Check Your Ego at the Door, Please

In my experience, the dialogue among professionals in both the fossil and renewable energy industries is generally a positive one. Naturally, when you bring change to an industry that has seen very little innovation over the last half century, there will be conflict, bitterness, skepticism and downright denigration on either side. But in general, I see a lot of positivity coming from both “traditionalists” and “reformists” who are genuinely trying to solve our many problems related to energy.

But sometimes, I hear things from both sides that really irk me.

For example, last year, I was at an all-energy conference called Power-Gen. One night after a long day on the floor, I was hanging out in the bar, having a drink and checking my email. Behind me was a borderline-rowdy group of 10 people (from an engineering and construction company I will not name) who were talking shop. As soon as the conversation turned to renewables, my ears perked up.

I was disheartened to hear how badly they ripped on the industry. I've heard wind and solar called a lot of things – but the epithets that came pouring from that group of people were pretty terrible.

According to them, the solar industry was a bunch of p*#^ies with a technology that would never amount to anything. They laughed at the notion that wind could make a dent in the energy mix and said that T. Boone Pickens should have stayed in the oil business. And finally, they talked about the assh*#le environmentalists who were mindlessly pushing policies that would soon bring down the energy business as we know it. I thought it was both funny and sad.

But it goes both ways. I hear the same type of talk from renewable energy supporters as well: The oil-company-executives-are-the-devil, global-energy-conspiracy, take-them-all-down attitude that is both off-putting and unproductive. I can't stand this type of talk. It takes us away from the debate and brings down the level of conversation.

Change is badly needed in the way we produce and consume energy. But to create meaningful change, we need to work together, not fight each other in childish ways.

As Vijay Vaitheeswaran, author and energy correspondent for The Economist says: “Egos should be left at the door.”

                                       

I had a chance to speak with Vijay earlier this week about the changes we're seeing in both the power and automobile sectors. He's been writing about the energy industry for almost two decades and has a lot of insight into the makings of the Great Awakening, as he calls it.

Why have we come so far in recent years? Because the dialouge has increasingly been focused around innovative, cooperative solutions, not petty, tit-for-tat name calling.

“I don't have a whole lot of time for vanity, ego and infighting that has been all too common...I've always tried in my writing and my arguments to take a pragmatic approach...let's tackle these serious problems that the world faces in a pragmatic way. Let's roll up our sleeves, let's leave our egos at the door and let's do what works,” he said.

I couldn't agree more.

To hear more from veteran journalist Vijay Vaitheeswaran, stay tuned to our Inside Renewable Energy podcast. We'll be looking at the future of fuels and transportation throughout the month of September. We'll talk to Vijay about his latest book, ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future.