To make this transition happen, we need to understand that transport revolutions are always embedded in larger infrastructure revolutions. The coal-powered steam engine revolution required vast changes in infrastructure, including a shift in transport from waterways to railways and the ceding of public land for the development of new towns and cities along critical rail links and junctions. Similarly, the introduction of the petrol-powered internal combustion engine required the building of national road systems, the laying down of oil pipelines and the construction of new suburban commercial and residential corridors along the interstate highways.
The shift from the internal combustion engine to electric and hydrogen fuel-cell plug-in vehicles requires a comparable new commitment to a third industrial revolution infrastructure. To begin with, national power grids and transmission lines will need to be transformed from centralised control to distributed, digitalised management. Already, Daimler has partnered RWE, the German utility, and Toyota has partnered EDF, the French utility, to install recharging points along highways, in car parks and garages and in commercial and residential areas.
Of course, technological change in and of itself cannot produce an industrial revolution without a subsequent shake-up of supply and distribution channels, as well as economies of scale more generally. Rifkin apparently thinks that we are heading towards that kind of large-scale restructuring. How? Well, revolutions starts at home, apparently:
To accommodate plug-in vehicles, utility companies are beginning to transform the power grid, using the same technologies that created the internet. The so-called smart grids or intergrids will revolutionise the way electricity is produced and delivered. Millions of homes, offices and factories will be converted or built to serve as “positive power plants” that can capture local renewable energy – solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydro and ocean waves – to create electricity to power the buildings, while sharing the surplus power with others across smart intergrids, just as we now produce our own information and share it with each other across the internet.
The third industrial revolution brings with it a new era of “distributed capitalism” in which businesses and homeowners become participants in the energy market. In the process, we will create millions of green jobs, start a new technology revolution and dramatically increase productivity, as well as mitigate climate change.
