No such thing as bad policy & Internet comparisons

One of the points discussed at the conference was how creating a policy, good or not, was better than nothing - prime example being the Renewables Obligation. I can see the reasoning behind it, something that helps a little is better than having nothing at all, especially when cumulative emissions are the important factor (it was mentioned that there have been something like 40 consultations in the last year, but despite groundbreaking targets, there has been little strategy or guidance to reach them). However, there's no guarantee that the policy helps rather than hinders, and it also assumes you learn from your mistakes adequately every time. Granted these maybe likely, but surely not certainties.

Take the example of biofuels, specifically first generation biofuels. Here and in the USA especially, reducing reliance on foreign oil is a key governmental concern, and when biofuels appeared to help with emissions as well, it hit two birds with one stone. Subsidies for growing biofuels were created and the market grew quickly. But because it became rather profitable, they competed (and usually won) against food crops as well as doubts being raised over their 'greenness'. So we are more aware of problems they can cause and future policies can take these into account, but has it had a net negative effect on biofuels or renewables in general, either in industry investment or public perception?

Something else I was watching today (featuring Robert Metcalfe) also mentioned corn ethanol and despite its problems, it may have paved the way for similar things in the future (Kyoto Protocol another example, not an great target, but was the first legally binding international agreement on greenhouse gases). In that video of a talk from a venture capitalist, who started in all things internet, I personally felt some of the things he said were a little too simplistic and disagree with others (we'll run out of fossil fuels so we'll stop emitting carbon and so there'll be no climate change and energy people have had their chance to solve the energy problem now it's his turn) however because he comes from a different viewpoint there were some interesting points.

• The IT community thought the future would see ever larger and more powerful computers, but of course we now have distributed computing (PCs, the web). Metcalfe suggested the same thing could happen with energy (microgeneration and supergrids). I can understand the comparisons but even though benefits of distributed energy (redundancy, capacity) are similar I'm not sure how likely it will happen, for a few reasons. The internet was in my opinion a solution looking for a problem; the infrastructure in the energy sector can last for up to 50 years and the monopoly of the big six energy companies is likely to be extremely difficult to shake (although the computing monopoly of IBM/AT&T was defeated in the early years). However if we do end up with a World Electricity Grid, instead of the web, we could call it the weg (okay needs work) or what Metcalfe called the enernet.
• Whether something similar to net neutrality issues (different level of services and/or access given to different people) occurs with energy. The debate is still going on regarding the net and I'd guess energy neutrality issues wouldn't come up until a decent sized super grid was in place, if at all.
• Early on they calculated the physical limit for bandwidth of copper cables was quite low (14.4Kbps - now its in Gbps) so they were concerned about maximising efficiency like we are today in energy. But for reasons I don't know they got past that, to the extent they had so much they didn't know what to do with, along with an ever increasing desire for bandwidth/information/speed. Metcalfe said he was in favour of efficiency, but it's not a primary concern. So with energy, is the need for efficiency paramount or having plenty of energy? (e.g. desalination, extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, social development). Certainly plenty of energy allows us to do great things, but surely energy costs a great deal greater than bandwidth so there are limitations not present in computing, meaning efficiency is the highest priority.
• Don't avoid technologies that appear non-scalable (energy is a huge problem, needs huge solutions, i.e. are scalable). Seemed to be something more appropriate to America (although there are probably examples in the UK) in the regard that niche products and ideas that don't immediately show full market potential are currently disregarded. Innovation and development are unpredictable so obviously I agree that ideas shouldn't be disregarded based upon short term analysis
• Look for the silver bullet. The previous paragraph showed a 'don't pick winners' ideology, whereas Metcalfes' explaination that we should actively look for silver bullets is in contradiction of that. Now I do think that there will be silver bullets, but it's incredibly difficult, if impossible, to know what they are, so we should continue with the 'don't pick winners' ideology in policy making. As an aside, Metcalf mentioned that nuclear storage is a tricky issue as we are looking for a solution to last 10,000 years. But that technological advancement is so fast and unpredictable that we should look to hold it for 100/200 years (on site) and a solution will have been found in the meantime. Having spent the odd hour looking at technology singularities, I can see the logic behind this, but again although it might be likely, it's not certain. Is that good enough for policy making though?
  

So food for thought.