Bike Lanes

Popular visions of a green future tend to sound like this:
🟢 SOLAR PANELS ON EVERY ROOFTOP
🟢 ABUNDANT RENEWABLE ENERGY
🟢 GREEN TRANSPORTATION FOR ALL

What’s missing from these visions is the enabling technologies that support green tech scale-up. You can't just slap solar panels on everything and have an electricity system as high-power and on-demand as the one we're used to. The scaled-up version requires energy storage, transmission infrastructure, and cyber-controls. These features are all technically possible – they are being implemented as we speak! But it should be clear that they add up to something much more material and non-renewable than “solar panels on every rooftop.”

In trying to provide the same convenience and abundance that our fossil-based system provides, we are following the same ecological missteps that have brought us phenomena such as climate change and biodiversity loss. We're just calling it “green” so we can feel good about it.

Do we need an energy transition?
Yes, absolutely.
But we also need to orient the new system toward slower speeds and achievable limits on extraction/use of environmental resources.