Industry, that one word encompasses all that is good and bad in modern society today. The good, of course being that we get products, although not all of them needed for survival, we get what we want and we constantly see innovation; without industry and its research and development, along with its dedication to always reinventing itself when it can, we would see our world grind to a halt. However, industry, for all its greatness, is also a vast evil of energy consumption and a reservoir of pollution in the form of chemical byproducts and waste. It is with this in mind that industry needs to be brought into the fold of the Electric Future, as they are one of the largest consumers of raw electrical power. It is because of this consumption of raw power that they are indeed one of the largest polluters, as traditionally that power came from coal and petrochemicals, however with the switch to a near emissions free source of power, that problem is chopped neatly in half or even more.
        This does not mean that change should be stopped, but instead it should continue to be pressured to use cleaner and more efficient methods of production in order to guard against the excesses we see today in terms of using our own environment as a waste disposal center en masse. We don't excrete where we eat, and neither should they, therefore it is only logical that we should encourage (and by encourage I mean practically force) changes in how they do business and their policies on waste. I do not mean micro-managing them, but I do mean strict if not crippling punishments for violations. They are free to watch their bottom lines and increase their incomes, as long as it is not at the expense of everyone else's well being. After all, I certainly do not wish to see children born with three arms and four eyes on half a head, no matter how interesting it may seem to some of those who like side shows.
        The goal will be to clean industry from the inside out by having certain unbreakable rules which they must adapt to. Exceptions can be made it those extremely rare cases in which some emissions must occur, however this is already a rare instance of when something must be burned or a chemical change made which has byproducts, however those byproducts will need to be disposed of in a responsible (read: not dumping) way. It is such a crock to hear the CEOs or other representatives of companies' ballyhoo and bellyache about how it will be so hard for them to change things, about how much it will hurt them to… but if they want to stay in business they had better suck it up and just do it. No one likes a crybaby. Especially a rich one complaining about how they might be inconvenienced by such trifle things as a place to live that is clean because it might hurt their bottom line. As if innovation, having gone from horses to vehicles and 1mhz computers to 3ghz quad core computers would be inconvenienced by change - the very thing that already drives it. It is amazing to think of how they made it this far! Sarcasm aside, it is more than a bit disheartening to hear how difficult it would be for a company to make a fuel efficient car in a westernized country, when half a world away they have twice the average efficiency.
        It is key to this Electric Future that industry is more efficient, as well as everyone else of course (commercial and residential areas along with the aforementioned transit and such), so that energy costs are lowered while availability is increased - they go hand in hand if you did not notice already. With this completed not only will it be a cleaner future, it will also be a brighter one, in which there is enough electrical energy to power the world, and its population. With enough power crops can be grown indoors, and indeed, the issues of hunger related shortages and the future crisis with overpopulation might be mitigated, if not avoided completely. Our entire world needs electricity to survive; if we ever lost power we could lose billions of people in just the first few months. The population could shrink dramatically without our electricity and warfare would be one of the results if we ran out of the ability to power everything. Resources would be hoarded, and of course, industries would fall along with the rest of us. Conserving energy and cutting consumption is the single best way to avoid disaster - and industry cutting its power needs would be very beneficial to us all and the world at large. A better industrial infrastructure for a better future is very possible - all it takes is some willpower.

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