This morning there is a must read piece in the New York Times about renewable energy.
The lead in:
Germany’s relentless push into renewable energy has implications far beyond its shores. By creating huge demand for wind turbines and especially for solar panels, it has helped lure big Chinese manufacturers into the market, and that combination is driving down costs faster than almost anyone thought possible just a few years ago.
Electric utility executives all over the world are watching nervously as technologies they once dismissed as irrelevant begin to threaten their long-established business plans. Fights are erupting across the United States over the future rules for renewable power. Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset.
I fly a lot, and when I do I always want a window. You can see things from the air that you don't really notice any other way. Some years back I flew up the east coast and saw the incredible amount of construction near the coastline.
I go to Germany probably 4 times a year. When you sit in a window in a plane flying over Germany you notice two things:
1. Many of the roofs are like mirrors - because they have solar power
2. You see windmills everywhere.
You literally can see the revolution in energy when you fly over Germany.
Some years back I flew back from Germany to Chicago, and then flew from Chicago to Indianapolis. I was depressed: Germany was charging ahead and it felt like we were doing nothing. But then I flew over a wind farm far larger than anything I had seen in Germany. The US has the largest wind farm, and is second in the amount of energy it generates from wind. From 2009 to 2012 the US installed more wind capacity than the Germany has in total. The stimulus package had renewable subsidies, and they mattered. But in the last two years wind installation has stalled.
I am reminded of a quote at the end of a the movie "moneyball". This isn't exact but this close:
Anytime someone comes along with a new way of doing things, everyone threated, be it a business or a government go absolutely apeshit.
ALEC has already started to fight solar and wind power. But the article notes Lennar is installing solar power on roofs in California and guaranteeing to sell it to the owner for 20% less than the utility.
The renewable revolution is coming far faster than anyone anticipated.
The establishment utilities will fight it.