海角大神

The Monitor's energy team crossed over a snowy Charles River to check out the听听this past weekend. We met smart people, heard great talks, and got inspired. Here's their report, filed to subscribers of .

Three big ideas

1. The energy revolution will be digitized
   Energy is fundamentally physical, but the industry around it is rapidly dematerializing.听听are turning the power grid into听a "cyber-physical system," as听Thomas Siebel, CEO of听C3 Energy, put it. 4D seismic surveys and robotic drilling make oil exploration as much about information-technology as it is about mechanics or geology.听. Dirk Smit, a chief scientist at Shell, said there are countries where the company quadrupled local computing power just to make sense of all the information it collects. He envisions a "Google Earth for subsurface data" to virtually听explore the world beneath our feet. A prevailing theme at MITEC went something like this: We've got sensors. We need more of them. And we need them everywhere.
2. Innovation is incremental but ubiquitous
   Everyone is looking for the next big thing in energy 鈥撎齛 silver-bullet听that will bring power to the billion humans without it and also听. The unglamorous truth is that energy progress comes in fits and starts. Eventually, it听adds up to landmark advances. For example,听. But equally important, as听SunEdison CEO Ahmad Chatila听noted, are incremental improvements all across the supply chain 鈥� how panels are financed, installed, rotated, and maintained.听That's not to say there won't听be听. But odds are the heavy lifting will come from small, obscure听tweaks that make听technologies radically better over time.听
3. Tomorrow's energy map looks nothing like today's
   "We think developing countries are interesting because they house most of humanity," said Rob Stoner, co-director of MIT's Tata Center for Technology and Design. Much is said of听. But supply is shifting along similar lines, too. Eighty percent of new nuclear construction is in non-OECD nations, according to Alan Hanson, the director of MIT's International Nuclear Leadership Education Program.听, India, and elsewhere are opening up to outside producers, and听low oil prices could accelerate the trend.听"Resource nationalism recedes when prices go down," noted听Francisco Monaldi, visiting professor at Harvard's听Belfer Center.

听

Quotables

"One thing that we are probably in agreement with Greenpeace is that at the end of the day, probably most of our energy will come from the sun. That may take a few decades 鈥� it actually may take much more ...听So it's almost an empty statement. I think the real question becomes 'Well, how do you manage that? How do you do that in-between [work]?'"
鈥撎�

"There are no 'disruptive' technologies. We must see these technologies as 'enabling' 鈥� not 'disruptive'."
鈥撎�, on building a utility of the future

#Overheard

听written by Monitor reporters David J. Unger and Jared Gilmour.