I am hopeful that such a narrow frame of analysis that implies the abandonment of what was most critical and inspiring about Powershift does not constitute “what’s next.”

“I’m gonna tell you the truth about it, if all you do is have a clean energy revolution you won’t have done anything, and I’m gonna tell you why… If all we do is take out the dirty power system, the dirty power generation in this system, and just replace it with some clean stuff, put a solar panel on top of this system, but don’t deal with how we are consuming water, we don’t deal with how we are treating our other sister and brother species, we don’t deal with toxins, we don’t deal with the way we treat each other- if that’s not a part of this movement let me tell you what you’ll have: you’ll have solar powered bulldozers, solar powered buzzsaws, and biofueled bombers and we’ll be fighting wars over lithium for the batteries instead of oil for the engines and we’ll still have a dead planet. We’re not gonna put a new battery in a broken system, we want a new system- We want a new system! We’re going to change the whole thing… don’t let anyone tell you anything different…”- Van Jones, Powershift09 Keynote Address

The Cold War spending frequently referenced was supported by big business precisely because it was part of a war to maintain that broken system. Federal investments in clean energy projects that undermine the broken system Jones described are very necessary but require a change in political power to occur.

If the “innovation economics” being touted here bear any relation to the monetarist economics school of Teryn’s Reaganite mentor at the CATO institute that were so instrumental to the human and environmental disasters from the past decades of neo-liberalism (as even British PM Gordon Brown has had to admit “promot[ed] economic orthodoxies that we ourselves have not followed and that have condemned the world’s poorest to a deepening crisis of poverty”) not to mention underpin the current economic crisis, then I should hope young scientists of all disciplines are thoroughly unimpressed…

The reason we highlight young scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs is for a few reasons. From what we’ve seen, they’ve been largely left out of the so-called “youth climate movement.” “Green jobs” have been promoted for a while now, but they’ve mostly focused on efficiency and renewable energy installation. Andy Revkin had some good coverage on this issue back in December. So part of our goal is to introduce this group to the youth climate movement, as well as to inspire young innovators to commit themselves to tackling the energy challenge.

We’re also trying to inspire young people to think about how they can help “make clean energy cheap” through their activities and careers. We think this framework has big implications for what students should prioritize in their “green” educations and careers. We find this to be a very powerful and important frame, because ultimately we believe making clean energy cheap is what’s necessary to dramatically accelerate the global energy transition, for the reasons explained above — happy to discuss those reasons more if you like. (Google had a similar slogan with “Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal” (RE<C), but unfortunately they never really ran with it.) Making clean energy cheap doesn’t at all exclude installation (see below), but it’s a different way of seeing your own role. Your work becomes not just about reducing carbon footprints, but also about promoting technological development.

So what does making clean energy cheap mean for “green jobs” more focused on installation? That’s an important question, and now that I think about it we should probably write another post explaining this in greater detail. A strategy for making clean energy cheap is integrally tied to early-stage deployment of clean energy technologies today. In many cases, early-stage technology deployment is where you achieve the most cost reductions, from learning-by-doing and increased economies of scale. I think the key, then, is for young entrepreneurs to focus their efforts on identifying emerging clean energy technologies and creating business models to deploy them in ways that prioritize the achievement of cost reductions. Isn’t that a very different way of looking at the role of installation? Within this framework, the goal isn’t just simply to “reduce emissions” — it’s also about making clean energy cheap, because we know that’s what is necessary to dramatically accelerate the global energy revolution.

Cheers,
Teryn