Episode description
Episode description
Topic: How the U.S. electric power grid will suffer and struggle economically due to the continued rise of electricity produced from sunlight. This suffering has already begun in places where photovoltaics are in rapid adoption such as Hawaii and California. But this struggle has only just begun. During the next decade or two it's going to get ugly--really ugly. The slow agonizing death of an industry is not an easy thing to watch. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be eliminated. And for those investors who cling endlessly to what was once a reliable source of prosperity, fortunes will be lost. The future is not always pretty, but we must face the trends which are measurable as they grow strong in front of our eyes. It's the only way we can decide how best to respond to the changes which are being dropped into our lap. Articles quoted in today's episode include: Why the U.S. Power Grid's Days Are Numbered; Solar to Reduce Utility Profits in Five Years; Third Quarter Solar PV Installations Reach Record High of 9 Gigawatts, According to NPD Solarbuzz.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 23, 2013 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes]
Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist, magazine writer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future And You. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science as well as A Brief History of Predicting the Future.