Two Keys to Solving the World's Energy Crisis
Make a list of all of the biggest problems on the planet and you'll likely write things like "lack of fresh drinking water," "food shortages," and "air pollution," just to name a few. If you then analyzed the list to pinpoint a single aspect that could help solve all the major problems, you'd likely narrow it down to one thing: Energy.
We need energy to do just about everything. WHether you want to convert salt water to fresh water, increase agricultural production, or power a pollution control device, you need energy. In short, for all the biggest problems on the planet, the solution involves, to a great extent, energy.
This means that if we can solve the world's energy crisis, then we can solve some of the biggest problems on the planet. The good news is that we're on our way to doing some major transformations in energy.
One thing we know for sure, though, is that as more people need and use energy on the planet, prices will go up unless we have something to offset the cost of energy. Fortunately, there are two key ways we can maximize energy while offsetting the cost of it, and that is by 1)using more alternative energy sources and 2)making the things that use energy intelligent.
Alternative Energy Can Make a Difference
Alternative energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric are on the rise yet are still often criticized because the big payoff from these energy sources is not apparent. This often brings up the question, "Is alternative energy worth it?"
To answer that question, let's look at an event that recently occurred. On May 27th and May 28th of 2012, half of all of Germany's energy needs were met by solar. This happened for only a few hours each day, but let's look at the bigger picture by asking, "How much power was actually produced by solar in order to meet half of the country's energy needs?" The answer is an amazing 22 gigawatts. How much is 22 gigawatts of power? It's equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear power plants!
You might think, "So what? It was only for a couple of hours on two days." The point is that solar energy is getting more efficient and effective, and it can and will have an increasingly dramatic impact on society.
Of course, there's more research and innovation that needs to be done to make solar energy even more efficient and effective. And there's more to do in terms of learning how to store solar power. But the point is that you can create a lot of power from solar.
Interestingly, Germany isn't the only place having some amazing results with alternative energy. In Denmark, which is one of the world's leaders in wind energy, they often produce more energy from their wind turbines than the entire country can use, so they export the excess energy. This doesn't happen every day, but it is happening.
Likewise, according to PJM Interconnection, a U.S. regional electronic transmission operator, in localized parts of the United States there are times of the day when the energy demand is low and the wind blows strongly enough that we're producing more than 100% of the energy we need in those geographic areas.
When we hear these types of milestone they often seem like isolated incidents. This then caused many people to believe that alternative energy isn't giving us the payoff we thought we could get. However, if you use the rearview mirror as a way to look at the future of alternative energy and renewable sources, then alternative energy doesn't look that great. but if you stop using the rearview mirror and start using the windshield to look at the future, then you can see that there are many more technological advances on the horizon that will make it better. That's when you see how great the future of alternative energy can be. . . and that alternative energy really is worth it.
Intelligent Energy Is on the Way
For our energy sources to be more efficient and effective, they hove to be more intelligent. In other words, everything that uses energy, as well as the energy grid itself, has to be able to "talk" to each other so that load and usage can be maximized.
Energy intelligence and advanced energy management systems involve technology called M2M (machines talking to machines). This technology is so ripe for development and rapid deployment that China expects to have over one billion machines talking to each other by the end of the decade.
By getting machines to talk to other machines, by putting intelligence in everything that uses energy (including buildings and appliances), and by making the electronic grid a smart grid that can get smarter each year, we can do amazing things.
How amazing? The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy just completed a study. They estimated that the United States could slash 12% to 22% of our energy needs and usage just by using advanced energy management systems. And that's not all. . .by 2015 the US Department of Defense believes they can cut up to 30% of the entire department's energy needs simply by using better energy management software and making things intelligent.
We're in the process of making cities more intelligent, including the roads, the store signs, the traffic lights, and anything that uses energy. Currently, though, most of the things that use energy are dumb and they're not connected other than to get power. But if we connect them to make them intelligent, then suddenly you can reduce energy use tremendously just as the demand is increasing.
If we don't implement intelligent energy management for our cars, buildings, roads, and everything that uses fuel and energy, the cost of energy will rise fast. What's interesting, thought, is that the price of intelligence is going down just as the power of intelligence is going up, and that's thanks to Moore's Law. In other words, processing power doubles every 18 months as the price drops in half. So the cost of making things intelligent is dropping very quickly. That's something to capitalize on.
Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of several books
Copyright 2012. Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.