Welcome to my blog on the Clean Energy Economy!
I believe that the clean energy economy will produce some of the most important new business opportunities of this generation and the twenty-first century. New companies, industries, regions, and countries will emerge to dominate the emerging multi-trillion dollar firmament. The entrepreneurs, investors, and societies who emerge on top have a once-in-a-generation chance to redraw long-ossified boundaries and reap vast amounts of wealth in the process.
In many ways energy is the most important industry in the world.
In 2007 worldwide energy revenues were $6.3 Trillion. That was before energy prices more than doubled. A simple calculation, assuming stable prices and annual demand growth of 1.75%, tells us that the world will spend at least $382 trillion in energy over the next four decades. Just to compare, the whole Gross Domestic Product of the United States in 2009 was $14.4 trillion .
Energy is also the most important global strategic issue today. Many other industries and issues are tightly linked with and dependent on energy: clean water and food supply; war and terrorism; poverty and disease; the environment and the economy; even human rights.
Our energy choices inevitably affect all these issues. Attempting to draw a simplistic picture of energy that separates energy from these issues will not work. You just cannot fool Nature. For instance, America’s – and much of the world’s – clean water supply will be tightly dependent on our energy choices. We will reach ‘peak water’ before we reach ‘peak oil.’ I will write about both a crisis in the making and entrepreneurial opportunities in water.
The Architecture of Energy
The whole architecture of energy will change: from centralized to distributed, from horizontal to vertical, from wasteful to efficient, from dirty to clean. Think about how personal computers transformed computing. Think about how cell phones transformed telephony. Think how PCs, cell phones, and the Internet together transformed most industries and most economies over the last 30 years.
Here are some of the characteristics of this new architecture of energy that will impact and transform our future.
1- Energy wants to be distributed.
2- Energy wants to be scalable.
3- Energy wants to be grid-independent.
4- Energy wants be embedded.
5- Energy wants to be clean.
6- Energy wants to be social.
7- Energy wants to be free.
In this blog I will elaborate on all these topics and on the opportunities being created for the entrepreneurs who take advantage of this new architecture. (You can also go to Amazon.com and buy my recently published book “Solar Trillions – 7 Market and Investment Opportunities in the Emerging Clean-Energy Economy” where I also reveal markets worth trillions of dollars.)
What Happens in Energy Doesn’t Stay in Energy
That the new architecture of energy will transform the energy industry is a given. What is not well understood is that the new architecture of energy will touch every industry in the world.
The PC, the cell phone, and the Internet transformed not just computing and the information technology industry. They transformed dozens of industries, from publishing to automotive to retail to education. They also created new growth opportunities for those who “got it.”
Similarly many industries and most large companies around the world will be shaken up by the technology tsunami unleashed by society’s move to the clean energy economy. The energy-intensive industries will be the first ones to feel it: transportation, construction, electric appliances, and retail are obvious examples
Just as PC, cell phone, and Internet did before, the clean energy economy will deliver more power to the people, and in the end the consumer will be better off. Industries and companies that just sit tight and collect money while creating little value for the end user will feel the pain – they same way such companies did with the advent of the Internet.
Any CEO who thinks that what happens in the energy industry stays in the energy industry has his or her head in the sand. Every Fortune 500 company, from Wal-Mart to American Airlinesto Nestle’, will feel the transformations wrought by the clean energy economy. And any CEO who allows the oil, coal, and nuclear industries to define government energy policy will face the fate of General Motors, Digital Equipment Corp, and Sears.
Google knows this. That’s a major reason why they have entered the energy business. Nissan knows this. That’s why they’re furiously developing the battery-electric vehicles of the future. Wal-Mart knows this. That’s why they’re redefininng their business for carbon-free energy.
Resistance will be futile. Imagine computer mainframe vendors successfully resisting society’s move towards the personal computer. Imagine the landline phone companies successfully resisting the mobile phone or internet telephony. Imagine newspaper publishers and encyclopedia vendors successfully resisting the Internet.
But resist many will. The transition to the clean energy economy will be anything but clean. Few executives and few industries want to give up a multi-year, multi-trillion dollar gravy train. In true Orwellian fashion, old dirty energy industries will claim and get massive government subsidies – much more than they already get. In true Orwellian fashion, dirty will be clean while clean energy will be attacked on “environmental” grounds. There will be cynical attempts to push for politicians to include dirty energy as part of their “Renewable Energy Standards.” Taxpayer money will freely flow in the direction of these dying industries.
The Clean Energy Century
President Obama has said that “the nation that dominates the clean energy economy will be the nation that dominates the next century.” That nation will be the host of the Googles, Apples, Intels, Microsofts, General Electrics, and Ciscos of the clean energy century. What choice are you making today?
In this blog I will attempt to provide analysis and perspectives on the clean energy economy – especially from an entrepreneurial point of view. Thirty years from now, the clean energy economy will have brought more wealth, created higher standards of living, better jobs, and a healthier world than ever before. That’s something to look forward to.
So welcome to my clean energy economy blog. Together, let’s “Create Wealth, Grow the Economy, and Save the Planet!”
Tony Seba
Footnotes:
(1) U.S. Dependence on Oil in 2008: Facts, Figures, and Context,” Andrew Grove, Robert Burgelman, and Debra Schifrin, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Research Paper No. 1997, August 2008
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