The revolution will be energized

In "Power to the People," journalist Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran makes a case for markets, not governments, leading us to a green, energy-abundant future.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Feb 13, 2004 | The so-called hydrogen economy isn't as close as hypesters on either the left or the right would have us believe, according to a new study released Feb. 4 by the National Academies of Science. In the report, the NAS predicted that for the next 25 years the impact of hydrogen on oil imports and carbon emissions is "likely to be minor" -- though it did concede that hydrogen could become a major fuel sometime in the next 50 years.

The nonpartisan evaluation was something of a blow to the grand promise of fuel-cell cars as a way to clean up the geopolitical and environmental mess caused by our Ford-Expedition-size appetite for fossil fuels. If hydrogen is ever going to be a kind of Get Out of the Middle East and Global Warming Free card, it's not going to be soon enough.

President Bush counts himself as a proponent of fuel cells, touting the technology's benefits in his State of the Union address last year. He unveiled a new Freedom Fuel initiative and predicted that an American child born in 2003 could learn to drive on a car fueled with hydrogen. But while the prospect of non-polluting cars has some environmentalists excited, others have derided the hyping of hydrogen. They see it as a smokescreen, a way to give lip service to a greener future while providing cover for the failure to adopt tough regulations.

Will hydrogen fuel-cell cars and power generators remain perpetually decades down the road, with their ever tantalizing promise of a cleaner future, while the world chokes on exhaust today? Will President Bush's hypothetical American infant, now 1 year old, have to ride a bicycle until at least her mid-30s if she wants to learn to drive on a hydrogen fuel-cell car?

Into this highly politicized debate comes Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, an energy and environmental correspondent for the Economist, with an engaging new book, despite its clunker of a subtitle: "Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet." Despite the self-assurance of the title, Vaitheeswaran answers the big crystal-ball-gazing questions with a big "maybe." Neither hydrogen nor renewable energy is destined to take over the world and edge out dirty fossil fuels, he argues, but at the same time that doesn't mean that ambitious dreams for a green future are doomed to failure.

"Power to the People" takes readers for a global jaunt through the world's energy infrastructure as it exists today, visiting the offshore oil-rig roughnecks, free-market environmentalists and think-tank eggheads who are shaping its future. Ranging from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, which may soon be underwater because of global warming, to the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, Vaitheeswaran comes away cautiously optimistic about the direction the energy industry is going. There is "more reason for hope than there has been for decades," he writes.

But it's not conservation efforts or tougher government regulations that make Vaitheeswaran hopeful we can continue to satiate the world's ever growing demand for energy without making the planet unlivable. His faith is in technological innovation and market forces. And while he makes a compelling case that we'll continue to find new ways to feed our demand for energy, the mighty market forces he invokes seem puny in the face of the challenges posed by global warming -- if not actually at cross-purposes with them.

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