What will the world look like as the price of gasoline climbs, $2 at a time, from $4 to $20 a gallon?
Christopher Steiner, a staff writer at Forbes magazine, takes a look at how the future of energy is going to change, with his new book, “$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better,” which came out last month.
The book is expected to make the New York Times non-fiction hardcover extended bestseller list, to be published Aug. 16.
But cleantech experts may or may not agree with some of his contrarian speculations and conclusions, namely that hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and natural gas don’t hold all the answers (see What you don't know about energy can kill you).
Steiner concludes that nuclear power is the elegant and ultimate “Holstein” cow to making the biggest impact on a low carbon energy future. Some don't consider nuclear to be green energy, although he says, perhaps it should be (see Nuclear power is particularly green energy: get used to it).
His book paints a startling, yet exciting picture of the future, interviewing top experts in energy, urban planning, farming and transportation sectors. His predictions include newfangled competitors to the all-electric car emerging, the crashing fall of sushi and the skies emptying of gas-guzzling airlines.
He shared with the Cleantech Group an in-depth look at how rising gas prices will inevitably transform civilization, and consequently, the cleantech sector’s future:
Forbes writer and civil engineer Christopher Steiner roamed the U.S.
on a quest to answer the question: How will people's lives change in a future
with higher gas prices?
What sparked the idea to write this book?
I’ve always been interested in human behavior as it relates to gas prices. I remember when gas prices reached $2 per gallon so many years ago. I thought people would run screaming from their SUVs toward smaller cars and a nascent Toyota model called the Prius (see Toyota plans to take on Honda with low-cost hybrid for 2011).
Americans, however, largely shrugged at $2 gas. They did the same for $3 gasoline. We kept driving more miles every year, and we kept buying large cars—especially SUVs. Then came $4 gas and 2008: Americans drove 100 billion less miles in 2008 compared with 2007, and SUV sales crashed. Four-dollar gas was clearly a tipping point for how Americans chose their vehicles and how they drove them. So I asked myself: What other tipping points are out there past $4? At what price of gas do most of the airlines cave in? At what price of gas do we eat more local food? At what price do high-speed trains connect much of America?
What's been the most controversial part of the book so far with readers?
There exists part of the population who feels that I’m out there advocating for higher gas prices right now. They feel I’m attacking their way of life. But that’s not the case at all. The book’s premise assumes that, as we go forward, the demand for oil around the world will continue to increase while the supply will actually ebb, albeit slowly.
At that point, you have a scenario straight out of Economics 101: rising demand and shrinking supply = higher prices. So, assuming the price of oil will continue on a steady ascension in the future, I tried to forecast the changes that come with different prices of gasoline.
Your book indicates solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower by themselves aren't going to be enough to meet our energy needs. What kind of influence to you envision this having on the cleantech sector?
There exist giant opportunities for these kinds of energy generators. We should push on with wind power, for instance, until it approaches 10 percent of capacity—wind’s intermittent nature doesn’t become a threat to the overall grid until that point (see Wind market could hit record high in U.S.). Anything—be it solar, geothermal or wind—that can shut down a few more coal plants is good thing. That said, we’ll need more than renewables to usurp coal completely. That gap, in my opinion, should be filled by nuclear power.
Why isn't nuclear energy attracting attention and funding from investors, or what will it take for nuclear energy to be better supported?
It’s expensive. Very. We haven’t built a nuclear plant in this country from scratch in 30 years; that’s part of the problem. The startup costs are such that even for Exelon, a giant electric utility, putting out $12 billion for one plant is cost-prohibitive (see Exelon gets nuclear retrofit). Investors such as Vinod Khosla and Kleiner Perkins can bring a lot of capital to the table, to be sure, but they don’t have the muscle to dump $10 billion or $12 billion into just one power plant. They’re looking for giant home runs, where they might earn 100 times or more on their initial invesment. Nuclear, which is a more mature technology, doesn’t hold that kind of grand slam potential (see Nuclear's biggest problem? Not enough scientists).
The government has to help out here with guaranteed loans, grants, or matching funds. The good news is that once there are people experienced with building next-generation nuclear plants in the United States, the costs of building these facilities will come down. They’ll never be cheap, but they don’t have to carry the costs they currently do.
Your book suggests a ring of farms around U.S. towns will become a source of food for those towns as the price of gas goes up. Is it practical or likely to think that local farming can actually sustain the U.S. population?
Certainly some things, such as soy, corn and wheat, will continue to be grown far away from population centers. Those kinds of commodities aren’t immediately perishable, and they travel well by rail. Local farms, however, will play an increasingly bigger role in supplying fresh produce, meat and fruit. In Chicago, instead of buying an apple from New Zealand or Washington State, you may get an apple from Southwest Michigan or Southeast Wisconsin.