A new frontier for Bright Ideas
This is Bright Ideas, a weekly newsletter for people who want to know how and why clean energy is taking over. I’m Julian Spector, an L.A.-based journalist covering the electricity industry for Greentech Media. I write this for fun—when the fires force us inside, my rich inner life keeps me entertained.
First timers, subscribe for free and give future you a pleasant surprise. Tell your friends, send me your thoughts, let’s make this fun.
I think society would be better off if people debated energy like they debate health care or sports or Oscar nominees.
There’s no question that we depend on energy to live happy and fulfilling lives. And how we use energy directly impacts the pace of climate change, so it matters to anyone who cares about the future livability of the earth. And energy is undergoing a radical transformation that will disrupt powerful incumbents and elevate new challengers, and nobody knows exactly how that’s going to turn out.
The first four months of Bright Ideas covered my shortlist of crucial topics to understand the state of clean energy today. You can imagine those posts compiled into a curriculum, a Clean Energy 101 if you will. In that time, I proved two things:
I could keep up with writing a new dispatch each week (except when I’m in Malibu, chilling).
Hundreds of people, friends and strangers alike, wanted to read it.
If that was the first “season” of the Bright Ideas show, I’m capping it off, and we’re going to switch gears for Season 2. In the spirit of energy as a topic worthy of debate, I’m proposing a series of debate topics that I think capture the most fascinating tensions in the sector right now. I’ll use the coming weeks to hash out those debates with myself, and maybe with other humans, for your enjoyment.
If you don’t work in this sector, you don’t need to know every last detail of how sustainable electricity works. But you can brush up on the most fascinating tensions and unresolved questions in the space—the kind of topics that will make you sound “in the know” when we get back to having cocktail parties in 2035. And if you already know a lot about this stuff, you can more actively take sides in these debates and call me out for oversimplification or excessive waggishness.
I’ll use this week’s post to take stock of what we’ve covered and sketch out where we’re going next. Plus, the electrical underpinnings of a Spielbergian classic.
This week’s agenda:
The Bright Ideas Clean Energy 101 Curriculum, presented thematically rather than chronologically. I even included handy links that you can click on to learn more.
What are the key energy debates you need to know about? I’ve got some ideas, but send me yours if I’m missing something good.
Jurassic Park was all about grid resilience.
The Clean Energy Toolkit:
These are the fundamental building blocks of the transition to carbon-free energy. Know them, cherish them.
...But we need energy storage to provide power on demand
Electric vehicles are silent but deadly...for the gas car industry
When the big grid fails you, try microgrids
Clean energy by 2035: Not so hard, actually
The Politics of Clean Energy:
Energy is fundamentally political, y’all! Here we cover clean energy in presidential politics, unexpected adopters, and the complex legacies of leading clean and fossil energy companies. Plus, meditations on the monopolies that control your life whether you know it or not.
Joe Biden’s aggressive new climate plan
Actually, Republicans love clean energy
How should we feel about Tesla?
Is your utility a clean energy champion?
Oil companies: not so invincible any more
What can clean energy do about racial injustice?
Scandal! Corruption! Electricity!
What’s the right role for government in the transition to clean energy?
The Challenges:
I never said this would be easy, just that clean energy is beating most people’s expectations. But I let the facts guide my thinking, and in these entries I covered areas where things didn’t unfold so smoothly, or where inherent complexity defies easy sloganeering.
The growing pains of the clean jobs future
Oops!...California did it again (had widespread blackouts due to human error)
We’re all fossil fuel lovers in a foxhole
How do you do right in a system that skews toward fossil fuels?
We’ve come to the edge of the familiar. Time to embrace the unknown.
Debate topics: The next frontier
What’s better: rooftop solar or massive solar plants?
Is the rise of renewables good for gas plants?
Who did clean energy better: California or Texas?
Electric vehicles: clean or not so clean?
Does closing nuclear plants help the climate fight?
Can batteries really replace gas plants?
Can monopoly utilities innovate to meet the needs of the energy transition?
What’s the most powerful job in clean energy?
What’s the biggest barrier to progress in getting off of fossil fuels?
What’s the fastest way to decarbonization: market-based measures or central planning?
Chaos theory—probably not a bad way to understand our apocalyptic moment right now.
Jurassic Park: All About Grid Resilience
Sam and I watched Jurassic Park Friday night, as it’s only on Netflix for a few more weeks. She hadn’t seen it before—her native Canada has a colder climate, so dinosaurs weren’t as big there—and I was watching for the first time since I got a driver’s license. So I picked up on some new things, namely that the movie is more about the electrical grid than it is about dinosaurs.
The film follows a team of scientists brought to a remote island microgrid off the coast of Costa Rica to evaluate a facility holding exotic creatures behind electrical fences. The problem is, an IT associate (“Hello, Newman”) turns off the grid in a shambolic attempt at industrial espionage.
The island’s electric vehicles stop working, stranding some hapless children and a lawyer. The electrical fences cease to buzz, allowing the exotic critters to roam. A heavy tropical storm bears down, but it just adds to the dramatic ambience.
Through the harrowing events that follow, the characters learn the true value of redundant systems. When the electric vehicles fail, the gas-powered Jeep succeeds. After relying on a single IT technician for the whole island, the survivors learn Digital literacy for themselves. And you better believe that next time Sam Neill or Jeff Goldblum sets up a critically important electric fence, they’re shelling out a little extra for a backup generator or a battery bank, just in case.
The particular creatures unleashed by this grid failure happen to be resurrected dinosaurs, but I maintain that has less impact on how the story unfolds than the inadequate electrical infrastructure. This could have been Zombie Park, or Grizzly Park, or Rabid Dog Park, and the plot would have advanced more or less the same. Change the grid architecture, and the plot doesn’t advance. Prove me wrong on that.
No, resurrecting ancient species, we can handle. But trying to face cyber attacks and the elements with insufficiently hardened and resilient electrical networks? In the words of Goldblum’s Dr. Malcom,
“Gee, the lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me.”
Rooftops and other DG won't ever produce enough energy to avoid utility-scale projects, especially if we decarbonize the broader economy and not just the grid. But DG is still useful and I'm for it.