborative future will need to be blunted.   Here again, as I have written in so many of these blog pieces, we have to look at a Constitutional Amendment to turn back the sell out of citizen rights driven by recent decisions of the Supreme Court. The five conservative judges on the Roberts court have opened the floodgates to political influence spending by the Koch Brothers and their super rich friends.  Two decisions,  Citizens United and more recently, McCutcheon vs. FEC
assured that 'he who has the money makes the rules'.

I am inspired by the trends Jeremy Rifkin has identified. As a means of protecting the biosphere, I want to see his hopeful vision  fully blossom.  That is why I  choose to support Move to Amend, an activist organization that is focused on achieving a Constitutional Amendment that says Corporations are not people and money is not speech.  That kind of change would neutralize the ability of big corporate money and the super rich to distort our political process.  If you aren't already on board with this, I urge you to educate yourself then get with the program and be part of the solution.

Jeremy Rifkin's book gives  us reason to hope for a better future. Read The Zero Marginal Cost Society,  then stand with Move to Amend, and do your part to help make it happen.

Here is a link to the webpage for The Zero Marginal Cost Society     http://www.thezeromarginalcostsociety.com/  


Here is a link to a one hour presentation Jeremy Rifkin made on his latest book to the leaders of Google... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-iDUcETjvo&feature=youtu.be

The End of Work

Like it or not, we live in a time of profound and irrepressible change.  Moreover, the pace of that change is breathtaking; off the charts.  The economics of this is very unsettling, to say the least. As we start a new year, the world economy continues to sputter. An elite handful of people are doing well; very, very well. Those that serve the elite are also prospering. Most Americans are just getting by, and a very large portion of our people find themselves struggling with poverty.

There is evidence to suggest that we have reached the end of the line as far as full employment is concerned. Is this just a matter of bad economic policy?  Certainly, that is part of the problem. Another big reason is the profound boost in efficiencies that have been introduced to the production and distribution of goods and services.  About fifteen years ago, Jeremy Rifkin wrote about this in his book, The End of Work.  The use of advanced robotics and other innovations translates into needing fewer and fewer people to make things. We are able to get a lot more done with fewer resources and less human labor.  In his book, Rifkin claimed that the time was coming when all of the goods needed to make the world's economy go could be produced by the labor of about two percent of the human population.  If that's true, and it does appear we are rapidly moving to that kind of reality, how do we deal with the 98% of the population whose labor is no longer needed?  Keep in mind, the human population is still expanding...by about 75 million annually.

How do you create a thriving economy when their isn't enough work for people? An economy functions when there is an active market of buyers and sellers. If almost nobody has a job, how do you keep that going? How do you make it work when the vast najority of people have no source of income? Jeremy Rifkin offered some interesting ideas.   First you have to find a way to keep the money churning.  You have to keep enough money in people's pockets that they are willing to spend some of it on things beyond the basic requirements for survival.  How do you do that, if there are no jobs?  The most obvious place to start would be to cut the number of hours for working people. If people worked only 20 hours a week with no loss in income,  more people would be needed to provide the labor needed.  Same effect would come from adding vacation time, or giving time off to do volunteer community service. Sound crazy?  Of course. According to the rules we operate by at the moment,  these two ideas are non-starters.   But early in the 20th century, as a society, we did transition to a 40 hour standard work week. When circumstances demand it,  things can and do change.

The forces at work that are dampening our economic prospects are not going to go away. As time goes on, with the population continuing to grow, things will only get worse. Something will have to give for the U.S. to maintain even a minimally comfortable standard of living for its citizens.

The future can't be left to market forces, that much is certain.  The American people are not going to go into the tank quietly. Ultimately, it will be pressure from the grass roots that will force congress to reshape public policy to fit the undeniable new reality.   The sooner it happens, the better off we all will be.  

Sixty Minutes, the CBS news  magazine show just did a piece on robotics and the impact on labor and employment, fascinating and unsettling at the same time. Here is the link... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57563698-10391709/the-robot-waltz-an-appreciation/

The Third Industrial Revolution Revisited

A while back, I wrote a piece for this blog about Jeremy Rifkin and his new book, The Third Industrial Revolution.  

Earlier this month, the World Hydrogen Energy Conference was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The speaker at the conference's opening session was Jeremy Rifkin, and he talked about the energy transition that is already underway.in the European Union and other parts of the world.  We are starting to move away from fossil fuels toward a clean and sustainable energy model using, solar, hydro, biomass, and other renewable technologies that generate electricity.

Jeremy Rifkin spoke for about an hour at that meeting.  His talk there is now on You Tube in three parts. If you want to understand where we need to be going as a human society, I urge you to take the tinme to listen to what Jeremy Rifkin has to say.   He is a charismatic communicator and his message is incredibly compelling.    He speaks with great urgency. He says we have to be completely off carbon in thirty years. Completely, Totally. Unequivocally. He presents a plan for getting it done that is already being embraced in Europe and other parts of the world.

A big part of this transition depends on hydrogen's emergence as the principle means of storing and transporting renewably produced electricity.  

Jeremy Rifkin's talk at the 2012 World Hydrogen Energy Conference is delivered in three 'You Tube' files.

Here is part one...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=372gPsNWGtU&feature=relmfu

Part Two...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZH3iYSkQRM&feature=relmfu

Part Three...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdbayOe8ReY

The Third Industrial Revolution

In 2007, The Hydrogen Age, a book, for which I was the principle author, reported on the emerging trends away from fossil fuels in favor clean renewable forms of energy. In the US, where the oil, coal, and gas lobbies dominate energy politics, this trend has been somewhat stunted. The same cannot be said about Europe.

In his recently published book, The Third Industrial Revolution, Jeremy Rifklin, President of The Foundation for Economic Trends, reports that the European Union and its members nations are aggressively pursuing a transition to clean, renewable energy. They have committed billions of euros to the process and cleared the way with financial incentives and a whole range of public policy initiatives. Wind, solar, geothermal, ocean wave, and other clean technologies are coming on line at an ever accelerating pace. Rifkin says this transition is in essence the opening stage of what he characterizes as the third industrial revolution.

It's not just happening in Europe. Latin America, Asia, and even Africa are following the European example.

One of the big impediments with wind and solar is the intermittant nature of the resource. It's not always windy even in the windiest places, and the sun doesn't shine 24 hours a day.  There are also times when wind turbines and solar panels are generating more energy than needed. When that happens, we need to be able to store that surplus wind and solar energy for use when needed. One of the best ways, and pretty much the only way renewable energy can be stored and transported long distances for use on demand is by taking the electricity produced from wind, solar, and other renewables, and converting it to hydrogen. That is best done by splitting water molecules into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen.  Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe. When hydrogen is converted back into useable energy in a device called a fuel cell, it is totally pollutrion free. The only exhaust is water.

Hydrogen is highly flammable and can be hazardous, but no more so than gasoline or natural gas. A big part of the European strategy for the transition to renewables is the adoption of hydrogen as a fuel for automotive transportation. By 2015, many of the world's auto manufacturers will commercialize fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen, and hydrogen refueling stations will be found all over the European continent.

As the European Union goes, so goes the rest of the world. I only wish this kind of aggressive strategy was at work here in the United States. A renewable energy future using hydrogen as a primary energy carrier is the best way to wean ourselves off of dirty and increasingly costly fossil fuel energy. It is also the best way to walk human society back from the climate change precipice. Renewables, enabled by hydrogen translate to a pollution free energy future that is sustainable over the long term.

Here is a link to Jeremy Rifkin's website and latest book...

http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/