Introduction to Chapter 18

I have not yet finished your book, but so far, I am enjoying it, and more to the point, I generally agree. However,I have two comments:
1. on page 189, you imply that solar-thermal requires no batteries, but it does require storage;
2. on page 194 (and others), a KW is not a unit of energy, it is a unit of power. A KWH is a unit of energy. I notice that many, many people confuse the two.

Don Watson

For a more global view of the changes we need to deal with a hot, flat and crowded world:

1. Part 2 of the ITConversations interview

2. Move to a paradigm that creates "Spectrum Abundance" and abandon current notion of "spectrum scarcity".

See posts on Open Spectrum on Greater Democracy:

3. Require end-to-end systems analysis of energy use. Reject systems that deliver less than 80% of the energy in the native state of its energy source. That is, disallow or penalize, systems that waste more than 20% of the energy used to power them. Raise the bar regularly. This will require us to abandon centralized power plants and adopt an Electranet energized by distributed generation at the points of demand [CHP and Micro-CHP].

4. Set a goal to keep sequestered carbon sequestered by 2028. It is a mockery to explore for new sources of fossil energy so that we can burn them to accelerate climate degradation.

5. Require all new construction to meet tough new Zero Net Energy standards. There is no need to build houses that require furnaces or that require more than 1 ton of biomass to heat them for a year. We can do this for $120 per sq foot construction costs with today's craftspeople, materials, and tools. In fact, such houses are already being built in MA.

In the end, we are working with too big a bucket, with too many leaks, and we are putting the wrong stuff into the bucket.

That's about what I can contribute. I do have a slide deck I would be glad to share if you are interested.

Jock Gill

A key ingredient to solving the climate crisis is changing our perspective and attitude towards the problem. We need to move away from the doom and gloom of the environmental movement as it breeds nothing but guilt, shame and impotence towards the overwhelming issues of climate change (which include overpopulation, greenhouse gas emissions, water shortage, limited resources, municipal and industrial waste, melting ice, etc.). Our attitude should be that the problems and issues that face climate change are problems that only America can fix. Americans will fix this problem and we're going to do it well and in style. And once we've fixed it, we're going to sell our new found technologies and innovations to all the other countries in the world. Then and only then will we see our economy grow, our leadership in the world reinstalled and most importantly, our planet cleaner.

This fundamental change in attitude is what it will take for us to own this problem and do something about it. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Some interesting ideas are being explored on the Discovery mini-series "Project Earth." It is worth a look:
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/pro...

Mr. Friedman,
You did an excellent job of explaining our Energy, biodiversity, and environmental crises in the world and America. However, I don’t think we can convince America or Washington to go green or fight Global Warming. But, I think we could convince America to become energy and oil independent and stop sending $5 Billion to the Middle East for oil each year and help win the War on Terrorism. An energy and oil independent America will require a New Energy Policy that will produce good jobs in America and reduce Global Warming and go green as a byproducts, but do not focus the initiative on going green and Global Warming.
This New Energy Policy issue is to important for only one lobbying approach to America or Washington, I would make Chapter 17 an Appendix as the byproduct of this New Energy Policy, and replace Chapter 17 the story of the leadership and focus needed to build the momentum for a New Energy Policy in America now. Version 2 or the 2nd. Edition could be titled: “ Hot, Flat, and Crowded and needing American Leadership and Energy Independence ”.
John, an American

I have been listening to Hot, Flat and Crowded in my car commuting to work (irony noted). It is fascinating, but frightening!

One notable thing in the current discussion on these topics - the solutions focus too little on the "crowded" component.

No doubt that is because solutions in this area are so hard to come by.

One of the few countries making a serious effort in this regard is China. The progress of their "one child" policy has come at great social cost and has received much tut-tutting from comfortable Westerners.

India is struggling ineffectively. Neither the Pope nor Islam seem to have a clue where this all leads.

Yet, if all countries of the world do not adopt a plan to slow, then halt, then reverse population growth, all the green technology or other changes to our affluenza lifestyle will be offset and we will still be headed for a rendez-vous with the 4 horesemen of the apocalypse.

Mankind has had a neolithic revolution and an industrial revolution. It needs another revolution to break free of the biological and social imperatives which push us towards populating ourselves into extinction, or at best to a very nasty equilibrium such as we find with human life today in the Ganges delta in Bangla Desh. Frogs in very hot water.

We must start to imagine new and better ways to control population, at home and around the world and we should start now.

I can think of no better person than to help us grapple with this issue than yourself.

Hi Tom,

For the last 20 years I have been involved in promoting a low cost and very effective green technology in the tropics and semi tropics that will help solve many of the problems relating to natural resources degradation and the negative impact of intensified tropical storms. The technology, using a plant called vetiver grass, is free to any sensible person who might want to use it. Here are two quotes:

From Debela Dinka, - Sustainable Land Use Forum, Ethiopia. "According to our partner NGO in Illubabor, Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resource Association (EWNRA), vetiver technology is more or less being used in 17 districts of 22 in Illubabor. It is estimated that about 17,000 households are using vetiver. It is expected that the remaining 5 districts will be involved. The major impacts of vetiver are: decreased rate of soil erosion; increased crop (maize sorghum, vegetables) yield due to soil and water conservation; reduced siltation of wetlands & streams; groundwater recharge which subsequently improved flow of springs, streams & wetlands; survival rate of tree & coffee seedlings reached more than 80%. Other uses of vetiver: mulching in coffee plantations; thatching of houses, stores & shades (vetiver grass gives long time service); mattress making (it repels home fleas & other insects); homestead hedgerows for beautification; making rope; income generation (farmers sell vetiver clumps for planting materials); and the green leaves of vetiver are cut and spread in & around homes during holidays & social gatherings such as wedding ceremonies."

From Tran Tan Van - Vietnam. "Vietnam, like most countries, suffers natural disasters and environmental degradation. The threat from future rising sea levels puts Vietnam in the top five most endangered nations. Yearly 1000 people die during storms; as a result of toxic pollution of waterways, yearly average property damage is $300,000,000. The government understands the need to mitigate these effects but has resorted to using piecemeal, conventional engineering works. These are very expensive, technically complicated and are not durable. The Vetiver Network's introduction of VS into Vietnam 7 years ago was for Vietnam “a timely glass of fresh water to the thirsty desert traveller”. It has been tested, demonstrated and adopted by the government, the research community, the private sector and individuals. The speed of its adoption over large landscapes attests that it is indeed the solution to myriad problems. Vietnam represents one of the world’s most successful cases of VS use".

You can learn more about this remarkable technology at http://www.vetiver.org If we are going to deal effectively with current "hot, flat and crowded" issues then vetiver grass has to be part of the solution. I think once you read about it you will want to learn more and, I hope, write about it.

Thanks

Dick Grimshaw

I believed that the only way we can survuve this energy crises is to re-invent ourselves by investing in a new clean energy that can stand the test of time.

As long as we care about our enviroment, the responsibility is on us to make it safer and cleaner.

We need to provide the next generation a better place to live in. Failure to do this will result in us being ungrateful to Mother nature.

I just left your lecture in Ypsilanti, Michigan, very inspired and made a personal vow to play bigger in solving the critical problems we need to solve around energy. My work is about developing leaders and it was abundantly clear listening to you, that leadership and innovation are key to solving our energy challenges and creating a planet that will provide for the needs of our children.

In October, my executive coaching firm will be assembling a team of 10 mid-level leaders from different utility and alternative energy companies to support the development of their leadership capability. They will work together to solve a complex problem providing them with a real-life experience to practice and develop their acumen as innovative, collaborative, and competitive leaders. Our goal is to help create energy leaders equipped to lead the ET Revolution you so astutely described today. The group will be cross-functional and will have 5 days over 6 months to work together on this project.

If you had 10 bright and capable energy leaders (all women I should also add) at your disposal, what problem would you ask them to solve to move the ET Revolution forward?

We will encourage them to share their results with all of you in 6 months and perhaps solve a problem worthy of being in Chapter 18!

All suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Please respond to:

Diane Ring, PARAGON Leadership International
Wixom, MI
dring@paragon-lead.com

Pick almost any challenge facing us today, from balance of payments to wars in the middle east to economic malaise to global warming. All, at core, result substantially from our energy policy, which is too often framed as a seesaw between economically-irresponsible environmentalism and environmentally-irresponsible growth. The choice is false - but the win/win solutions are consistently either ignored, on the theory that "if it's such a good idea, someone would have done it already" or else wedged into the back of bills that are stuck on the seesaw.

Consider that any energy or environmental policy to date falls into one of three categories:

1. Hair shirts. Use less energy to tolerate a lower standard of living.
2. Fuel switching. Embrace coal. No, make that nuclear. No, make that gas. No, wind. No, coal. (Repeat)
3. Increase total efficiency, measured as fossil fuel use per dollar of GDP.

All have their place, but only the third wins on every metric. More economic growth. Lower CO2 emissions. Less dependence on unstable regions. More jobs. And yet it's the tail end of every policy, buried in a subsection on appliance standards or some such after thought, that at best captures a tiny fraction of a much larger opportunity to reduce the total fossil input of our entire economy. So why don't we? Not for any technological or economic reason (I have personal experience deploying hundreds of 100-year old technologies in industrials with >30% returns on invested capital). Rather, efficiency has no natural political constituency. That's the bad news. The good news though is that there is a massive opportunity for profitable, job-creating GHG reduction, limited only by our ambition.

So the policy idea is simply to get off the seesaw. Embrace greenhouse gas reductions that make money. Overhaul our electric regulatory model so that electric utilities (source of 42% of our greenhouse gas emissions) have an economic incentive to deploy cheap, low-carbon generation. (And while you're at it, get rid of the barriers to private sector participation in that market). Overhaul the Clean Air Act not to raise pollution, but to remove its unintended penalties on those who would pursue efficiency as a pollution control strategy. Taken collectively, these would unleash hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the economy, taking advantage of our national propensity to innovate and invest. But for goodness sake, get off the seesaw.

Dear Mr. Friedman,

I was an entrepreneur in the last ET revolution that lasted from about 1978 until 1986. I witnessed the formation of a vital new industry that changed the way electric utilities did business. I was there with Ralph Cavanaugh when we stopped the WPPSS nuclear plants. And I saw how energy supply siders subverted the efforts of alternative energy pioneers through regulation and control of the political process which crippled the nascent alternative energy sector.

This time we've got to do things differently. Don't expect energy supply siders (oil/gas/electric companies) to propose innovative solutions that undermine their core business of selling more energy!

Innovation occurs on the demand side by all of us and our billions of choices so let's get organized. I'm not talking big government, I'm talking about energy consumers cooperatives. OK red staters, put your guns back in your holsters! Cooperatives are as American as apple pie and voluntary.

The idea is simple. Us energy consumers are in charge of our energy future and we aren't giving up control to anyone. Given the right advice and financing through a revolving loan fund (funded by previous energy savings) we can start making the innovative energy choices NOW! This can include building improvements, transportation alternatives, independent power production and a lot of other ideas. Its consumer reports meets venture capital at our kitchen table.

Our goal is energy independence with the least carbon footprint plus a seat at the head of the table in formulating energy policy.

Radical times call for radical measures. Who is ready to join me?

Thousands of miles away from USA, I'm here in Qatar. In the middle of the "oil paradise" for a few 'blind, death and grandchildren eagerless people' (well that's the only kind of people I can imagine supporting the oil industry nowadays) while for the rest of the normal sense people I'm actually in the "oil hell making place".

I get really delighted to read these comments about the "green energy and E.T." - subject that 'clicked me' (and became my favorite) only in the last month. It's so good, and I do fell more safe and hopeful (actually re-start thinking that's it is still possible for me to have kids and raise them in a livable planet) when I read so many possible solutions and new ideas that this extraordinary race - mankind - is capable of discovering for this issue. Congratulation to everyone who is here helping somehow to keep the life in this planet a good experience.

I do think that I have a 'funny' position right now once I'm living among the guys who really want to keep the oil industry going and, at the same time, having such a contrary idea of its use. But there's more, I'm also Brazillian. And this bring out a subject related to oil problems and the nesscesity of having all the governments in the world, not just the America's candidates, with the "innovate, baby, innovate" idea. Well, for me this is more a surviving of the human race issue than a leading country one.

I mentioned the 'there's more, I'm brazillian' because having my homeland as a neighbor of VENEZUELA, makes us listen and read too much about it, probably more than Americans citizens do. Look what the oil price - due to its consumption, mainly from America, has done to the country. Besides the carbon ox. in the air that the Venezuelan oil itself will became soon and therefore it's population will suffer from the climates change too, the oil also changes to the social life of the people. Confirming what Mr. Thomas Friedman said in his last speech in Aspen, the side effect of a 80, 90 dollars a barrel of oil has made HUGO CHAVEZ the latest big dictator on planet EARTH! Shutting down TV channels that were against his policies just shows how much democracy is disappearing over there. And don't be surprise if his madness drives him into something as stupid as looking for a war with the same America who is responsible for its enrich (putting oil prices so high), once he's a big CUBA supporter and not as much fan of the Democracy Model America's international policies.

My idea for the "green revolution" first step is related to the consumers.The people who actually change the world are the consumers. Captalism works with offer and demand. If the people (consumers), leaded by a real pure interested in making this green revolution going leader, are encourage to buy and demand only "green products", industry will do, whatever it takes to stock these products on the shelves. Starting with investing in all the ideas that many people already wrote here, in the Chapter 18 suggestions.

I'm not a scientist,nor a teacher nor someone with PHD. In fact, I'm just a 26 years old guy, who now is understanding the "real inconvenient truth" and who's struggling to finish a business graduation course with the sure that the companies that will receive my C.V. are only the ones who take seriously the "green revolution", not just because I believe in it's profitable future, and not because i really want to do something to help the world to be a better place but mainly because I really, really want to, one day, be able to take my grand kids the football stadium that my father has always taken me. Without the these changes, I'm afraid it won't be possible. Maybe the air and climate won't permit us to go outdoors.

Large scale building off nuclear power cannot proceed without thinking about where you will get enough nuclear engineers to build and run these plants.

Many nuclear engineers that operator existing power plants grew up in the US Navy, which used to have nearly 100 nuclear vessels. Now that the Cold War is over, the Navy has far fewer of these ships and submarines. Hence, there are far fewer ex-Navy nuclear engineers and technicians.

If Nuclear is to figure into our future, perhaps we should expand the Navy away from using fossil fuels and into an All Nuclear fleet. This would ensure a steady stream of trained Nuclear engineers.

Also, move the Air Force to using only coal derived fuels, and the Army to electric vehicles (hybrid) and use alternate sources of power wind and solar to power the Army where feasible. This would create young people with exposure to these alternate energy sources.

The military is one of our best sources for training technicians. It has a history of developing people who stay in industries (aviation, power systems etc) and can be ramped up fast to provide the human force for the future.

Look at how fast the defensed build up went in the 80's when Reagan committed to 600 ships in the Navy. We need that kind of effort now.

Our idea is very thoughtful. Our idea was derived from a landfill, many many years ago in a land far far away. We decided that we would compact large amount of trash into cubes that we covered in highly flammable chemicals. We decided that you could build a compartment in the engine of your car to place the cube. The engine would then burn the cube giving power to the car. It would be fuel-efficient and cheap.

No one is suggesting that drilling is the answer to our problems. However, no idea will take effect immediately. Mr. Friedman suggests that drilling will only help ten years from now, but alternative energy solutions such as wind or solar power still require years and years of research before they are anywhere near US energy standards.