Jeremy Rifkin President of the Foundation on Economic Trends
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An interview with Jeremy Rifkin President of the Foundation on Economic Trends Transform to the power of digital Jeremy Rifkin In the 20th century, there was another A New Communication convergence of communications and energy. Centralized electricity - the and Energy Matrix telephone, and later radio and television - became the communication media What’s interesting about the IT to manage the complexity of the oil revolution, especially the personal powered automotive culture, a suburban computer and the Internet, is that infrastructure and a mass consumer it communicates in a very different society. fashion from the 20th century centralized media that were top-down The energies used – coal, oil, natural (such as radio and television). With the gas, other fossil fuels, uranium - are Internet, communication is distributed now mature and their prices keep and collaborative. It scales laterally. Jeremy Rifkin increasing.The infrastructure and the Today, 2.3 billion people are able to send their video and audio documents President of the Foundation on technologies based on those energies, to the other 2.3 billion people at the Economic Trends such as the internal combustion engine, have exhausted their productive speed of light. This distributed and potential. Today, the second industrial collaborative internet communications Capgemini Consulting: Can you revolution is clearly on life support, so technology, which is far more expansive explain the concept of the third a new economic narrative is needed than all the centralized television and industrial revolution? that will bring us to a post-carbon era radio networks of the 20th century, is and create hundreds of millions of jobs now merging with the new renewable Jeremy Rifkin: We’re in the first stage and thousands of new businesses. That energies, which are also distributive in of a paradigm shift that is reshaping new paradigm is emerging just now in nature and organized collaboratively. not only the economy, but also society Europe, especially in Germany which at large, and even how we think and is leading the way. A new convergence perceive our world. The great economic To understand the new energy regime, of communication technology and and social revolutions in history occur you have to think about today’s leading energy is giving rise to a Third Industrial when two things happen. The first is energies. Fossil energies and uranium Revolution (TIR). the emergence of a new energy regime are only found in a few places on that opens the path to a more complex Earth. They require huge geopolitical civilization: the new energy flows can investments to manage them, extensive bring more people together, integrate military investments to keep them bigger commercial and social units, secure, and massive capital to finance etc. To emerge successfully, this new the infrastructure that goes with them. paradigm requires a communications These elite energies have given us the revolution powerful enough to manage A new convergence most centralized, top-down economic the new energy regime. The first and structure in history. second industrial revolutions help us to of communication understand this phenomenon. technology and energy By comparison, what we call distributed energies are found literally everywhere: In the 19th century, print technology is giving rise to a Third the sun shines all over the world every became cheap with the move from Industrial Revolution. day, the wind blows across the planet, manual presses to steam powered there is geothermal heat below the presses. Large print runs became ground and ocean waves and tides possible thanks to low transaction everywhere. We produce garbage that costs. Editors published school books can be converted back to biomass. in America and Europe creating a print In rural areas, agricultural waste can literate workforce. This print literacy was be transformed back into energy. necessary for managing the complexity These renewable energies are found of the steam-powered first industrial everywhere in some frequency or revolution. proportion. This new energy regime is Jeremy Rifkin just beginning to merge with the new are we only thinking about collecting etc. We like them all, but in the EU, we internet communications technology. them in just a few places? We’re using put much of the focus on hydrogen 20th century thinking around centralized as the storage carrier for intermittent energy and centralized communications. energies just like digital is the storage carrier for information. Let’s say you Five pillars for the third have a solar roof on the top of your Pillar two is buildings. The EU is home home and you’re collecting energy. If industrial revolution to 191 million buildings: houses, offices, you have an electricity surplus, you factories, farms, etc. The number one can put it in a water tank and let the The European Union has formally users of energy in our economy and the hydrogen percolate out of the tank into committed itself to a five-pillar single greatest cause of climate change a second tank. So when the sun isn’t infrastructure for the third industrial are buildings. The goal is to convert shining, you can convert that hydrogen revolution based on this communication- every single possible building in the back to green electricity with only a very energy matrix of the Internet and European Union to a personal green small thermodynamic loss. distributed energy. It was endorsed by micro-power plant over the next 40 the European Parliament in 2007. The years to capture the sun on the roofs, the plan is now working its way through wind on the building walls, geothermal Pillar four is where the renewable energy the European Commission and the heat underneath the building, biomass converges with the Internet. We take European member states. with the garbage, etc. Some of the new off-the-shelf Internet technology and buildings in Europe are already positive transform the power grid in Europe to an power. They provide for all of their own energy Internet. Now you have millions Pillar one is the shift to distributive needs and send the excess power back and millions of buildings collecting their energy. The EU has committed to 20% to the grid. Germany is leading in pillars own green energy on-site and storing renewable energy by 2020. That means one and two; it has reached the goal it in hydrogen. If they have a surplus a third of the electricity in Europe has to of 20% green electricity and is heading at any given moment, their software be green. It’s mandatory. toward 35% within nine years. Germany technology will direct them to sell that has also converted one million buildings surplus electricity across the energy How do we collect these energies? Our over the past four years to micro power Internet from Ireland to Russia. first approach seemed quite logical. plants that are now producing energy on Italy, Spain and Greece enjoy a lot of site. The process has created hundreds Here again, Germany is leading the Sun. We could build large solar plants of thousands of jobs. way by testing this energy Internet in and ship the electricity out to the rest of six major regions. Every appliance is Europe. The Irish have wind: centralize it The Internet has democratized connected with software to the grid and ship it. No one opposes this model, information. Now, energy is being so that we know in that region what but it won’t be enough. Then we asked democratized. Several million buildings every washing machine, every toaster is ourselves: if renewable energies are in Europe are currently collecting their doing. If there’s too much demand for distributed and found everywhere, why own green electricity on site. Within ten electricity and not enough supply, the years, it’s going to be tens of millions, energy Internet can direct your washing and within 30 years, virtually every machine to forget the extra rinse cycle! building will be a green micro-power If you sign up for the electricity savings plant. program you get a credit on your bill The goal is to convert from the power and utility company at the end of the month. It means everyone every single possible Pillar three is storage. Storage is becomes an entrepreneur. Everyone is essential because the sun isn’t always his own producer of energy just like building in the European shining when you need the electricity. today everyone is his own producer of The wind doesn’t always blow when Union to a personal information. you most need it. These are intermittent green micro-power energies. We’re going to have to store them so they’re reliable. Many different plant over the next technologies are possible: batteries, 40 years. capacitors, flywheels, water pumping, Jeremy Rifkin Pillar five is transport and logistics. to the grid. This has been so successful Making the shift creates new businesses Electric vehicles are out this year that thousands of outlets are now trying and jobs from day one. in mass production. With the third to get their green electricity back to industrial revolution, we’ll be able to plug the grid. The problem is the grid can’t Capgemini Consulting: What sort in our vehicles anywhere there’s a green take it because it’s 60 years old, not of governance do we need to building: offices, factories, homes… digitalized and unidirectional. So Europe implement the five pillars? and get green electricity on-site. You understood it had to upgrade the grid, can power up from the grid or, if the and make it multidirectional to be able to Jeremy Rifkin: My global CEO group electricity price is high, your software accept green electricity from thousands did the plan for Rome, Utrecht, Monaco can direct your car to sell its green of micro-power plants.