Time to give oil and gas some push back
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 |
This article appeared in The Grid, a monthly magazine published by Vestas. You can access the original piece here.
By Mike Casey
For a new technology to maintain viability, it must bridge the chasm between attracting early adopters and convincing general consumers of its worth. The wind industry now finds itself in this chasm. Competitors from the fossil fuel industry are aggressively working to stop this leap and prevent wind energy from reaching the mass market.
In working for clean technology companies and pro-clean energy non-profits, my firm repeatedly sees evidence that coal, oil and gas companies use government and public relations as business competition tools against the wind industry.
This must not be ignored. Markets, good technology, and smart business execution alone won’t be enough to successfully scale wind technologies. But by understanding the effort directed at the wind industry, wind companies can take steps to keep the adoption curve chasm crossable.
As context, five years ago, a price on carbon and an international warming treaty were “inevitable”. Coal, oil and gas industries stopped these joint policy threats to their business by vastly expanding their already robust PR and lobbying capacities. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and advertising campaigns to defeat clean energy legisla- tion between 2009 and 2010.
They have now re-purposed some of that capacity to damaging the commercial and policy credibility of wind energy by portraying it as expensive, unreliable and “not ready” to meet nations’ electricity needs.
This message is being moved with a range of mutually reinforcing tactics such as professionally produced online television channels, paid spokespeople presented as unbiased sources, and faux membership groups. All are designed to form a message-disciplined, pro-fossil fuel echo chamber that perpetuates manufactured arguments against wind energy and “greenwashes” their own industry.
The fossil energy industry sees this as a business investment, an approach built on the understanding that when you don’t have the facts, you need volume. In the new media age, communications volume matters almost as much as facts.
This messaging challenge from competing energy sectors cannot be ignored. Decades of social science have shown that unchallenged messaging from one side typically gets through.
Fortunately, wind energy is in a great position to push back. Though wind energy can’t match fossil fuel spending on PR and lobbying, they don’t have to. Unlike fossil fuels, wind energy has an asset that fossil fuels must do without: high public support.
First, the industry must start using shared language like “affordable” and “ready” to describe the technology. Second, it needs to build an expanded echo chamber of supporters to push back on attacks. It can also use this echo chamber to proactively show wind energy success to the mass public. These tactics make the adoption chasm crossable and move the industry closer to long-term viability.▪
Mike Casey is founder and president of Tigercomm. Through the past 27 years, he has been advising clean-tech company executives, pro-sustainability non-profit leaders, and elected officials on building and running their communications programs. Casey has also served on two presidential campaigns and as a spokesman for a U.S. Senator, a Congressman, and two national environmental groups.
