The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World

“Our industrial civilization is at a crossroads. Oil and the other fossil fuel energies that make up the industrial way of life are sunsetting, and the technologies made from and propelled by these energies are antiquated,” explains Author Jeremy Rifkin. He is a lecturer at Wharton business school, on new trends in science, technology, the economy, and society, but more impressively is a consultant to the EU on these issues, and also to the Chinese government.This book is a description of the convergence of new communication technologies with new energy systems to create the Third Industrial Revolution. The first two industrial revolutions profoundly changed history, but came with a huge social and environmental costs.First and Second Industrial Revolutions forged the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These revolutions were based on fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas, which are only found in specific places. As such, these places require geopolitical management, and often significant military investment to secure access to them. This necessitated a centralized energy infrastructure which set the tone for the rest of the economy and social life for two centuries.First Industrial Revolution had as its centrepiece coal-powered, steam-driven machines. The railroad, was one of its most important achievements, with profound consequences. Building a railroad required more capital than even the wealthiest families of the day could afford singlehandedly. This led to the need to concentrate the capital of investors which resulted in the separation of ownership from the management of the business.The challenges of running a railroad were unique. Hundreds of miles of track had to be laid, rail beds had to be maintained, engines and carriages repaired, systems developed to prevent accidents and extensive up-to-the-moment records. This required layers of management and a gargantuan workforce with output optimized through top-down command and control, and tasks broken down into fixed, repeatable stages.The railroads led to other necessary businesses like the telegraph industry which also had to be huge. Other mass-producing giants appeared with centralized factories to reduce the cost of production. For example, small farms gave way to agri-businesses that transformed food production into a factory system.An army of people were needed who could write reports and write critical management documents. The school system was organized along the same lines as businesses with top-down management, fixed tasks and outcomes, to best prepare a literate workforce for life in large, centralized, authoritarian businesses.“The centralized and rationalized business model established during the First Industrial Revolution, carried over to the Second Industrial Revolution (the Oil Age.)” Rifkin explains. The character of the oil industry has been gigantism and centralization, because it too required large amounts of capital, economies of scale, and a top-down command and control structure. The Oil Age required the most expensive organization ever conceived to collect, process, and distribute its energy.Gigantism and centralization affected other industries too: modern finance, automotive, power and utilities, telecommunications, and commercial construction.“In the coming half century, the conventional, centralized business operations of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions will increasingly be subsumed by the distributed business practices of the Third Industrial Revolution.” This is the core message of this book.“We have the science, the technology, and the game plan to make it happen,” says Rifkin and working at the highest levels of the world’s largest economies, he is in a position to know.Hundreds of millions of human beings can now generate their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories. They can share it with others across intelligent, distributed, electricity networks—‘an intergrid’—just as they do with the information they create and share on the Internet.Here are some facts Rifkin presents: the cost of photovoltaic electricity is expected to decline at a rate of 8% a year, halving the cost of generation every eight years. The commercial growth in solar and wind technology is as dramatic as the growth in personal computers and Internet use, with installations doubling every two years.One hour of sunlight provides enough power to run a global economy for a full year. 40% of the roofs, and 15% of all the building facades in the EU, are suitable for photovoltaic applications.The United States has enough wind resources to power the entire nation several times over. A Stanford University study of global wind capacity estimates that harnessing 20% of the available wind on the planet, would provide seven times more electricity than the world now uses.Hydropower currently makes up the largest portion of green-generated electricity in the world, but the untapped potential, is in small distributed hydropower installations.The geothermal energy beneath the Earth’s surface reaches 4,000 degrees Celsius, and that energy is continuously flowing to the surface. In the United States, the geothermal energy within two miles of the Earth’s surface produces enough energy to provide for America’s needs for 30,000 years.Biomass includes fuel crops, forestry waste, and municipal garbage. The World Bioenergy Association claims that “the world’s bioenergy potential is large enough to meet the global energy demand in 2050.”Conventional energy (coal, oil, gas, and uranium) employed 260,000 in Germany in 2003, whereas renewable energy by 2007 accounted for 249,300 jobs. Put differently, less than 10% of the energy produced by renewable sources, created nearly as many jobs as all other energy sources combined.The Spanish economy, which supports over 188,000 renewable energy jobs and 1,027 renewable energy companies, has produced five times the employment of the conventional energy industry.We have the ability to change from a carbon-based fossil fuel energy regime to a renewable energy regime. We can reconfigure the buildings of the world, and transform every house into a mini power plant that can collect renewable energies on site. We are able to store the renewable energy so that we can ensure a continuous, reliable supply of green electricity to meet demand. Using Internet communication technology we can convert the electricity grid into an intelligent utility network. Millions of people will be able to send the green electricity they generate on their buildings to the grid to share with others just as information is generated and shared on the Internet.We are seeing the movement of cars, buses, trucks, trains to electric plug-in and fuel cell vehicles powered by renewable energies. We are seeing charging stations across countries where people can buy and sell electricity on the distributed electricity grid.The emerging Third Industrial Revolution, is a function of distributed renewable energies, that will be collected at millions of local sites and then aggregated and shared with others. These renewable energies are found everywhere and are partially free—sun, wind, hydro, geothermal heat, biomass, and ocean waves and tides. We are now able to achieve optimum energy levels and at the same time maintain a high-performing, sustainable economy.These are exciting times and they have already begun.Readability Light ----+ SeriousInsights High +---- LowPractical High ----+ LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

He predicted alot of what has already happened and has predicted things that are starting to happen. However, there is alot of fluff information about his diplo-political efforts in Europe and US that could be avoided. This is a great philosophy of the future as well.

It was interesting to read Rifkin’s book on the third industrial revolution some five years after it was written to see how his prognostications have fared. Rifkin is a “futurist” who has made a good living selling his ideas for the future (and himself). This book deals with changes in energy production and utilization as driven by changes in communication. It predicts that these changes will alter the whole economic structure of the world, leading to revolutions in almost every aspect of society.It is difficult to argue with Rifkin’s ideas on energy. Fossil fuels are limited, even if the planet is fracked to death. Sustainable energy production has to come if humans are to succeed on this planet. The issues are how and when. To me (and to Rifkin), distributive energy production has to be a part of that effort. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel and utility industries have arrayed powerful forces to delay this effort, something that Rifkin largely ignores in his optimistic view of how he is moving this process forward. Progress has been slow, but is beginning to show fruit. Public perceptions of climate change have swung in spite of a hostile US Congress; China has recognized that the toxic environments of its cities must be addressed; and technological advances are beginning to bring costs into line. Perhaps the biggest problem to be solved is that of energy storage to eliminate periods when methods such as solar and wind are ineffective. Elon Musk has recently made headlines with his new generation of batteries, which he claims will solve such problems plus power our vehicles of the future. In contrast, Rifkin is a proponent of hydrogen as a storage medium and to power cars. Toyota is currently producing a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car. Personally, I have yet to see from Rifkin or anyone else a method for producing hydrogen that is sustainable and economical. Rifkin largely ignores that problem in this book. However, new research in catalytic production of hydrogen from water may eliminate this problem. Probably both batteries and hydrogen will ultimately be used as competitive and complementary solutions.As much as I would like to believe Rifkin that changes in energy development and communication will lead to a more cooperative spirit, events since this book was written are not encouraging. The EU seems more likely to dissolve into its feuding components than to have a kumbaya event. Russians and Ukrainians are killing each other over power and territory. The “Arab Spring” movement has not seen an increase in democratization, but changes in military governments and a civil war in Syria that has displaced millions and led to the rise of a powerful new force in the Moslem world. Perhaps ISIS is a metaphor for our current world, a group using religion as an excuse in their drive for power and territory. A similar, if less pernicious, Christian fundamentalist group in the US is continually whining about its loss of freedom while trying to enforce its creed on the rest of us. Does all of this mean that all of this internet connectivity is worthless? Probably not, but it is worth noting that such communications can be shut down or diverted to evil causes, a la ISIS.Meanwhile, this book is worth reading as a historical document if you can tolerate the gossipy tone and name-dropping. I only wish more of the predictions were developing more rapidly.

After reading this book I want to be part of the Third Industrial Revolution (TIR), this book is amazing. The book shares with you the current states of our carbonized world and how it will change providing we move to renewable's. I have nearly a decades experience in the energy industry and this booked helped me to connect the dots strategically at what is happening in government and the energy industry. What I love about this books is it is not just based economics but discusses everything we need to do to move to the (TIR) from education to technology.I'd recommend this book to anyone in the energy industry, this book was a huge influence in me leaving my energy company to join an technology company that provides energy enterprises software to utilities, because there will not always be a role for people in the energy industry as we know today but we will always needs a role to create and implement software solutions for the energy sector.

Bought this book after stumbling at mr Rifkin lecture on YouTube. The book basically explains in detail what he said their! This is eye opening for anyone who wants to know how economy will evolve in the near future.

This is a wake up call. The traditional belief that we must prepare ourselves to be ‘employable’ is under threat. The counter argument encourages us to ‘gear up’ for earning our own money, rather than seeing income as someone else’s responsibility.With the population dramatically ageing and low-level jobs increasingly swallowed up by machinery, entrepreneurship will be a necessity for many, rather than a life-style choice for some. Diane Shawe www.shortcourse.academy

For all people interested in climate change this is one of the classic texts. An absolute must. Although Rifkin was convinced about the hydrogen route for energy storage and use the practical problems of high pressures and ultra low temperatures of storing hydrogen have meant that it has unfortunately not turned out to be not quite the super solution it originally appeared to be. But the rest of the book is as relevant and important as ever.

Great price