Crossing the Energy Divide: Moving from Fossil Fuel Dependence to a Clean-Energy Future

11. Implications for Business Management

From the first pages of this book we have maintained that, for the energy-transition bridge to succeed—both in getting us from fossil fuels to the renewables of the future and in preventing economic collapse in the process—businesses must be able to achieve fairly rapid returns on investment without massive capital costs. Moreover, most businesses need to be able to achieve such returns without waiting for the fruits of future technological progress that, contrary to traditional expectations, is not automatic. We have also argued that success in this unprecedented endeavor will require advances in the productivity not just of labor, but of the physical resources on which the whole global economy depends. ...