One of the big challenges in doing business in the 21st Century is that so many people seem to have forgotten the adage, of Asian origin I suppose, that “what goes around comes around.” Where the standards of professionalism 20 years ago required people to return phone calls and follow through on their commitments, that model has clearly gone out the window. We see examples constantly, where people behave so incredibly poorly — even where doing the right thing would have been completely painless and clearly to their own benefit.

But exactly why has this changed?  Has there suddenly come an upside in being regarded as a flake or a liar? Sorry, I’m lost here.

As I told a friend in New York the other day, in description of a mutual acquaintance who has simply disappeared, falling completely out of touch, when all either of us represented to him was the possibility of raising investment capital for his company, “He appears to have been born with an appalling lack of both basic manners and common sense.” Again, I don’t see the upside to anyone in having people saying things like that.

In contrast, I like the approach of a friend, a financial consultant with Wells Fargo Advisors in Santa Barbara. In his email signature is the phrase:

“There is one very powerful business rule. It is concentrated in the word courtesy.” – Henry Wells, 1864

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AltEnergyStocks.com wizard Tom Konrad comments on my piece on the gating factor for consumer adoption of electric vehicles:

I think the largest barrier is sticker shock.

Range anxiety does not stop anyone from buying the Volt, and Leafs are selling better. Where’s the range anxiety?

The problem with the Betamax analogy (i.e., that consumers are concerned about investing in what could be the automotive equivalent of the Betamax, a video technology that didn’t catch on) is that the problem with Betamax was you could not get videos to watch on it. With an EV, (more…)

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Green car blogger Jon LeSage and I had identical experiences early last week. We both came across each other’s names, recognized them from our travels in the industry, and said, “I want to talk to that guy.” This all culminated in a three-hour lunch yesterday in Santa Monica, CA.

Jon is the Automotive Editor, Green Initiatives at Automotive Digest Weekly Green, which goes out to about 60,000 readers/viewers. I had come across his stuff largely in connection with the role I play at EV World, consulting to various types of players in electric transportation. Jon has a fantastic command of the language and real personality and voice as a writer.

More importantly, he’s on the right side of the issues here. In fact, if I had any complaint about the lunch experience, it was that we agree on practically everything; I like a bit of controversy with my crab and arugula salad.   (more…)

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A wonderful gentleman, Peter Kusterer, blogger extraordinaire from North Carolina called me the other day, and we chatted for some time. At the conclusion, he graciously asked me to send him any concluding thoughts I might have before he published his report on our talk. I thought I’d put them online:

Peter:

I so enjoyed our talk the other day. At the close, you asked me to summarize my thinking on our prospects for clean energy and how this affects the trajectory for our civilization. In a nutshell: (more…)

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Africa faces the greater challenge of energy access, energy availability and energy affordability than all the rest of the world. Assessment undertaken in 2008, Africa was the lowest per capita energy consumer averaging 0.66 tons of oil equivalents (TOE) compared to the global average of 1.8 TOE. The greater challenge to energy development especially renewable energy is weak or lack of policy and effective renewable energy development institutions, low technology acquisition, low investment and inadequate financing. Government policy and unfavorable political good will rank higher as factors.

Successful development of renewable energy requires strong political will, government regulatory and fiscal muscle, incentives for private sector, innovative financing, considering the opportunity in clean development mechanism and technical capacity building. Policy makers in African governments have not given adequate attention to the potential of meeting renewable energy challenges of Africa. The continent is endowed with vast renewable energy resources, the continent has 1,750 TWh potential for hydropower and 14,000 MW potential geothermal, and potential for solar throughout the year. Wind power potential is also abundant.

(more…)

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I’d like to call readers’ attention to this discussion of the validity of electric transportation.  In fact, the discussion began earlier in this piece on bashing electric vehicles.   There are a lot of interesting ideas here that challenge the way the EV community generally sees the issue.

I would like to add one more variable into the equation: distributed generation. I bring this up partially because I know people who spec’d the solar arrays they put on their roofs specifically to charge their EVs, and partially because distributed solar (not to mention  distributed wind/geo/hydro), has a real shot to change the energy paradigm in the not-too-distant future. (more…)

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Did you know that is takes electricity and water to make oil  into gasoline ? This is part of the refining process. The following facts are from a great article that Peder Norby did on oil refining. He walks the talk driving his MINI-E electric everyday and making the electric for it on his Solar system.

He shows how it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas that you can drive in an EV! (more…)

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Hawaii has been known as a land of paradise. They have a great climate and can grow anything anyplace. But did you know Hawaii runs most of paradise on oil-generated electricity? Of course, all of the oil is imported too.

Recently becuase of fast growing prices they started looking at renewable energy in Hawaii. They found they have great solar, wind, hydro wave and currents and even geothermal energy. They are now just starting to develop these great renewable energy sources.

In Hawaii they have have many small islands and micro grids that are not connected. This makes it difficult to combine all the great renewable energy sources they have into an efficient grid. (more…)

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It’s the birthday of Mark Twain, who said, “Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.”

I’m afraid he’s nailed something here. There is a great deal of truth in what we are doing in our advocacy of clean energy, but if it does indeed win the day, it certainly will not be due simply to that one characteristic.

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Glenn Doty is an extremely senior scientist who studies the macro-world of energy, and doesn’t like what he sees regarding electric transportation. He writes:

While I have tremendous respect for you and the work that you are doing, I have very little respect for the people who compiled that study that you referenced.

The simple truth is that you cannot claim “grid mix” for a new marginal increase in grid demand. If you plug in a new toy (EV), they can’t do a rain dance to get additional energy from the hydropower dam… nor will they amp up the local nuclear reactor to provide more power… The only possible source for the energy going into NEW demand will be what is currently SPARE capacity – that’s natural gas and coal. (more…)

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