I’m proud that Tom Konrad, famed stock market analyst and editor of AltEnergyStocks.com, offers his comments here frequently. In a post yesterday, he offered me guidance in wrapping my wits around the issue of green jobs, directing me to his thoughtful article on Forbes.com, linked below. There, Tom looks at the issue from the standpoint of basic microeconomics’ “production function” which suggests that labor can be freely substituted for capital and energy. He provides examples recently, including this one: 

Shifting people out of their cars and onto mass transit will create jobs because there will have to be drivers and people managing the transit system, where before no one was paid to drive. To the extent that the transit system can be paid for out of the reduced fuel costs and car ownership costs of the former drivers turned riders, the number of jobs created will be a pure economic gain.

But I wonder if it’s that simple. Even in this apparently straightforward example, doesn’t one have to ask about all the people associated with the shrinking auto industry? Moving individuals out of their cars and onto buses also affects everyone associated with the petroleum industry and the entire auto aftermarket: tires, smog checks, brake jobs, etc.

Having said this, from everything I’ve read on the subject, I’m convinced that “going green” represents a huge net gain in jobs, at least in the short-term. I can’t imagine how anyone can argue that the process of retrofitting our buildings for energy efficiency will not employ many times more people than will be lost in producing the electricity that is currently being wasted; principally these are people working in coal and natural gas.

It’s equally hard to argue that installing PV, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, hydro, and biomass facilities won’t employ more people than will be lost from the ranks of the traditional sources of energy – at least for a period of time. But that’s where it gets complicated, and I’m not sure anyone has the answer. What happens when all this stuff is installed and operational? Sure, there’s maintenance, but it’s minimal, since the fuel is free – and most of it’s coming at us non-stop from a hot yellow ball in the sky 93 million miles away.

And what about electric transportation? The migration from internal combustion engines to EVs is going to require a ton of people in batteries, smart-grid, telematics (the information and communications technology – “ICT” — connected with all this), not to mention the manufacturing of the EVs themselves. But now you have vehicles that go 500,000 miles before they even need a tune-up. That’s a lot of displaced auto mechanics.

Here’s a conclusion that’s fairly safe: The vast majority of what you read on this subject is horribly slanted. In most of what I’ve come across, figures are presented out of context (or made up out of whole cloth) to support a certain political ideology. The idea, for instance, that environmentalism is at odds with economic prosperity, a concept so dear to right wing demagogues, is totally specious, yet it’s easy to make that point and convince an audience of ignorant and angry people if you present certain numbers and omit others.

But let’s be honest with ourselves: it’s equally disingenuous to suggest that every innovation in clean energy and transportation will add jobs. Renewable energy is about technology, and technology has a tendency to displace human labor.  At the end of the day, the real imperative to move to clean energy and transportation is the health and safety of every living thing on Earth.  That’s at least somewhat important, isn’t it?

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As the name suggests, OTEC Corporation, whom I’m meeting next week on my trip back East, is one of the leaders in the development of ocean thermal energy conversion, a technology with huge potential to change the world energy picture. Best of all, these folks, while they’re true business professionals and leading scientists, are acutely aware of the environmental benefits that are at stake here.

Their website contains a wonderful section called “Common Ground” which begins with any excerpt from the writings of Amy Maddox: “Underneath We’re All the Same.”

He prayed, it wasn’t my religion.
He ate, it wasn’t what I ate.
He spoke, it wasn’t my language.
He dressed, it wasn’t what I wore.
He took my hand, it wasn’t the color of mine.
But when he laughed, it was how I laughed.
and when he cried, it was how I cried.

That’s what I love about what all of us clean energy folks all doing here. We really ARE bringing about a reduction in ecologically damaging process and doing something good for mankind and all life forms; we actually ARE making a difference. For once, the good guys are going to win one.

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Here’s a wonderful article that gets at an issue I come across constantly: the implication that environmentalism and job growth are opposed to one another.  Considering we have the option to put literally millions of people back to work in renewable energy, energy storage, electric transportation, smart-grid, etc., I’m always stunned when I hear politicians peddling the idea that eco-friendliness must come at the expense of the economy.  

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I have 13 meetings lined up over five days next week spread out from Washington, DC to Boston, starting with an interview with  Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, conservative think-tank in our nation’s capital. I successfully appealed to Mr. Taylor on the basis that I have frequent talks with liberal economists, clean energy advocates and progressive policy wonks, but, as I pride myself on fair-mindedness, I would love to sit down and talk about different perspectives.  After all, my next book’s working title: “Renewable Energy – Following the Money” suggests a wide range of political perspectives.  He agreed, and we’re on for Tuesday morning, at his office which is walking distance from my next two meetings.

In my use of the word “conservative,” I’m not suggesting that Mr. Taylor is some sort of knee-jerk right-winger. In fact, he’s distinguished himself as a man of incredible objectivity, in a world so pitifully lacking in this rare commodity. Here he is, arguing (very well) that President Obama handled the BP oil spill very well. Try to find that type of sane, levelheaded rhetoric coming out of any of the Republican presidential candidates.

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Here’s an article about a breakthrough in solar power efficiency, which serves as a reminder of an important fact: the cost of renewable energy can only fall, while the cost of fossil fuels can only rise.

I’m not saying that there is no technology involved in extracting fossil fuels and building nuclear power plants; in fact, quite the contrary. But renewable energy is completely based on technology, principally materials science and engineering, focused mainly on developing more efficient ways of converting the energy from the sun, in one form or another, into useful work.

Insofar as the Earth receives 6000 times more energy from the sun each minute than all 7 billion of us are using, it’s only a matter of time until breakthroughs like the one above get us to the point where we have an abundance of clean, cheap power.

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I was delighted with the discussion pursuant to my piece on moral philosophy and energy policy. I note that most comments support my beliefs that a) young minds should be exposed to man’s great questions, b) we all do, in fact, share a set of duties and responsibilities, and c) the way in which we generate and consume energy figures prominently here, as the externalities of burning fossil fuels are causing a considerable number of harmful effects – both to us here on Earth now, and to future generations.

The discussion was by no means unanimous, however. Someone wrote in, taking a run at me for my position that government needs to play an important role.  I’ve lost the email, but as well as I can remember, it read:

“No, impressionable minds should NOT be exposed to your braying about the importance of big government.”

To clarify, I’d love to see all this stuff happen in the private sector. I ran a business for 30 years, once employing over 200 people, and I don’t need to be convinced that, when one is spending one’s own money, there is an efficiency that is absolutely unavailable in government. Businesspeople don’t build bloated bureaucracies; we minimize all forms of waste. In fact, I almost never had internal meetings, and when I did, they were laser-focused and as brief as I could possibly make them.

The problem is this: in the absence of government, we’ll be burning coal and oil until this planet is in ruins. The private sector has no incentive to go into clean energy at all. The returns are long-term, and the capital costs, which are huge, are all up-front. Worse, we have a negative tax on carbon. We continue to subsidize the oil companies at far greater levels than renewables. As self-destructive as this sounds, our government pays the oil and coal companies billions of dollars a year, rewarding their destructive practices and encouraging them to continue.

Our civilization needs a force that can make some huge changes here, in essence, creating a level playing field. What does that mean? It means understanding the full costs of everything we’re doing, and arranging a way to cover those costs. As long as the fossil fuel boys can pass along the increased costs associated with things like lung disease and long-term environmental damage to you, me, and our children, there is no way on Earth that clean energy will ever make an impact in our world.

If you know of a way to make this happen in the absence of government, I’m all ears.

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I spoke at the Mark Taper Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles (pictured here) yesterday, introducing 2GreenEnergy to an audience of entrepreneurs, each of whom came with an idea, looking for investment capital. It’s always exciting to get behind a microphone and belt out the message:

 • Figuring out where we’re going vis-à-vis energy is fascinating, but it’s not easy. We face tough realities in terms of the technology, the economics, and the politics.

 • I’ll do everything I can to take good ideas forward, presenting solid business plans to an ever-growing set of investors, each hungry for exposure into clean energy and electric transportation.

This went really well; I got a lot of compliments on the talk, and met some terrific people on some fantastically important missions.

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Whenever I speak on renewable energy, I’m careful to leave my audience with a sense of the “tough realities.”  We all want simple answers to our questions, but in the case of clean energy, none exist.

There are dozens of different flavors of solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal, each improving in terms of cost and efficiency, but at different rates.  There are economic issues, as none of these flavors can compete with the dirtiest form of coal, if we don’t take into account the “externalities” like lung disease and environmental damage.  And Lord knows there are political issues, where we have serious candidates for president of the U.S. who, if elected, boldly pledge to dismantle our Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.  If this occurs, it would effectively end the efforts of the largest economy on Earth to migrate away from fossil fuels and nuclear. 

Here’s another in a series of infographics that attempts to put all this into perspective. Hope you enjoy.

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First, can someone tell me why philosophy isn’t taught in high school?  Is there some reason we think we need to shelter kids from life’s great questions until they’re older? I never taught the subject formally, though I tutored quite a few undergraduates while I was in graduate school, which often caused me to wonder how I would construct my own “101” course if I happened to be in that position, and at what age group I would present it.

What happened when mankind evolved to the point, about 10,000 years ago, that we had a solid grasp on basic agricultural principles, and so no longer needed to roam, hunting for and gathering food in a nonstop life-and-death struggle? What happened when we started to look up into the heavens — and the questions started to flow: Who made all this stuff? Why are we here? What happens when we die?

I’d certainly get the kids into questions like that – “speculative philosophy” as it’s called.  But I wouldn’t do so at the expense of “moral philosophy,” whose questions are different, though no easier: What is the nature of our responsibilities to others? What does it mean to say I have a “right” to do or have something? A “duty?” And from what do these rights and duties come? The bible? Our conscience? The mores of our group?

I bring this up because the debate about energy really unfolds along these lines. It boils down to this:

If we really don’t have a duty to anyone but ourselves, we can serve the world’s energy needs very well with fossil fuels. Yes, we’re running out of oil, but not right this minute. Yes, fossil fuels more generally are ruining our health and our environment, but they’re by far the cheapest way to power our civilization at this point in time. People who scoff at the idea of a duty to others say, “Look, we can generate baseload electricity with coal at about three cents a kilowatt-hour.   If that creates a problem, that’s too damn bad. Until someone can beat three cents, we’ll burn coal. ”

Yes, there is no doubt that we can do that. But don’t all people have certain rights — and others among us certain duties — that make this a more interesting question?

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I’m speaking at the “TechBrew MegaMixer” this Saturday afternoon at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. If you happen to live locally and are looking for something to do, please feel free to stop by. There is no charge for admission, and, having attended these events in the past, they’re really pretty cool. The basic concept is getting good entrepreneurial ideas for cleantech products and services in front of potential investors. Sounds like a legitimate concept, doesn’t it?

The event runs from 1 PM – 5 PM; I hope to see you there.

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