Understanding 21st Energy Policy Requires Speaking with Everyone and his Dog

This afternoon, I’m preparing for an upcoming energy conference at which I’ll be speaking; I’m just sitting here, dusting off my various PowerPoint presentations and thinking where I’d like to take this audience.

I like to introduce myself as a guy with at least as many questions as answers, which is why I have this slide (below) early in my “deck.” Each of my first three books was a compilation of interviews with subject-matter experts across a wide variety of academic and business arena disciplines; people seem to appreciate this multi-disciplinary point of view.

One thing that I make sure comes across is that any workable energy solution needs to accomplish a great number of ends simultaneously. We can rule out anything that: is technically risky, might not scale, won’t be profitable, doesn’t reduce our eco-footprint, doesn’t take into account the trillions of dollars of existing energy infrastructure, is irrelevant to the developing world, ignores the growing population of urban (energy-hogging) consumers, or promotes international hostility. At the same time, it’s clear that a great number of energy concepts meet all the necessary criteria, and simply need to be promoted—and that’s what I do for a living.

I always enjoy getting before an audience, and taking them through the mental gymnastics associated with all this.