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.