The Modern Era began with humankind’s harnessing of energy. The steam engine began the process of shrinking the planet, as greater distances were traversed in ever shorter times. The power of fossil fuels combined with forged steel create machines which could level mountains and clear forests. It was only a little over a century ago that we began transporting the electron across wires, which grew into grid that now spreads across the globe, yet still fails to reach a far too large segment of our global population. Almost every benefit of modern life is made available by our production and consumption of energy.

Yet the benefits have not come without environmental costs and many these costs have been too high. With the growing problem of climate change these costs might reach the level of bankrupting the very system which human life depends.

In the United States close to 60% of electricity generation comes from burning coal. The majority of these plants exempted from America’s Clean Air Act. Taking together they are the single greatest source of climate change gases.

I am not here to paint a doom and gloom story or point fingers. I wanted to first point out how important and ubiquitous energy production and consumption is to modern life, indeed it is the foundation of modern life. Secondly, I wanted to point out that this benefit of modern life along with so many others has come at very high price to our natural systems. A price we can no longer pay.

However, what I really want to point out is that we now have an alternative path to take. We can produce the energy needed to sustain our modern life. No, let me rephrase that, we can produce the energy needed to better our modern life, provide needed energy supplies to the two billion people who have no access, and at the same time do less harm to our environment and begin restoring much of the damage we have wrought.

The answers are in front of us. What we lack at the moment is the political and economic will.

The United States electric grid is based on a technology and an infrastructure that is over a hundred years old. The vast majority of generation, whether burning coal and natural gas, or splitting atoms is based on boiling water to create steam to spin the generators.

The architecture of the grid is based on the concept of centralized generation sources. In fact one of the fathers of American electric utilities believed in the 1920’s that the entire North American continent could eventually be served by one single centralized generation plane.

This system has been locked in place in the United States for the past 70 years. Geographic blocks across the entire country were granted either private or public monopoly status. And as we have learned, granting any entity a monopoly one sure out come is that technological evolution stagnates.

The American electric utilities have provided the vast majority of Americans a stable and economic supply of energy for many decades. Yet during that time, there has been a great evolution in technology, allowing us to generate electricity in more environment friendly means and revolutionizes the way electricity is delivered by going from a system of centralized generation and dispersion to a system of distributed generation and distribution.

What might eventually be the most exciting and environmentally beneficial change to the grid will be the replacement of a macro controlled unintelligent network with one that has intricate micro controls and intelligence in every part of the system. Intelligence in the generation source, the distribution channels, and even the appliances, such as the refrigerator or lamp, plugged into your home or office.

In the United States we have begun a very slow process of opening up our electric system. To begin to allow the technological evolution of the electric system. In California, where Global Green US head quarters are located, the generation system had been opened and consumers have been allowed to begin to choose their electric supply.

Global Green USA has mounted a public education campaign in California and beginning to spread across the country, to help consumers, businesses, and local governments understand this changing process. We encourage them to switch to a green energy supplier. Our greatest success to this point has been to work with the City of Santa Monica. By switching their municipal facilities, they have become the first city on the planet to be 100% renewably powered with geothermal generation.

I cannot underestimate the importance of education in this effort to evolve the electric industry. In the United States the ignorance on how electricity is generated and the subsequent environmental impact is a monumental hurdle. Though electricity is such a fundamental aspect of modern life, the average consumer, business, and local government has had no choice in from who or how they received their supply. Thus they have been left in the illusion bliss of ignorance.

As with all other aspects of life in this burgeoning information age, public education is the first and most important step to creating a more sustainable future.

Just as importantly, the initial restructuring of the California has begun creating a new and important financial stream to the renewable industry. It must be remembered that the American electric industry has long been one of the cornerstones of the American financial system. There were few industries that could be counted even in the deepest recession to receive a steady flow of revenue from every consumer and business.

American utility stocks and bonds were in the portfolio of almost every investor as a conservative hedge against financial turmoil. Yet this financial security has also worked against new technologies.

For the past two decades the development of green energy generation has had to rely heavily on government assistance. For two reasons

First, many of the technologies have needed heavy research and development which the utilities themselves have been reluctant to fund.

Secondly, the monopoly status of the utilities made it necessary for the government to force the utilities to purchase renewable generation. This was the only way renewable sources could come online, so it was obviously not a hot market for venture capital.

The ability for the renewable industry to begin generating a separate source of revenue from consumers, businesses, and local governments is a vital and key step for the industry. Creating a separate and direct revenue source will allow the industry to grow, become more efficient, and attract capital.

Correspondingly, governments must continue to play a role in developing and expanding the renewable industry. The development of this industry is a key environmental policy for the planet. Governments must continue to play a large role in opening the industry, continue to supply research and development capital, and look into developing long term capital to help the industry.

Finally and most importantly, the information revolution is coming to the electric industry. The first network was the electric grid and it remains a very primitive beast. Energy is moved around in thousands of megawatts and is steered by least resistance. Information technology combined with distributed generation sources will create not only a new architecture but a new grid economics which will impact the cost of distribution and generation.

Photo voltaic, small wind turbines, and fuel cells allow generation to be bought to the source of consumption. Just as importantly, excess generation from these distributed sources can be placed onto the grid, allowing every consumer to also become a seller of electricity. The rules to allow this are beginning to be implemented such as the net-metering laws which allow a person’s meter to spin backwards when they are generating excess electricity.

Secondly the information revolution will bring intelligence to our appliances. In the future, our refrigerators will be able to tell when the best time to turn on. Lights and other appliances will automatically go off and on according to need. Continued advances in design of our homes, commercial spaces and machinery will allow us to become ever more efficient and efficiency is the most environment friendly energy of all.

Our energy generation has created environmental problems of unprecedented scope. Yet, two billion people have no access to any modern source of energy and another billion and half are inadequately served. These people will not be able to develop along the same way the US or Europe has. Distributed generation will immediately prove more economical in many areas with out an established grid.

Our planet cannot double or triple its burning of fossil fuels. Dam are few remaining free flowing rivers. Or fill the world with nuclear waste. But we can build distributed generation sources. We can gain all the energy we need from the sun and wind if we are intelligent about our usage. We have the answers. The question is whether we have the political and economic will.