Will Moore’s Law, validated over nearly 50 years in digital technology development, also apply to renewable energy? This notion has interested me for a while, and it seems that currently our consumption of fossil fuel is a mirror image of Moore’s law, the challenge is to turn the thing 180 degrees so it works in our favor.
Early days, but the jury must be considering the proposition, as the development of technology starts to make an impact, even as new sources of hydrocarbons emerge, from coal seam gas, and shale oil, and may tend to ease the pressure for change in our energy mix, particularly as governments feel the fiscal pinch.
Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountains Institute has been a persuasive advocate of alternative energy, his 2005 talk on TED has been widely spread, whilst recognising that fossil fuel is the foundation of first world prosperity, and will not move aside easily, so sensible strategy accommodates the evolution of one as the other ramps up. His current treatise “A farewell to fossil fuels” is as logical and convincing as his previous jottings.
In Australia, the debate has been absolutely debased into a school-yard standard populist name calling and distortion of the facts. It is clear change is coming, every industry evolves over time, it is just that energy is so fundamental to our prosperity, and so poorly understood, and so multi-dimensional and emotional, that it makes for good pollie fodder.
