Enernet: Internet Lessons for Solving Energy, Bob Metcalfe
We aim to solve energy, to make energy cheap and clean. Energy can be viewed as a government
policy problem, or an environmental problem (green), or through the lens of thermo dynamics (red),
but what happens when you look at energy as a networking problem (blue)? Let's ask what we can
learn about energy by studying the history of the Internet's solving of bandwidth. First, if the
Internet is any guide, solving energy like solving bandwidth will take decades, because solutions are
not "shovel ready," there is time for science. Conservation? We started building the Internet by
conserving bandwidth, but now we use a million times more, because it is so cheap and clean. When
we are done solving energy, it will be squanderably abundant. Now, wasn't the addition of storage
key to solving bandwidth, to moderating between the randomness of information supply and
demand, and overcoming latency? Energy storage in many forms will be key, if the Internet is any
guide, to moderating between the intermittency of wind and sun, the peaks of demand, and
mobility. Will governments solve energy? The US Department of Energy was formed in the 1970s to
reduce US dependence on foreign oil. DOE has spent billions while our dependence on foreign oil
has increased, managing only to halt the construction of advanced fission power plants. Did
governments solve bandwidth? There was the Arpanet, other government funded research, and Al
Gore. And government did break the two big monopolies standing against the Internet, AT&T and
IBM. But after that, the Internet was built by startups emerging from research universities. If the
internet is any guide, energy will be solved by startups out of government-funded research
universities. What will we discover? Wind, solar thermal, solar electric, photosynthesis, geothermal,
fission, fusion, storage, efficiencies, grid management... And these startups had better partner early
with energy industry incumbents, people who know thermodynamics and chemical engineering at
scale, many of whom are in Houston, Texas. Uses of squanderably abundant energy? We certainly
did not build the internet to do Youtube. There will be surprises. What will we use our cheap and
energy for? Energy is a factor of production, so making it cheap and clean will spur economic
growth. We can use energy to solve water. To vacation on the Moon or migrate to Mars. To solve
Global Warming by, for example, harvesting CO2 from the atmosphere.