Power Trip
Power Trip

Power Trip

Author

Michael E. Webber

Full Title

Power Trip

Last Highlighted
January 3, 2021 10:56 PM (CST)
Last Synced
June 8, 2023 1:12 PM (CST)
Category
books
Highlights
12
Tags

Location 3330:

Responsibly improving access to the creative potential of energy is the grand challenge of the twenty-first century.

Location 3365:

My good friend and mentor Roger Duncan, the former CEO of Austin Energy, who was listed in a 2005 issue of Businessweek alongside Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the world’s most important people because of his work on reducing power sector emissions, refers to this future as one in which we have sentient-appearing machines and buildings.

Location 3383:

grand challenges, concluded that to solve our energy problem we need to do three related things: (1) inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, (2) develop energy supplies that won’t run out, and (3) solve global climate change.3 These are daunting indeed but also invite new opportunities for investment, innovation, and advancement.

Location 3393:

we need some combination of new production, increased energy access, smarter solutions, and a cultural emphasis on efficiency and conservation.

Location 3400:

in the long run, the environmental solution and the economic solution are the same.

Location 3403:

If we shift our time horizon from the immediate future to the coming decades and include the costs of failing to protect the environment, then the distinctions disappear, making our false choice between the economy and environment irrelevant.

Location 3411:

Near-term, local thinking will not begin to solve this problem.

Location 3411:

There’s no such thing as other people’s kids. All the world’s kids are everyone’s responsibility.

Note: Delpit

Location 3432:

For many people, the idea of getting away from high levels of oil consumption and individual car ownership is scary. But from my daughter’s perspective, it would be liberating.

Location 3436:

At its core, energy is nothing more and nothing less than a way to change the order of the world. Energy is magical. After all, it made the world as we know it, and it will probably remake the world many times over.

Location 3442:

progress. To help foster our children’s ability to solve our resource challenges, we need a new approach to energy education.6 A scientific study noted that people fall for logical fallacies when believing misinformation and rejecting the scientific evidence of climate science.7 That means we need an emphasis on critical thinking so that we can more effectively distinguish fact from fiction. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education teaches analytical thinking, but we also need liberal arts, which gives us critical thinking. We also need fine arts, which gives us creative thinking that we can use to seek new solutions. A common joke goes like this: the earth without art is just “eh.” In that spirit, we don’t just need STEM, we need STEAM, where the A could represent the “arts” from fine arts and liberal arts.

Location 3454:

Adopting a cleaner suite of options while increasing energy access and letting go of our dirtier past is our critical path forward.