jeremy rifkin solar quotes
If we look at the great economic paradigm shifts in history, they share a common denominator, At a moment of time, three defining technologies emerge and converge to create what we call in engineering a ‘general-purpose technology’ that forms an infrastructure that fundamentally changes the way we manage power and move economic activity across the value chain. In the end everyone is going to produce their own green electricity”
Although Rifkin is not specifically mentioning solar technology in this quote, rooftop solar panels are one of the main ways that individuals can produce their own green energy, whether they sell that electricity back to the power company, or simply go 100% off grid.
Time goes forward because energy itself is always moving from an available to an unavailable state. Our consciousness is continually recording the entropy change in the world around us. We watch our friends get old and die. We sit next to a fire and watch it’s red-hot embers turn slowly into cold white ashes. We experience the world always changing around us, and that experience is the unfolding of the second law. It is the irreversible process of dissipation of energy in the world. What does it mean to say, ‘The world is running out of time’? Simply this: we experience the passage of time by the succession of one event after another. And every time an event occurs anywhere in this world energy is expended and the overall entropy is increased. To say the world is running out of time then, to say the world is running out of usable energy. In the words of Sir Arthur Eddington, ‘Entropy is time’s arrow’.”
Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy. Energy that has been unavailable for thousands and thousands of years is now being unearthed in the form of petroleum, and is immediately expended and not replaced. With solar technology, we reverse this. When we use solar panels to gather an abundance of energy from the sun, we access an extremely accessible and usable form of energy that is all around us every day.
A half century from now, our grandchildren are likely to look back at the era of mass employment in the market with the same sense of utter disbelief as we look upon slavery and serfdom in former times. The very idea that a human being’s worth was measured almost exclusively by his or her productive output of goods and services and material wealth will seem primitive, even barbaric, and be regarded as a terrible loss of human value to our progeny living in a highly automated world where much of life is lived on the Collaborative Commons.”
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We need a change in consciousness to go with this technology platform. We need a new narrative: we need to shift from geopolitics to biosphere consciousness in one generation. The biosphere is understood here as what goes from the biosphere to the depths of the ocean 40 miles where all living beings interact with all chemicals to create a very complex choreography that we call “life on earth”. That is biosphere that is our indivisible community.”
Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. Even with solar technology there is an impact on the biosphere that many do not mention. For example, what do we do with solar panels that are at the end of their useful life? How do we dispose of them? What about the environmental impact of solar panel manufacturing?
Generations of human beings were transformed into machines in the relentless pursuit of material wealth: We lived to work.”
Jeremy Rifkin, The The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
The laws of thermodynamics tell us something quite different. Economic activity is merely borrowing low-entropy energy inputs from the environment and transforming them into temporary products and services of value. In the transformation process, often more energy is expended and lost to the environment than is embedded in the particular good or service being produced.”
Jeremy Rifkin, The The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. We need to answer that question, when solar panels are manufactured, is the amount of energy embedded in that product less than or greater than the amount of energy expended to create the solar panels?
There is a saying in the Middle East that goes something like this: “My grandfather rode a camel, my father drove a car, I travel on a jet, and my grandchild will ride a camel.” Not necessarily. The deserts of the Middle East and North Africa have more solar potential per square inch than any other region in the world—more energy potential, in fact, than all of the oil ever extracted from deep beneath its sand dunes.”
Jeremy Rifkin, The The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
Africa, in particular, has barely begun to exploit its renewable energy potential. Energy analysts say that solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass sources could more than supply the energy needs of every continent. The key is providing a favorable playing field, and that means financial aid, technology transfer, and training programs to assist developing nations, like the ones being advanced by the EU/AU partnership.”
Jeremy Rifkin, The The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
When the price of oil on the world market began to fall, the American business community and the public lost interest in the great energy crusade. Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, removed the solar panels from the White House roof and scrapped the wood-burning stove in the living quarters. America went back to business as usual, buying even larger gasguzzling vehicles, and using ever greater volumes of energy to support a wasteful, consumer-driven lifestyle.”
Jeremy Rifkin, The The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World