The Decentralization of Global Energy

A theme seems to be emerging in the PajamaNation. We are concerned with what individuals and small groups can do from there home that used to require institutions (or at least a trip across town). Well, the next great revolution may happen when we start creating, conserving and distributing energy from our homes. Not only can we collectively empower ourselves by playing a role in averting the expected disasters attached to global warming, we can spread the wealth that is generated by a plentiful and decentralized energy supplies. Energy is the engine of development. We no longer need to allow that engine to be monopolized by large institutions that may not have our best interests at heart. And even if the big energy conglomerates are well-intentioned, in the absence of some great technological breakthrough, the resolution to our energy needs is more likely to come from decentralized, distributed, and autonomous sources. Various futurists and environmental/energy activists have already traced an outline of how this might be accomplished. There is – in essence – a Web 2.0 solution to energy.

In last week's column, I quoted Clay Shirkey's description of the Internet as an end-to-end revolution. Now we are also moving into energy smart grids that give end-to-end intelligence to power production and distribution. Slowly but surely, people's homes and offices are becoming micro-generation sites. According to this model of energy production and distribution, you don't put up some enormous solar photovoltaic site that mimics the way energy has been produced by gas, coal and nuclear. Instead, you stick solar panels all over the place. Nanotechnology-based solar energy sheets that look like plastic wrap have already been displayed at various conventions and discussed in business magazines. This product should be on the market in a few years. This form of solar collector is not only unobtrusive and easy to distribute, it is expected to be twice as efficient as current solar power collectors. Here we have a form of solar power that will be cheap and easy to produce. Indeed, it is expected that it will follow the same sort of exponential downward price curve that we've seen with digital technology.

So imagine: you start putting thin sheet-like solar collectors everywhere -- on rooftops, cars, fences, on nearly every available surface. And then, you can do the same thing with wind. In the UK, substantial numbers have taken up home wind micro-turbines that don't take up much more space than a broadcast satellite. These are just two of myriad forms of energy that a home energy generator with minimal skills and minimal cash might be able to deal with in a few years.
Now imagine that millions of homes are micro-generating energy and that it's all being fed into some kind of grid. Futurist Jamais Cascio has suggested that there could be a sort of BitTorrent for energy. People could share their energy with family, friends and neighbors, tapping into the resource when they need to.

Another route towards resolving the energy situation from our homes involves conservation. Cascio wrote that we could support "everyone on the planet — 10 billion people, a bit more than the UN estimate for the end of the century — with Western lifestyles ... and using half the amount of energy we use today. All by paying slightly more attention to efficiency in our designs." One example of inefficiency is the power supplies we use for our electronics. They are only 20% - 40% efficient and the rest of the energy gets wasted. But for a few extra dollars, we can now get high efficiency power supplies.

The least advanced countries have the greatest potential for adopting new technologies, including energy efficient buildings and homes, simply because as development grows, they will be erecting new structures from scratch. Those who do not have to adjust new technologies to massive old structures – and those who do not have to tear down the old structures (imagine trying to create an energy efficient New York City by tearing all the inefficient old buildings down and making new ones) -- can integrate energy efficiency into design right from the start.

This clearly needs to be done immediately on a massive scale. And it's a win-win situation. Energy efficient buildings are environmentally helpful but they also save the occupants a whole lot of money.

As many of you undoubtedly already know, this idea – that developing nations have an advantage in adapting novel technological solutions – has been broadly recognized and labeled "leapfrogging." The popular example that has illustrated this phenomenon has been the adaptation of wireless phone systems as the primary telecommunications network in most developing areas. People have adapted the cell phone because they don't have the old, expensive, wire-based telephone networks from the 20th Century hanging around their necks like an albatross. Similarly, developing countries that don't have an enormous "gas station" and "car repair" infrastructure could more easily develop infrastructures around electric, hydrogen, and biodiesel.

Providing a new infrastructure for distributed energy grids and the tools for individuals and small businesses to be a part of that organism should become a new area for micropreneurship that fits in perfectly with the PajamaNation mission. Networked energy grids can eliminate the middleman, creating energy independence along with job independence. It is time to begin.