gmtPLUS09 | live from Seoul

Within China is the solution to delivering alternative energy faster and cheaper. It’s not a point of political/economic contempt or competing against. For China to take the momentous lead - aided because it has no legacy infrastructure to be relied upon - transcends all boundaries and is a welcomed agent of collaboration and innovation.

The overall big picture is about the resourceful underdogs trumping the favored, king-of-the-hills with their legacy systems. An example would be the Koreans and Japanese taking lead in mobile and broadband communications.

Tom Evslin does a great piece on Wired’s cover story, China may become the alternative fuel capital of the world.

"There is plenty of need (to reduce the hydrocarbon burn) in the US, too, but we are proceeding at a snail’s pace. Why? One reason is because we already have a huge gasoline infrastructure and it works. But China has no infrastructure of any kind to support the number of cars expected on its roads in the next decade and a half. There is no legacy favoring a gasoline distribution system. Greenfields are great for innovation.

If an alternative energy distribution system evolves in China, we all gain. The
obvious gain is that we won’t have to compete as much with China for
oil supplies nor breathe China’s increased emissions. But the greater
gain is that any technologies which develop to support China’s hydrogen
economy, should that come to pass, will be available for us to deploy
as well. The size of the Chinese energy market assures that there will be investment in both technology and manufacturing to support it. So,
by the time, we are ready to deploy a greener and more sustainable
energy infrastructure, all the parts we need should be available at
commodity prices."

Link: Fractals of Change: Globalization and Innovation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Trends, Scenarios, Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.