Disruptive Energy Futures*

Almost everything we thought we knew about energy is ripe for transformation—rich in risk and opportunity. Both oil and natural-gas owners have more unsellable than unburnable hydrocar­bons; they’re more at risk from market competition than from climate regulation. Electricity suppliers too face a swarm of disruptors that will transform their businesses beyond recognition as the electricity and auto industries merge to eat the oil industry, as insurgents challenge incumbents in all three sectors, and as integrative design yields increasing returns to investments in radical energy efficiency. Artfully assembled, the many moving parts can deliver a secure, resilient, climate-stabilizing energy future, using available technologies, cheaper than business-as-usual. Its challenges are no longer in technology or economics but in implementation—especially in moving policy laggards from protecting the old system to enabling the new.