Shift from carbon-based energy is possible

This is a critical time in history as economies start to shift from carbon-based support to non-carbon based energy and transportation.

Using the analogy to the famous 1960s movie Camelot, we are experiencing an opportunity to create a world without carbon, a Climate Camelot.

In our case, we can start dreaming about a world free from carbon.

This is comparable to how King Arthur envisioned a world free of conflict and fighting. If we can dream that we can have economies supported and running even more efficiently on non-carbon based fuels, can we not then create the technologies and develop the financial models to support that dream?

As Henry David Thoreau once said, 'If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

In the emerging Climate Camelot, we are already accessing a number of technologies that will be in our future.

You're now challenged with the task of putting financially advantageous economic models to those technologies.

As soon as we are successful in creating models that are easily explained to the market in both value and economic advantage, we will see a major paradigm shift away from carbon-releasing technologies to those that release less carbon or no carbon at all.

The key to success with converting economies from a carbon to a non-carbon basis is to develop free-market incentive programs to attract users of carbon reduced or non-carbon technologies.

In some cases, we are seeing incumbent technologies retrofitted with technology that allows them to operate with fewer air emissions. This is a transitional period as completely non-carbon and zero air emission technologies are developed and proven. If we can imagine a world without carbon, we can create it. If fact, people and countries are imagining and creating such a world right now.

This work has to be done for every sector of the economy that releases carbon from energy generation to transportation to industrial processes. If the benefits provided and financial calculations are on the side of non-carbon technologies, the consumer will choose those technologies over carbon release technologies. The math shows that wind and solar as presenting competitive advantage over coal-fired power plant energy. The math also shows that electric cars and hybrid trucks have a financial advantage over diesel and gasoline powered vehicles. The challenge is making zero-carbon technologies' services and economic benefits tangible and attractive to as many potential users as possible, helping spur the paradigm shift. That work is well underway.

This is the beginning of the Climate Camelot era. A carbon-free global economy is truly equivalent to the search for the Holy Grail. The only difference is that we can achieve our quest.

' Michael Garvin and Bonnie Winslow-Garvin manage the Renewable Energy Network, an international company that tests and commercializes technologies that replace carbon release equipment in the market sectors of energy and transportation. Comments: michael@renais.org