Don’t get too comfortable in your gasoline-powered car and definitely think twice about investing in non-renewable energy. While fossil fuel companies still remain optimistic that coal and natural gas will remain dominant for quite some time yet, hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham isn’t so sure.
Based on stock market research, Grantham theorizes that clean energy technologies like solar- and wind-generated power may be lying just below the horizon.
Grantham predicts that in this dawn of the solar age, fossil fuel investments will see a sharper decline in value over the next couple decades than previously thought.
Smog from gasoline and diesel-powered cars is forcing China’s hand in clean energy development. As Chinese people complain more and more of hazardous living conditions created by air pollution, the country with its 200 million electric vehicles is at the forefront of solar energy installations.
Declines in battery costs, Grantham suggests, could bring the clean energy found in cars like the Tesla within reach of the average individual.
More affordable electric cars combined with the rising cost of fossil fuels would increase demand for alternative energy power stations, which could then trigger an exponential increase in demand for electric cars.
Grantham stipulates that we may see the rise and fall of oil demand before we see the end of its supply. “The idea of ‘peak oil demand’ as opposed to peak oil supply has gone, in my opinion, from being a joke to an idea worth beginning to think about in a single year.”