If Properly Unleashed, The Marketplace Can Solve Climate Change
Stewart Taggart
June 24, 2008
If the marketplace is allowed to do its work, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced quickly.
Take concentrating solar power as an example.
With oil prices rising, American venture capitalists and risk-tolerant investors and companies have seen opportunity in concentrating solar power. One result has been the 64MW 'Nevada Solar One' parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant. Built in 15 months, it's now providing large-scale solar energy supplies to Las Vegas. This demolishes any argument solar isn't commercial.
Solar power -- particularly concentrating solar power -- is so much more real, proven and cost-effective than carbon capture and storage that the comparison isn't even worth making. 'Nevada Solar One' has been operating for a year now, without problems. Where's carbon capture and storage? It 'might' be available in 2015-2020, we're told -- IF the timetable doesn't slip further.
Compared to coal, solar is nimble. Nevada Solar One' was built in 15 months. Coal-fired power plants take years. The problem is: we don't have years. Climate change is here, now and happening faster than the pessimists thought. But the good news is that plants like 'Nevada Solar One' are flagships of positive change. Other companies are now getting in on the action, including Australian solar corporate exile Ausra, Brightsource Energy, Sterling Solar and others. Indeed, big money technology investors hardened by marketplace competition are slicing and dicing solar technologies in so many different ways now economic Darwinism should winnow the field to winners through natural selection very quickly. Compare this to the fat and sluggish coal industry, virtually dependent on its lobbying wing to keep it in business.
Happily, these economically-unleashed solar 'animal spirits' represent a tidal wave of positive change that could transform the current energy and climate crisis into a affluence-producing global infrastructure investment boom. Consider this: America's Bureau of Land Management now has on its desk permit applications for 70,000MW of concentrating solar power plants for America's sunny southwest. That's equivalent of Australia's ENTIRE electricity generating capacity. Were all those applications approved, they would bring on line enough solar energy to satisfy 5% of America's electricity usage -- all in just a few short years. In solar, the money is there, the manufacturing is there, the land is there and the technology is there. In short, America is 'there.'
All up, it's a pretty bright story. If we look at the climate change problem as a glass half-full, and as a kind of existential "Cuban Missile Crisis" requiring everyone to stop, think and pay attention, we could then enjoy a collective decisiveness sufficient to solve economic and and environmental pathologies that have accumulated since the Industrial Revolution.
The timing is absolutely perfect. We're running out of oil, and the atmosphere is filling up with carbon at a time when our technological achievements as a species are at a height. Big problems plus big brains plus crisis atmosphere could be just the bubbling brew we need to overcome the entropy of indifference.
It's not a 'climate change crisis' out there anymore. It's a 'dithering crisis.' Technology has shown itself more than capable of reversing climate change. What we need now is for voters, consumers, investors and civil society to solve the 'dithering' crisis. In that sense, bad news is good news. It gets more people on the bus.
Take concentrating solar power as an example.
With oil prices rising, American venture capitalists and risk-tolerant investors and companies have seen opportunity in concentrating solar power. One result has been the 64MW 'Nevada Solar One' parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant. Built in 15 months, it's now providing large-scale solar energy supplies to Las Vegas. This demolishes any argument solar isn't commercial.
Solar power -- particularly concentrating solar power -- is so much more real, proven and cost-effective than carbon capture and storage that the comparison isn't even worth making. 'Nevada Solar One' has been operating for a year now, without problems. Where's carbon capture and storage? It 'might' be available in 2015-2020, we're told -- IF the timetable doesn't slip further.
Compared to coal, solar is nimble. Nevada Solar One' was built in 15 months. Coal-fired power plants take years. The problem is: we don't have years. Climate change is here, now and happening faster than the pessimists thought. But the good news is that plants like 'Nevada Solar One' are flagships of positive change. Other companies are now getting in on the action, including Australian solar corporate exile Ausra, Brightsource Energy, Sterling Solar and others. Indeed, big money technology investors hardened by marketplace competition are slicing and dicing solar technologies in so many different ways now economic Darwinism should winnow the field to winners through natural selection very quickly. Compare this to the fat and sluggish coal industry, virtually dependent on its lobbying wing to keep it in business.
Happily, these economically-unleashed solar 'animal spirits' represent a tidal wave of positive change that could transform the current energy and climate crisis into a affluence-producing global infrastructure investment boom. Consider this: America's Bureau of Land Management now has on its desk permit applications for 70,000MW of concentrating solar power plants for America's sunny southwest. That's equivalent of Australia's ENTIRE electricity generating capacity. Were all those applications approved, they would bring on line enough solar energy to satisfy 5% of America's electricity usage -- all in just a few short years. In solar, the money is there, the manufacturing is there, the land is there and the technology is there. In short, America is 'there.'
All up, it's a pretty bright story. If we look at the climate change problem as a glass half-full, and as a kind of existential "Cuban Missile Crisis" requiring everyone to stop, think and pay attention, we could then enjoy a collective decisiveness sufficient to solve economic and and environmental pathologies that have accumulated since the Industrial Revolution.
The timing is absolutely perfect. We're running out of oil, and the atmosphere is filling up with carbon at a time when our technological achievements as a species are at a height. Big problems plus big brains plus crisis atmosphere could be just the bubbling brew we need to overcome the entropy of indifference.
It's not a 'climate change crisis' out there anymore. It's a 'dithering crisis.' Technology has shown itself more than capable of reversing climate change. What we need now is for voters, consumers, investors and civil society to solve the 'dithering' crisis. In that sense, bad news is good news. It gets more people on the bus.
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