COPENHAGEN — The world is moving towards a new third industrial revolution based a new energy regime, argues US thinker Jeremy Rifkin as Europe considers how to reformulate its energy policy. ‘We are on the cusp of a new energy regime that will alter our way of life as fundamentally as the introduction of coal and steam power in the 19th century and the shift to oil and the internal combustion engine in the 20th century’, argues Mr Rifkin in an interview with the EUobserver. ‘The hydrogen era looms on the horizon and the first major industrial nation to harness its full potential will set the pace for economic development for the remainder of the century.’ To back up his thesis, he says that Hitachi and Toshiba are planning to bring the first portable fuel cells to the market in 2007. Consumers will be able to power up their cell phones, lap top computers, digital cameras, and Mp3 players with a single cartridge. And the first mass-produced vehicles are expected to be in the showrooms between 2010 and 2012, he points out. ‘Today’s centralised, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies will then […]