The magnitude of the energy crisis we now face in the U.S. cannot be overstated.  It is not just about cutting the emission of greenhouse gases, the increasing price of petroleum or the fact that we are dependent for oil on countries that only hold us in high regard as customers.  It is about the fact that our entire physical landscape and a large part of our social and economic interactions are predicated on the assumption of cheap petroleum, an assumption that is no longer valid.

Petroleum will continue to rise in price as I have consistently predicted in this column.  We are most likely going through peak oil and when we accept responsibility for contributing to global warming we realize that all fossil fuels and the burning of them has incredibly dire unintended consequences.  In addition we are a debtor nation with a crumbling and in need of repair infrastructure.  Where is this leading us?

I have long been a fan of James Howard Kunstler’s book “The Long Emergency” and have recommended it to many people. [In addition his blog is one I recommend in conversation and have recommended on my links page since the inception of Evolution Shift.]  This best selling book details in a persuasive manner the coming deconstruction of American society due to the converging crises mentioned above.  Having read this non-fiction book from a novelist, it was no surprise to find that Kunstler was writing a novel about ‘post long emergency’ America.  It is called “World Made …

Regular readers know that I have often written about energy conservation, alternative energy and innovative ways that people are working to make all that we do more energy efficient.  I recently wrote here about how a simple keycard technology employed around the world could save the U.S. hotel industry money and conserve a great deal of energy.  The most recent column was about how a Brazilian company has been working with Intel, a U.S. technology giant to find ways to reduce and even eliminate heat from laptops.

There are two themes I would like to explore in this column.  The first is how, just by trying to rethink our existing use of energy, we can find ways to immediately lower energy usage. Lowering energy usage today, when the majority of energy in the world comes directly or indirectly from fossil fuels, is a direct tactic in the effort to slow global warming.  The second is how companies that are industrial age or second wave companies are, through innovation, reinventing what they do to better help address the energy crisis and global warming.  This is one of the developing themes of the Shift Age, the linkage of entities that might not initially be thought of as complimentary or compatible.

I wrote here some 18 months ago about how Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched two initiatives: one that could save some 40 billion kilowatt hours within three years and the other that could cut 1% of annual U.S. energy usage.  The first …

It is generally accepted that America could immediately reduce energy consumption by at least 20% if intelligent conservation efforts were implemented at all levels.  As a country, we established energy use habits decades ago when all forms of energy were relatively cheap.  Lights on in high rise building at night, corridors in hotels and office buildings that are almost painfully bright, lights on in empty rooms and offices, and escalators that move even when no one is on them.

This all came back to me yesterday.  I am in Brazil to deliver a speech to the top executives of a company whose annual management meeting theme is “Leading the Future”.  When I checked into the upscale, business hotel here in Joinville, in the Santa Catarina state, I went through a sequence that reminded me once again how energy wasteful the U.S. is.  The elevator would not operate unless I inserted my room key card into a slot.  As an American I thought this was a good security feature.  Then, when I got off at my floor the hallway was completely dark.  With mild trepidation I stepped out and the lights went on due to a motion sensor.  I proceeded to head down a dark corridor and, every 20 feet or so the lights went on as the sensors tracked my progress to my room.  This of course is a feature widely in use in Europe, …

China was struck by a historically unprecedented snow storm last week.  Just the sheer amount of snow completely paralyzed all types of transportation, ground and air.  Power lines were snapped, cutting power to tens of millions of people.  Power was cut so that a significant portion of China’s railroad system was powerless to move people and supplies.  What made this even worse was the timing, which coincided with the major holiday of the year, the Chinese New Year.  More than 200 million people travel on this holiday.  When a large percentage of these people finally reached the train stations they found them without power and without trains.

There were many images that made me think of Katrina. Pictures of vast amounts of people jammed together in large numbers, shivering in the cold with no place to go made me think of vast amounts of people clinging to high ground or crowded into shelters..  Thousands of people, mostly military actually using snow shovels to clear major highways as there is no large snow removal equipment made me think of small boats with outboard motors rescuing people and animals from flood waters.  Leaders of the country, fearful of rioting and unrest actually found their way to train stations to try to calm the teeming millions with megaphones.

I do not have enough information to determine whether the government reacted with appropriate speed and compassion.  They probably did.  That is where the comparison between this snow storm and Katrina in not appropriate. The incompetence of …