Solar, wind, and EVs are favorites of customers
Tags: Solar, Wind, Electric Vehicles
The 2009 Endangerment Finding is now a thing of the past.
I have these predictions.
- The grid as a concept will continue to fade, just like communication through one central post office has faded. Generating electricity does not need monopoly protection anymore; it is not the specialized function it once was in the days before our electronic controls and communications.
- EVs, solar panels, and batteries will lose their political baggage and be sold on their benefits, which are numerous. Every other part of my life has increased in electronic and computerized content. All my appliances, my thermostat, my furnace, my air conditioner, my gasoline car, my doorbell, my hand tools, my telephone, my camera, my television,. My Wi-Fi router and my collection of Wi-Fi computers, iPads, and iPhones have no precedent before the electronics revolution.
- Much of the progress in electronics will be in Asia as it has been for my entire life. The US and Europe will be buyers in this relationship. Asians are the sellers.
- Deep-well geothermal will be commercialized before Small Nuclear Reactors because the pieces and parts are proven, almost off-the-shelf components, and there is no Geothermal Regulatory Agency with the mission to be busybodies with veto power over every step. The product of a bureaucracy is a process, and the bureaucrats are rarely given freedom to be helpful. Their job descriptions say they carry out legislation with a narrow scope and little allowance to be flexible. That is my life experience.
- Every technology that can be sold as the next big thing will have startups with IPOs before they have any profits. The people who sell the IPO stock will make money immediately. Some people who buy the IPO stock will make money. Most people who buy stock in these risky ventures will lose money because most startups fail. It is hard to guess the winners. The Small Nuclear Reactor business is following this path.
- Every technology for generating electricity which has a need for purchased fuel has a built-in lobbying group - the vendors who make tremendous profits and the army of employees who are voters. The place to watch for progress is with the buyers of electricity, not the sellers. The Post Office did not invent email.
- Headline writers will continue to write alarming headlines. They are in competition for your attention. Informing you is way down the list of their priorities.
- Government agencies will continue to put out publicity with half-truths and outright lies. Persuasion is a stock-in-trade for politicians. Here is a current example. This week one lie, or half-truth if you like, is that wind turbines kill so many birds that people should live without electricity. This is an issue that has been studied extensively so you have lots of information at your fingertips if you want to see what bird lovers say in response.
Time will tell, of course, but my predictions are based on historical trends and human nature.