My 2012 Predictions Revisited

About 3/4 Accurate

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 ~ So how good was my prognostication of the past year? Not bad, although I did make some creampuff predictions that boosted the grade. Using a scale of 1 (utterly wrong) to 10 (perfectly prescient):

Buried Treasure?

Keep Fossil Fuels Buried

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 ~ We should leave our fossil fuels in the ground.

And not just because it would keep that carbon and its climate change impacts out of the atmosphere, but also because it would add to our energy security as a country.

Keeping more of our fossil fuel wealth in the ground would increase our energy security in two ways:

Scavenging

E-Waste isn't Recycled

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 ~ Most people with any environmental consciousness know not to throw obsolete or nonfunctional electronics in the trash. Such e-waste ends up in landfills where, over time, they release dioxins, heavy metals and other poisons into the ground and ultimately into the water table.

Sadly, "recycling" e-waste is little better, and arguably worse.

Guiyu, China is often referred to as the “e-waste capital of the world.” The city employs over 150,000 e-waste workers that toil through 16-hour days dis-assembling old computers and recapturing whatever metals and parts they can re-use or sell. This is far from an organized operation, however. Rather than having computers neatly stacked on palettes in storage units waiting to be recycled, computer carcasses are strewn about the streets and river banks. Huge tangles of wires and cables lay on street corners. Workers, whom will usually specialize in dis-assembling specific parts, will pull parts from the various scattered piles of parts about town and begin their work right on the street.

Hare-Brained

Trends in Cleantech Funding

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 ~ According to the latest Pew Charitable Trusts report "Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?, the US regained the lead in spending in 2011. China had invested the most in each of the prior two years, and will probably retake the top spot in 2012. Why? Much of the US investment was accelerated in advance of the expiration of critical incentives, particularly the Section 1603 program.

16 Predictions for 2012

Continued Conflict

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 ~ 2012 is going to be rather similar to 2011 politically, but there will be some changes on the economic front.

It's an election year, and, although it seems like the election started a year ago (right after the last one ended), this cycle will see yet higher levels of obsession with the election by politicians, journalists, pundits, and, hence, everyone. So, in government, there will be even fewer policy accomplishments than in 2011 (is that even possible?) and science, reason, and critical thinking will be marginalized to the point of invisibility.

The election will change a number of the players, but regrettably will change none of the political dynamic. The dysfunction will continue, public anger and disgust will increase, and only economic downdrafts in Europe and Asia will prevent precipitous erosion in America's global competitiveness.

This year's predictions:

My 2011 Predictions Revisited

About 2/3 Accurate

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 ~ A year ago I took a stab at predictions for 2011. Seems like I've run out of time waiting for most of them to come to pass, so it's time for a report card, using a scale of 1 (utterly wrong) to 10 (perfectly prescient):

An American Grandee

Short Term Self-Interest Prevails

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 ~ A key Congressman on energy policy figuratively threw up his arms this week, declaring that against China in the global market for solar panels and wind turbines, the US "can't compete." He's wrong, and he's a hypocrite. He also repeats the interesting history of long-term losers clinging to the short-term gains of a vanishing status quo.

Florida Republican Cliff Stearns, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, stated that federal efforts to support renewable energy were a waste of taxpayer dollars, too risky, and weren't creating jobs. He stated that further green energy loan guarantees be halted "so that they could be looked at more carefully," which is Washington-speak for killing the program.

The White House showed some spine for a change, as spokesman Dan Pfeiffer shot back:

Chairman Stearns and other members of his party in Congress believe that America cannot, or should not, try to compete for jobs in a cutting edge and rapidly growing industry. We simply disagree: the answer to this challenge is not to wave the white flag and give up on American workers. America has never declared defeat after a single setback – and we shouldn’t start now.

Hear My Train A-Comin'

For Our High Speed Lifestyle

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 ~ Would you take a high-speed train that doesn't stop?

The video shows the "non-stop MRT system" of its Taiwanese inventor Peng Yu-lun and is in Mandarin, but you can get a pretty good idea nonetheless of how passengers use ingenious reusable shuttles to get on and off a high speed train without it stopping or even (much?) slowing down:



English explanation here.

Possible problems:

IP and China

The Dangers of Mercantilism

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~ As Yogi Berra famously quipped, it's tough making predictions, especially about the future. But it can be done, and successfully: Mark Anderson is a probing thinker and futurist who can claim that his annual list of top 10 predictions has been proven right 93.5% of the time since he started in 1995.

This afternoon Anderson addressed several dozen visiting students from Shanghai and quite a few entrepreneurs, investors, and other local leaders. His remarks in part repeated (as he confided to me later) speeches he's been giving for about two years. And indeed, many parts repeated what he said last October at the Puget Sound Venture Club's 25th birthday bash.

Today, however, and despite an audience featuring those he characterized as "the future leadership of China", he was quite a bit more blunt than 10 months ago: China is stealing IP as part of a deliberate government policy to expand their economy. This policy of mercantilism is working very well right now, but left unchanged, the policy will hollow out the Chinese economy and be disastrous for China and for the rest of the world. The only sustainable path is nurturing their own indigenous culture of invention.

Robert Reich on Prosperity

Invest In America—End Our Job Crisis

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~ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on the need for public investment to maintain America's prosperity:

America used to invest a big portion of our economy in the future prosperity of all Americans. We built excellent public schools; offered almost free public higher education to everyone who qualified. We built the world's best system of interstate highways, as well as public transportation.

We invested in public health, with state of the art water and sewer systems, and wonderful parks, and public recreation. And basic research, that got us to the moon.

Not only did these improve the quality of life of Americans at the time, but they also made Amercians more productive in future years. They built our joint prosperity. We're still living off these public investments.

But in recent years public investment has slowed, as a portion of our economy, and now we have a deficit in public investment that imperils our future more than does our future budget deficit.

Even More Mileage—III

258mpg Car

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~ Volkswagen has created a 2-seater car that gets 258mpg.

The car runs on diesel; its 1.7 gallon tank can take a passenger 404 miles using a single cylinder engine.

While the car is austere in many ways (it is unpainted to save weight) it can still go more than 60mph and incorporates basic safety design and equipment.

It probably represents the future of fossil fueled personal transportation.

Most amazing of all perhaps is it's $600 MSRP. Of course, that's the sales price in China, the initial market. Even at that price, it will be unaffordable for the vast bulk of the population. No doubt it will cost many times more once it (or something like it) goes on sale in the US.

The Future of Work

Geoffrey Moore Keynote at Washington Innovation Summit

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~ Geoffrey Moore, author of the seminal book Crossing the Chasm, captivated the lunchtime audience at yesterday's Washington Innovation Summit with a fast-paced and ranging, but conceptually deep exploration of the digitization of everything, globalization, the reconfiguring of how business is organized, social media and the future of work. Some of his ideas he's already put in earlier books, but perhaps some will find greater elaboration in his forthcoming book, Escape Velocity: Free Your Company from the Pull of the Past, which will be published September 6th by Harper Collins. Some of the corollaries of his remarks are very encouraging for the future competitiveness of America business and, in what would be a great relief for many locally, for Microsoft in particular.

Where's It Wednesday—XXIII

Probably a pretty easy one. Somewhere in Seattle... Where is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle after the jump.

16 Predictions for 2011

Looking Forward, Looking Backward

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It's that time when people make predictions for the coming year.

This is my first try at making a formal list of prognostications, which I plan to revisit a year hence when I make my second list.

Many are about cleantech and renewable energy, or about things that will affect the future of them.

I hope I'm wrong about many of these.

Without further preamble:

Rare, But Not Unusual

Rare Earth Elements

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News stories about rare earth elements (REE) are becoming more frequent as greater attention focuses on the rise of the cleantech and renewable energy industries, the growing economic competition between the US and China, and issues of natural resource scarcity and security.

REE are under increasing control by China, which dominates world production and supply. The Chinese have used their effective monopoly to further their industrialization, but also as part of a broader effort to establish their position in the global economic and political order.

The physical properties, commercial uses, economic factors, and political considerations of REE are not widely known or appreciated by the public, yet their importance is real and growing. An examination of the different aspects of REE will illuminate not just their future significance, but also serve as an example of the broader economic and political trends of the next few decades.