It’s common today for observers to speculate about how the energy futuremust look, rather than trying to imagine how it might look. The camp that “proposes” focuses on what governments and bureaucrats could or must force on markets. Meanwhile, imagination is in short supply among the energy punditocracy.
It seems like everybody wants a revolution in energy tech. From Green New Deal proponents to Palo Alto’s pundits where we hear that “clean tech” is on the cusp of “a 10x exponential process which will wipe fossil fuels off the market in about a decade.”
For those who think – or hope — we’re nearing the end of the age of oil, look no further than today’s media preoccupation with whether or not Saudi Arabia might cut production to manipulate price upwards.
Well, apparently the race is over. As Trevor Noah said on Comedy Central last week after Apple became the first trillion-dollar market-cap company: “One trillion dollars. That’s it, folks. Apple has officially won capitalism. Wrap it up, it’s over.” There is no longer any doubt that the 21st century will be propelled by companies producing and using data,…
This week the market greets another and long-anticipated energy-tech IPO with Bloom Energy seeking to raise $250 million at a market value of around $1.6 billion; numbers essentially identical to Tesla in 2010.
As this column goes to press, the world oil price is well north of $70 a barrel, a long way from the nadir of $30 a mere 30 months ago. So the oil forecaster’s parlor game is again in full swing. Will we see a return to the $150 barrel, the peak last experienced in…