Jeremy Rifkin - The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World

PRAISE FOR THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

A provocative strategy for transforming the global energy system. This book may help frame the social and economic solutions for the 1.5 billion poorest people who lack access to clean, reliable, and efficient energy services.

Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella, director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and chairman of UN Energy

Jeremy Rifkins intellectual rigor, combined with lively and engaging prose, has produced a timely and important work on how to diversify our energy sources in order to create a world in which people can live well and within the limits of the planet.

Bjrn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

As the chairman of a global real estate services company, Im convinced that Jeremy Rifkins vision of rethinking buildings as green micro-power plants is the future. But to do this, we need the courage to act quickly and lay the foundation for the Third Industrial Revolution. So lets get on with it.

Bruce Mosler, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield Global Brokerage

Very compelling... while many experts focus on how to transform our energy systems, few offer such a comprehensive economic vision and social road map as Jeremy Rifkin. The Energy Internet will lift our world to a new plateau of economic growth, while at the same time addressing climate change and increasing our energy security.... A must-read.

Guido Bartels, chairman of the Global Smart Grid Federation

An exciting vision for a post-carbon society. Rifkin embeds green transport inside a new high-tech Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure, re-framing the very concept of human mobility. This could well be the future of transportation.

Alan Lloyd, president of the International Council on Clean Transportation

The old ways of creating wealth just dont work anymore, and politicians the world over are struggling to cope with the convergence of financial meltdown, huge debt, rising commodity and energy prices, accelerating climate change, and food and water shortages. The Third Industrial Revolution presents us with a breathtakingly exciting alternative that will create the jobs, the profits, and the technological breakthroughs we now so urgently need.

Jonathon Porritt, founder and director of Forum for the Future

Jeremy Rifkins Third Industrial Revolution sets forth a comprehensive, realistic, technically sound, market-driven model for transitioning the global economy into a more sustainable future. Rifkins vision of Distributed Capitalism strikes a powerful chord among leading CEOs in the design and construction industries who will be tasked with turning the theory and promise of a Third Industrial Revolution into reality.

Mark Casso, president of the Construction Industry Round Table

Erudite and highly entertaining... Jeremy Rifkin sees the reality of the Third Industrial Revolution overturning conventional economic theory, doing away with traditional political ideologies, and redefining capitalism itself. This is a book no serious thinker should miss.

Stphane Rambaud-Measson, president of Passengers at Bombardier Transportation

HOW LATERAL POWER IS TRANSFORMING
ENERGY, THE ECONOMY, AND THE WORLD

JEREMY RIFKIN

THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Copyright Jeremy Rifkin, 2011
All rights reserved.

First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 978-0-230-11521-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rifkin, Jeremy.
The third industrial revolution : how lateral power is transforming energy, the economy, and the world/Jeremy Rifkin.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-230-11521-7 (hardback)
1. Energy development. 2. Power resourcesEnvironmental aspects. 3. Industries. I. Title.

HD9502.A2R54 2011
333.79dc22
2011009609

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Letra Libre, Inc.

First edition: October 2011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

The European Unions priority task in the first half of the twenty-first century will beto quote Jeremy Rifkinto lead the way to the Third Industrial Revolution. Reducing CO2 emissions is only part of the story: the time for a switch to a low-carbon economy has come.

This is no Utopia, no futuristic vision: in twenty-five years time, we will be able to construct each building as its own mini power station producing clean and renewable energy for its own needs, with the surplus being made available for other purposes.

These are the pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution, which Jeremy Rifkin has described so powerfully: greater use of renewable energies, the construction of buildings which produce their own energy, and the transition to the use of hydrogen for energy storage.

What is at stake is the future of the European Unionand we should not be so complacent as to understand the word future as meaning only something which comes after us!

We must not miss the opportunity to usher in the Third Industrial Revolution: it offers us a chance to put the European economy on a forward-looking and sustainable footing and, in that way, to secure its competitiveness in the long term.

Hans-Gert Pttering, president of the European Parliament, speaking at the European Unions second Citizens Agora,
June 12, 2008

PART I
THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

PART II
LATERAL POWER

PART III
THE COLLABORATIVE AGE

I would like to thank Nicholas Easley, who heads up our global operations, for his stellar job in overseeing the Third Industrial Revolution master plans and his valuable editorial contributions to the book. Id also like to thank Andrew Linowes, our programs director, for his rigorous stewardship of our day-to-day operations and for his many valuable editorial contributions to the book. I would also like to acknowledge our interns Flore De Sloover, Alma Velazquez, Valbona Tika, Lauren Bush, Bart Provoost, Divya Susarla, Bobby Samuel, Brian Bauer, Petros Kusmu, and Shawn Moorhead for their able assistance in preparing the manuscript.

I would also like to thank my editor, Emily Carleton, for her enthusiasm and deep commitment to the project, as well as for her many editorial suggestions that helped shape the final book. Thanks also to my agent, Larry Kirshbaum, for his editorial suggestions in preparing the initial book proposal and for positioning the book for the global market.

A special thanks to Angelo Consoli, who has directed our European operations for the past nine years. Mr. Consolis political acumen and tireless dedication has been instrumental in making the Third Industrial Revolution vision a reality across Europe.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Carol Grunewald, for her trusted advice and consul over the past twenty-two years. Our shared dream of creating a more sustainable world for every human being, as well as for all of our fellow creatures, has been the inspiration that has guided our journey.