Disruptive technology at work-II: Clean disruption is inevitable and it will be swift
May 16:
The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of rocks. It ended because a disruptive technology ushered in the Bronze Age, the book says. 8The era of centralized, command-and-control, extraction-resource-based energy sources (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) will not end because we run out of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or uranium. It will end because these energy sources, the business models they employ, and the products that sustain them will be disrupted by superior technologies, product architectures, and business models. 8This is a technology-based disruption reminiscent of how the cell phone, Internet, and personal computer swept away industries such as landline telephony, publishing, and mainframe computers. Just like those technology disruptions flipped the architecture of information and brought abundant, cheap and participatory information, the clean disruption will flip the architecture of energy and bring abundant, cheap and participatory energy. Just like those previous technology disruptions, the clean disruption is inevitable and it will be swift. 8We can debate the timing of Seba’s projections. But the fundamentals that this argument is based on – that what is currently happening is a technology disruption, by a semiconductor-based energy technology (solar PV) that has zero marginal cost and a rapidly declining cost curve – seems to be pretty solid.