While watching the morning news programs on a Sunday morning I noticed a big change. In the commercials, which were all for energy companies and heavy equipment companies like GE and Siemens, there were repeated mentions of climate change and global warming along with images of electric light rail, wind power and green building technology.

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.

Apparently, according to Scientific American.

Once you’ve built the plant you don’t need to refuel it. Ever. And there are zero emissions. And they run 24 hours a day forever (no storage problem). And they can’t blow up or leak dangerous radiation.

So what are we waiting for?

I hope Sterling is wrong but he makes a compelling case.

“1. The climate. People still behave as if it’s okay. Every scientist in the world who isn’t the late Michael Crichton knows that it’s not. The climate is in terrible shape; something’s gone wrong with the sky. The bone-chilling implications haven’t soaked into the populace, even though Al Gore put together a PowerPoint about it that won him a Nobel. Al was soft-peddling the problem.

It’s become an item of fundamentalist faith to maintain that the climate crisis is a weird leftist hoax. Yet, since the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, an honest fear of the consequences will prove hard to repress. Since the fear has been methodically obscured, its emergence from the mists of superstition will be all the more powerful. Unlike mere shibboleths of finance, this is a situation that’s objectively terrifying and likely to remain so indefinitely.”

And that’s just one of seven…

“As prices peaked, oil consumption fell by 6 percent in July to its lowest level in five years, while the number of miles driven dropped the most since 1979, according the latest statistics from the Federal Highway Administration. For industrialized countries, which account for about 60 percent of global oil demand, consumption could fall by 1.3 million barrels a day this year, the steepest decline since 1982, according to analysts at Bernstein Research. That would more than offset the growth in consumption from developing nations like China, the analysts said.

“A study of the 1980s reaffirms our pessimism about oil demand in 2008 and 2009,” the Bernstein analysts said in a recent research note. “Recent data suggests we may finally be reaching the point of negative demand.”

Falling oil prices are “equivalent to a new stimulus package for consumers”…

Does anyone really believe that oil will stay down long term? If higher prices mean a real change in how much oil we use, then long term they will help. Right now, economically, I’m glad they’re down a bit.