From the fabled clipper ships that helped a young America increase its trade and commerce, to the Texas gushers fueling the life-changing automobile industry of the 1920s — human history is filled with energy pivots. The Persians and Chinese used the wind to power grain mills and pump water; the American windmills of the early 1800s broadened ranching and played a key role in developing steam engines and the expansion of our railroads. More recently, the OPEC energy crisis of the 1970s opened up new opportunities for solar, propelling a California fringe concept into the mainstream.

So, are we beginning another historic energy pivot? Will the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 spark something new in energy?  As the boy asks in this video, “Why did it take a virus to bring the people back together?” His father replies: “Sometimes you’ve got to get sick, my boy, before you start feeling better.”

In this issue of Energy Today, we look at some recent energy pivots: the revolution in natural gas; the “duck curve” of solar energy; Germany’s “energy transition”; and the surprising shift to electric-car dominance in oil-rich Norway:

• The Real Energy Revolution: Natural Gas, by Mark Mills (Summer/Fall 2019).  When America became a major exporter of natural gas it came as a complete surprise to nearly every forecaster. 

 

• Ten Years of Analyzing the Duck Chart, by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (February 26, 2018).  Revisit the timeline of the NREL discovery that helped to enable the growth of the solar industry. 

 

• Carbon Crossroads: Can Germany Survive Its Stalled Energy Transition? by Paul Hockenos (December 13, 2018). Can Germany rescue Energiewiende, the ambitious clean-energy transformation that made it a global decarbonization leader? 

 

• Norway and the A-ha Moment That Made Electric Cars the Answer, by Jon Henley and Elisabeth Ulven (April 19, 2020).   Who knew? A country fueled by hydrocarbons has become the world’s electric vehicle leader.​