One of the best books I have read in recent years is the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. It's also a great management book, although I don't think that it was really intended for that purpose. In discussing Jobs' approach to life and business management, Isaacson goes to some length to describe the concept of a Reality Distortion Field (RDF), a tool used on many occasions by Jobs to inspire progress and even bet the company on a given outcome. The RDF was said to be Steve Jobs' ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement and persistence. RDF was said to distort an audience's sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and made them believe that the task at hand was possible. This also seems to be the case with a number of renewable energy, but most notably the Solar PV, advocates.
The Talosians from Star Trek were the first aficionados of the RFD
It is always with interest that I open the periodic e-mail from fellow Australian Paul Gilding and read the latest post from him in The Cockatoo Chronicles. But this time, the full force of the Renewables Distortion Field hit me. Gilding claims that;
I think it's time to call it. Renewables and associated storage, transport and digital technologies are so rapidly disrupting whole industries' business models they are pushing the fossil fuel industry towards inevitable collapse. Some of you will struggle with that statement. Most people accept the idea that fossil fuels are all powerful - that the industry controls governments and it will take many decades to force them out of our economy. Fortunately, the fossil fuel industry suffers the same delusion. In fact, probably the main benefit of the US shale gas and oil "revolution" is that it's keeping the fossil fuel industry and it's cheer squad distracted while renewables, electric cars and associated technologies build the momentum needed to make their takeover unstoppable - even by the most powerful industry in the world.
My immediate approach to dealing with a statement like this plays into the next paragraph by Gilding, where he says;
How could they miss something so profound? One thing I've learnt from decades inside boardrooms, is that, by and large, oil, coal and gas companies live in an analytical bubble, deluded about their immortality and firm in their beliefs that "renewables are decades away from competing" and "we are so cheap and dominant the economy depends on us" and "change will come, but not on my watch". Dream on boys.
But the energy system is about numbers and analysis, like it or not. Perhaps Gilding needs to at least look in his own back yard before reaching out for global distortion. In a number of posts over the last year or two he was waxed lyrical about the disruption in Australia and consequent shift in its energy mix. Yet the latest International Energy Agency data on Australia shows that fossil fuel use is continuing to rise even as residential solar PV is becoming a domestic "must have". There is no escaping these numbers!
It is true that solar PV is starting to have an impact on the global energy mix and that at least in some countries the electricity utilities are playing catch-up. But the global shift will likely take decades, even at extraordinary rates of deployment by historical standards. The Shell Oceans scenario portrays such a shift, with solar deployment over the next 20 years bringing it to the level of the global coal industry in 1990 and then in the 30 years from 2030 to 2060 the rate of expansion far exceeds the rate of coal growth we have seen from 1990-2020 (see chart).
I would argue that this is a disruptive change, but it still takes all of this century to profoundly impact the energy mix. Even then, there remains a sizable oil, gas and coal industry, although not on the scale of today. Of course this is but one scenario for the course of the global energy system, but it at least aligns in concept with the aspirations of Paul Gilding. I don't imagine he would be particularly impressed by our Mountains scenario!!
Many will of course argue that the proof of the RDF is in the Apple share price and its phenomenal success. But this didn't come immediately. Apple and Jobs had more ups and downs than even the most ardent follower would wish for, with the company teetering on the brink more than once (read the Isaacson account). But it persisted and nearly forty years on it is a global behemoth. However, forty years isn't exactly overnight and IT change seems to take place at about twice the rate of energy system change. Does that mean new energy companies won't become global super-majors until much later this century?