Are We There Yet?
Inside America's Energy Renaissance
"We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet," President Obama said during the 2015 State of the Union. "And today, America is number one in oil and gas. America is number one in wind power. Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008."1 Oil’s founding country is now the #1 production giant once again, all while decreasing carbon emissions by 8% relative to 2005 levels.2 At the COP15 Climate Change Conference I attended in 2009, Obama pledged to decrease U.S. carbon emissions by 17%. Last year he I watched him commit to a 30% reduction by 2030 at the UN General Assembly. The recent energy boom in the United States is unmatched. “We look at the United States’ energy revolution with colossal envy,” noted Europe’s former Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson. Europe’s carbon emissions are the same as 2005 levels and energy “is more costly, our industrial base is less competitive, we have poured tens of billions of euros into very subsidy-hungry renewables...With all the policy, focus, drive, and money we have spent, we are still now throwing out something in the region of nor-point 24 tons per thousand dollars of GDP,” Mandelson stated.
The United State’s twin achievements in carbon reduction amidst a domestic boom in energy production is the result of a series of breakthroughs. During college, Harvard’s innovation legend Clayton Christensen lent me the book ‘The Medici Effect,’ which builds on the idea that breakthrough ideas happen at the intersection of two different industries. The U.S. energy renaissance has been built on a series of government and private-led breakthroughs for over a century. In the 1930s, the largest government project ever attempted was an energy project led by the consortium Six Companies, Inc. Built during the thick of the Great Depression, the Hoover Dam is a symbol of cross-sector cooperation and economic recovery. It’s no wonder Obama continues his nation-wide energy campaign. Energy projects are perfect solutions for sovereign debt restructuring and job growth. An Arizona native, I grew up driving over the Hoover Dam and through southern California’s wind farms en route to Los Angeles. This $140 million dam is now shadowed by two $400 billion energy projects that are being discussed today. If the Supreme Court didn’t strike down the Standard Oil “monopoly,” United States energy projects would exceed $400 billion.
With a little push on the policy end, From the discover of oil to the space race, one state continually stands out amidst U.S. revolutions. My rocket scientist brother recalls the story of a U.S. Air Force General who told his engineers to build a simulation like the one in Hollywood’s film “War Games.” The resulting system is called "Theater Battle Management System” and is used by all air wings of the U.S. military today. Likewise, a version of the DeLoreon’s ‘Mr. Fusion’ fuel tank from Spielberg’s blockbuster “Back to the Future” has been invented. It’s called a biomass to diesel power plant. The world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Aramco, was founded in 1933 as the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company. Today, right-leaning Californians are happily watching their electricity bills drop by a factor of 3 under their sunny newly-installed solar rooftops. For them, this is economics, not climate change. 22 inventors had already invented the incandescent lamps prior to the “wizard of Menlo Park” Thomas Edison. However, “other inventors [...] with comparable ingenuity and excellence, have long been forgotten because their creators did not preside over their introduction in a system of lighting,” observed Thomas Hughes.3 Con Ed (Consolidated Edison)’s new CEO oversaw the installation of 200 solar panels on the roof of the 100-year-old building that headquarters the company in New York. CEO John McAvoy doesn’t care where the energy comes from that powers the world’s largest commercial steam system. In fact, solar-generated electricity costs less than Manhattan’s average commercial and residential rates and will save ConEd $7,000 annually. Solar’s quantity cost per watt is over 250 times lower than the cost in 1970 of $150.
Nikola Tesla, whose name graces Palo Alto-manufactured electric cars, won the “War of Currents” fought with his once-employer Thomas Edison. Alternating current, which allows renewable grid integration, is now the world’s principal source of power. With solar costs plummeting and last week’s announcement of the California-born aluminum battery discovery, solar may tip into the source of choice for nonconsumer and consumer markets alike. With cheaper, safer, and longer storage, renewable’s intermittent supply accusations are silenced overnight. Solar’s viability surge, like the shale revolution, is just around the corner. When solar and wind become the best bang for the buck, climate change arguments are no longer needed. As Albert Einstein put it, “everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.” Considering energy’s magnitude, impact, and cost viability determining which technology explodes next, this is apparently economics too.
