I met Robert Stempel, the former CEO of General Motors, at a Department of Energy conference in Detroit a few years back.
I was reminded of that meeting when I bumped across his obituary this week.
Stempel is one of those rare persons one encounters in life who thrive by going against the grain. Rivaling others’ expectations provides such souls heaps of joy.
Stempel steered GM when it launched – and then aborted- the first mainstream electric vehicle, the EV1.
After leaving GM, Stempel did a 180-degree career turn and became chairman of Energy Conversion Devices, a startup focused on streamlining the production of photovoltaics so that solar power would become less of an exotic – and more of a mainstream – energy source.
Stempel, the architect of the Chevy, became the herald of thin-film solar. That speaks volumes about the DNA of Robert Stempel’s business career.
There are other reasons to ponder dramatic, unexpected turnarounds. The government of Japan, not known for swashbuckling forays in new directions, just announced it will do its own 180-degree shift and cancel plans to rapidly ramp up its nuclear power plant construction.
Recently, the hope was to get half of the country’s electricity from nuclear. After the fallout of the Fukushima nuclear accident has settled on Japanese public opinion, the breaks have been slammed on new nuclear development.
While politicians can change – and a sweltering Japan without adequate air conditioning this summer can be a powerful change agent – that is not likely.
Unlike the United States – Japan likes to make grand pronouncements on national energy ambitions. So, when I was there last summer visiting with government officials, they said they want to rely on 53,000 megawatts of solar energy production by 2030. That is about equal to half the power output of all American nuclear plants.
It is not known to what extent that reliance on solar is tied to a strong nuclear power sector that cranks out power around the clock, sun up and sun down.
But it startling how a country that put a good many eggs in its nuclear basket can shift, on a dime, and turn from nuclear to renewables and energy conservation. Whether they will stick to that path - and pull it off - is well worth watching. But other truths emerge.
Robert Sempel the man. Japan the country. Life is about change.
Utility CEOs are at the same Rubicon today. The government is doubling down its loathing for baseload generation from coal and nuclear while desperately trying to scale wind and solar with large unit cost subsidies. The result will likely be a natural gas-fired power generation future that splits the difference. Not a terrible outcome since the growth of unconventional oil and gas means we have the gas to run the plants without importing it. Utilities, however, are likely to be losers since the gas fired generation of the future will all be merchant not utility owned. This is the functional equivalent of GM's loss of market share from which it never recovered.
"The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one." ~ William H. Seward