Like my friend and colleague Marty Rosenberg (see his earlier blog), I too have just returned from Distributech. Marty did an excellent job in his blog of summarizing some of the major points of the meeting, so I won't rehash those.
One thing I did especially enjoy about the Tampa meeting is to learn that I'm not alone in my fears for the 8-to-10 year future of the utility industry. At our Sierra Energy Group (SEG) briefing on Tuesday morning, I pointed out the impending major shortfall of electrical supply if environmentalists and Global Warming advocates manage to shut down the building of fossil-fueled generation in this country, as it appears they are going to be able to do. It is a shortfall that "green energy" cannot possibly fill in that time-frame.
I was encouraged that at a press conference on Wednesday of the conference, Ivo Steklac, new Global Vice President for Elster Integrated Solutions, founder of Enspiria and formerly with Schlumberger--who did not attend the SEG briefing and did not hear me--said essentially the same thing. He called it "either running into a brick wall, or going over a cliff," citing the "Global Warming" shutdown of fossil generation construction.
It's sometime lonely being a prophet--especially one of doom, like Jeremiah. Sometimes prophets get stoned--in the historic connotation of that term, not the modern one. But now there are at least two of us out here! And Ivo, who I've known for a number of years, has much better credentials than I do.
Most executives I talk to in the utility industry see the same brick wall, cliff or train wreck looming. There's just not much they can do about it, their hands are tied in Washington and in 50 state capitals. Since Roosevelt's era, they are state-controlled entities. The environmental tail (with tremendous help from politician Al Gore) is wagging this dog (the utility industry) and they're going to wag it under a moving bus--to thoroughly mix my metaphors.
My attitude is the same as the fellow who, when he was told there were two fast-moving trains heading toward one another on the same track, began looking for a hill. From a historic perspective, it's going to be a fascinating train wreck to watch! That's especially true if those who are more concerned with environmental issues than with providing electricity to every home and business take over all of Washington next November, as I expect. To add one more metaphor to the mash, that really will pour gasoline on the fire.
Now that Ivo has taken up the prophetic call, I may just leave the field to him.
You are right that green energy generation may not be up to the job yet, but energy efficiency in the building industry is making major inroads. Some claim that green building new construction will reach the tipping point this year in the U.S. Old constructions are following suit.
That means much less load for power systems as customers restructure the open market of the demand side with no coordination with the power industry. EWPC suggest the coordinated development of the resoureces of the demand side to integrate demand to power system planning, operation and control.
One reason that people see "running into the brick wall" is because they are filtering reality with the existing mistaken paradigm of the power industry. It is that paradigm that obscures the opportunities as envisioned by Jeremy Rifkin in the emergence of a third industrial revolution without fossil fuels and nuclear power. In effect, that revolution is about the convergence of the new energy and communication regimes, in which a paradigm shift to EWPC is either a transition market architecture and design and maybe its fourth pillar, after the pillars (1st) renewable energy, (2nd) storage technology and (3rd) the smart power grid.
I am trying to be objective in terms of time. As a transition device, the EWPC vision is very robust and so can be developed to "get stocked" with a low mix of renewable energy, as well as to enable the end of fossil fuel generation that Rifkin envisions to occur in about half a century.
As I wrote in "Fresh from the EWPC Blog," under your colleague (Mr. Rosenberg) "Fresh from Distributech" post, "the smart grid should become the smart grid transportation monopoly [the utility with not end customer electricity sales], as it is now crystal clear the value destruction of having separate transmission and distribution as provided by the mistaken Open Transmission Access. Please take a look at the EWPC article "Innovation and Risk Taking in the Power Industry" in the link http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2008/1/2...
With Rifkin's vision, now I see also myself as "lonely prophet no more," but heading towards the third industrial revolution to "reinvent the power industry," instead of going against the current with "The Anti-System Utility" of the post http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2007/9/1...
I am not historian like you, but maybe you are "... convinced that going for a shared vision is correct and believe that there is a looming (systemic) crisis that is long overdue" as I suggest to Californians while sending the following message about their pressing reality:
The people of California "should forward the many above posts" under the article Continental Grid Vision Needed in link http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article... "to FERC, to the California Energy Commission (CEC) and to the media at large interested in CEC 'Load Management' agenda and in the state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24. Now I suggest to them to consider and forward the most recent EWPC article "The End of Electric Monopoly Retail" http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2008/1/2... . It was inspired under the collective thinking of the ongoing discussions and maybe dialogues under this article. It is open to inquiry as is all of the EWPC work."
Best regards,
José Antonio