3 Big Green 2010 Predictions That Didn’t Pan Out
Filed Under: Green Politics, Humor on December 30, 2009
Well, the last decade has seen a lot of predictions. Many of them optimistically claimed that the world would be a very different place by 2010 and green tech would dominate the landscape. We’d all be living in an environmentally-friendly utopia with everything but flying cars (those were a 1950s obsession).
Looking at those predictions for 2010 and where we are today, at the cusp of entering that new decade, it appears the predictions were off. Here’s my three favorite ones.
1 – Hydrogen and Hybrid Cars Will Be Everywhere
Well, that didn’t work out. Despite the Hydrogen Economy author, Jeremy Rifkin, prediction. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still a future tech with most not seeing them even entering the market for public consumption until 2015-20. Sure, every major car maker on the planet is working on some kind of H2-driven machine, but most of them make a Bentley look cheap with their current price points. So far, no major hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer has appeared to make FCs cheaply en masse. So.. it’ll still be a while.
As for hybrids being the “generational gap” between gasoline and electrics, high gas prices in the early part of this decade drove prognosticators to claim that nearly every car made would be a hybrid by 2010. Currently only one American auto maker has a hybrid that’s for sale, right now, today. Overall, there are only a handful on the market and they make up less than 2% of the total world-wide car sales market.
2 – Electric Car Tech Is About To Take Over
Back in 2005, the New York Times had an article by Robert Graham wherein he stated that “the technology is there, it just needs to be put on the street.” He was referring, of course, to electric cars (Graham heads the Electric Power Research Institute). Well.. Sorry, Mr. Graham, but the technology is still there and it still hasn’t hit the street. It turns out electric cars are a lot more expensive than people thought they would be by now. So far, batteries (specifically) haven’t caught up with expectations and are still very expensive per mile of range versus their gasoline counterparts.
3 – We’ll All Have Solar Panels On Our Houses By 2010
This one amazes me. The prediction came from a lot of sources in the early part of the 2000′s. So far, it hasn’t happened. Solar panels (photovoltaics) are still some of the most expensive power sources out there and on a small scale, like a home, they have way more costs than benefit. What’s more, most home owners are not willing to spend a large sum of money improving their home if the improvement doesn’t have a clear cost:benefit ratio. So if you can’t prove equivocally that the installation of something as expensive as solar PV ($9,000-$14,000 per home) will pay off before it’s expected lifespan is up (PV panels usually have a 5-7 year life), home owners won’t buy.
So, they aren’t everywhere and we don’t all enjoy sunlight as our home’s primary power source. Oh well.
Of course, next year starts a new decade. So I’m sure a lot of new predictions will be forthcoming. It should be interesting. Especially with 2012 coming up and the big “End of the Solstice” day on that year in which we enter the Age of Aquarius and leave behind Pisces. Ask the Mayans, their calendar runs out then too, coincidentally. Nostradamus had a few things to say about it as well. Should be fun!
Related posts:
- The Dark Side of Green: Gaming the global-warming fight
- The On-Again, Off-Again Green Economy, Part II
- Pike Research, 2.8 Million Fuel Cell Vehicles, and Climate Change
Comments (3)
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Regarding solar panels, the installing solar thermal panels (that is, panels
to heat your water system) is actually looking more and more cost effective,
as fossil fuel prices continue to rise. Here in the UK companies such as SolarUK have seen plenty of enquiries from potential customers, despite difficult economic conditions, who are aware that a well-designed system (such as the LaZer2) can provide 50% to 70% of a household’s hot water needs, often rising to 100% during the warmest months of the year (these percentages apply to the UK).
Although PV panels are more expensive, there are generally opportunities for
microgenerators to sell their energy to the national grid. In the UK a new
Feed-in Tariff comes into play in April.
Thanks for the info. I kind of glossed over solar heating and focused on PV since that is where all the hype seems to be. Solar panels for hot water/home heating are awesome and almost always a wise investment. Here in Wyoming, they’re used quite often, especially in remote farms and ranches where everything would otherwise be dependent on trucked-in propane. Solar heating, in most installations, will likely last the lifetime of the home, unlike PV which requires cell replacement every few years.