Lord Browne of Madingley: Pointers for the Inevitable Shift Ahead
Lord Browne of Madingly, Managing Director of alternative and renewable markets for
Riverstone Holdings LLC, gave predictions and advice for those working in energy markets during his address to the World Future Energy Summit.
Lord Browne noted that though he had lived through many periods of change in his lifetime, the one we are currently living through is the most dramatic.
He attributed this to four convergent factors:
1.) High fossil fuel prices
2.) Growing concern about energy security
3.) Growing concern about the local and global environment and
4.) The staggering rate of technological innovation
Never before has there been such a degree of uncertainty and complexity at the same time, just as so many actors are entering on to the energy stage, according to Lord Browne.
So, how should those people in the energy sector plan for the future?
Again, Lord Browne had four points of focus for this question.
The first is that energy companies need to be more flexible and diverse, so that they can scale up and shut down operations when and where needed.
The second is that businesses need to function more like collaborative networks between government agencies, NGOs and private entities.
Third, and perhaps more central, is the need to push for energy efficiency at every step along the way.
Lastly, everyone needs to accept that carbon will have a price and that it will become a core economic concern in the future.
Moreover, Lord Browne felt that the world needed for governments to offer enlightened political leadership that transcends sectional differences in order to meet the challenges at hand and ahead. The World Future Energy Summit made him optimistic, Lord Browne said, that we would see this sort of leadership in the future, just as we saw it after the second World War.
Now an NYC refugee, Curtiss P. Martin serves as a contributing editor of all things clean and green at ScribeMedia. When he isn't out on the road or in the field researching and reporting on controversial science and tech topics, Curtiss can be found communing with the creative kids at the Elsewhere artist collaborative in Greensboro, NC.
A key outlook is that carbon won’t simply be an economic concern, but a major opportunity. This is mostly a matter of perspective. Every company that complains that carbon compliance will cost them money as new business for the innovative company that is selling them the new technology.
Browne also makes a great point about energy security. Peak Oil is still highly debatable, but Resource Concentration is obvious, driving both security concerns and the ever-growing collaborative networks.