The future usually arrives…later. Some things, however, zoom past the anticipation-and-frustration period.

Tell someone in 1980 about the future of cellphones or in 1990 about the near-term reality of the Internet or in 2000 about the development of drones or driverless. None of these advances seemed possible.

If we are to snake our way through the Anthropocene, it would be really advantageous if solar and other renewables were among these black swan technologies. In a Washington Post editorial, Vivek Wadhwa predicts energy will soon be clean, ubiquitous and free. That doesn’t seem likely, but I suppose it’s not impossible. One important caveat: There are entrenched corporate interests that don’t want to see it happen and could slow down the process.

Wadhwa’s opening:

In the 1980s, leading consultants were skeptical about cellular phones. McKinsey & Company noted that the handsets were heavy, batteries didn’t last long, coverage was patchy, and the cost per minute was exorbitant. It predicted that in 20 years the total market size would be about 900,000 units, and advised AT&T to pull out. McKinsey was wrong, of course. There were more than 100 million cellular phones in use in 2000; there are billions now. Costs have fallen so far that even the poor — all over world — can afford a cellular phone.

The experts are saying the same about solar energy now. They note that after decades of development, solar power hardly supplies 1 percent of the world’s energy needs. They say that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies. They too are wrong.  Solar will be as ubiquitous as cellular phones are.•