Apparently corporate ad agencies have realized that despite the millions they’ve spent on denial campaigns, people aren’t buying it. So they’ve changed their messaging. I can’t be critical of this, though I certainly am cynical about what it really means. However there is huge money in developing a new global infrastructure for energy. In developed countries like the US and the EU, this means a new grid and energy efficient transportation, not mention renewables. In under-developed countries it gets more interesting. The correct analogy is the spread of mobile phones.

Before affordable mobile phones, people in poor countries had no means of communicating with each other. Telephone lines and switches were primitive and costly and there was no incentive for telecom companies to invest in these poor economies. So, as mobile phones became ubiquitous even in these countries, it became obvious that they don’t require the networked telecom grids. Just build towers which is far cheaper than running fiber to houses and businesses. They are not tied to telecom grids.

The same will happen with energy. Solar, wind, geothermal, etc. can be localized to a building or a village. It does not require a physical link to a power plant hundreds of miles away. This means that we should see rural electrification in places like Africa which will help them pull out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

The awakening of the corporate giants to energy opportunity that is not tied to fossil fuels will be slow. However their futurists know that the current model is unsustainable, not just on supply issues but also because the vast majority of oil comes from regions that are politically unstable (Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, etc.). As the supply shrinks, the use of oil as an economic weapon will increase, creating instability in oil markets worldwide. Without a serious effort to provide alternative sources on both a national and local level worldwide, we will see wars waged over fossil fuels. As it is, a lot of us believe that the jihad being waged now is really about distribution of energy.

The Renaissance Square project, as it has been named, more familiarly Ren Square, has been brewing for 6 years with no visible physical progress. A major architect was hired (Moshe Saftie) and he came up with an impressive plan while running through a major chunk of the planning budget. He was fired and a consortium of local architects butchered his plan and somehow managed to glom a nineteenth century facade on the thing, an architectural curse that Rochester specializes in.

I used to think this whole thing was questionable but with $4/gallon gas on the horizon again, improving the public transportation experience is important, the college campus is an important project, making access to our excellent Monroe Community College a lot easier and the arts center is off the radar. We need to build the thing now.

Except more politicians have come forward including a Democratic Representative who is lobbying for a high speed rail line to pass through Rochester and somehow she believes that we have a choice of a new train station or a new bus station but not both, in spite of the fact that they have nothing, zero, zippo to do with each other. People ride the buses to work and school, people ride trains to get to other cities.

Now the mayor has joined the Representative in trying to kill the transit station right when the need for better public transit is critical.

I could go on and on without betraying any partisan stance (I’m a Democrat) because all of these politicians are acting deplorably, ignorantly and without thought of what is best for the community. This seems to be the case with politicians everywhere from the local school board to the Senate leadership. They are not competent people in general. I’m giving the President a pass because I think he is truly trying to herd these cats in the best interests of us. It must drive him crazy.

While time will tell whether this is the huge breakthrough it appears to be, the reception among informed scientists and engineers is more positive than we usually see when someone makes these kinds of claims.

For me the really interesting local angle of this story is that this research was funded by a ten million dollar donation from a foundation created by Rochester entrepreneur Arunis Chaesonis, founder of Paetec, a very successful telecom based here. Wouldn’t it be great if a breakthrough energy story came out of innovative thinking in Rochester?

One other thing: GM has long had their fuel cell hydrogen car project based in Rochester at a skunkworks operation in Honeoye Falls. The only thing holding back their technology has been a lack of efficient hydrogen production and delivery infrastructure. So this is a double win for Rochester.

As oil prices skyrocket and technology makes breakthroughs, our ability to generate clean, sustainable energy becomes more and more viable. However the big roadblock to technologies like solar and wind is that they do not run 24/7 like water or nuclear, meaning they are an undependable source unless we can find ways to store the energy during those cloudy, windless days and dark nights. Battery tech has been a major stumbling point because of costs and inefficiency (much of the energy is lost during storage). As the above quote from today’s excellent NYTimes coverage of storage challenges notes, there are entirely new ways to look at storage that, in turn, have made new energy sources viable. One example is the focusing of solar heat by a field of hi-tech mirrors onto a tower full of water and heavy salts. During the day this heat powers steam turbines, during the night the stored heat in the tower keeps those turbines turning.

Read the article- it is easy to be a doomsayer during this rapidly expanding crisis but there are truly great things coming out of this scenario, great in the long term.