This comes on top of the Solyndra fiasco, and the news of Ener1’s bankruptcy and also Beacon Power! What is going on here in the U.S. with the renewable energy sector? How many more ventures will fail in the next year? Can anyone blame private investors for not wanting to invest in this market sector? What will it take to bring investors to the table in our own Country to build a stake in our renewable’s future? (more…)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbJYGg9VjiI]In this short video, I speak to my level of optimism about the outcome for our society, based on its fantastically poor energy policy. In brief, if there’s hope it lies in a) people understanding the subject well enough to advocate for good ideas and against bad ones, and b) people actually caring, and believing that they can make a difference. In the absence of those two factors, we’re sunk.
I responded, hoping to prompt more discussion: “That’s an interesting but impossible question to answer. What is the nature of your interest in the subject, if I may ask?”
I post this brief conversation because it’s indicative of two much larger and incredibly important issues:
1) Computing the ROI for investors in new technologies like these is impossible, as no one can pick the winners from the losers at this point. Personally, I’m betting on solar thermal, and, though many agree, there are far greater minds than mine that don’t see it this way.
2) Not to get too flippant, but what’s the ROI on saving our civilization from destruction? According to Lester Brown, whom the Washington Post calls “one of the world’s most influential thinkers,”
Ice is melting so fast that even climate scientists are scrambling to keep up with the shrinkage of ice sheets and glaciers. The melting of the earth’s largest ice sheets—Greenland and West Antarctica—would raise sea level dramatically. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would raise sea level 23 feet. Melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, the most vulnerable portion of the Antarctic ice because of its exposure to both warming air and warming ocean water, would eventually raise sea level 16 feet. Many of the world’s coastal cities would be under water; over 600 million coastal dwellers would be forced to move.
Solar thermal holds the single greatest promise of clean, abundant, inexpensive energy — in the absence of which mankind will be unable to make its way across these next critical 50 years.
I’m sure this latter point was not contemplated in the reader’s question, but some folks may find it worth considering.
Like it or not, our civilization finds itself past the point of cheap energy and easy credit — confronted with a future that simply will not look like the past.
Here’s a short video in which I mention that we as a society need to redefine ourselves, that the “rich getting richer” is not sustainable. Moreover, this isn’t a bad — or even a painful thing, since when we are able to look past the thin veil of materialistic pleasures and begin to see our lives in grander terms, we find joys that we never knew existed.
This month’s webinar is a parade of good, solid concepts in renewable energy and electric transportation, and a discussion of the criteria that qualify a business plan as such. 2GreenEnergy co-founder George Alger will interview me, enabling me to discuss the process by which I’ve reviewed more than 700 cleantech business plans over the past 24 months, from which I’ve selected 19 opportunities I consider to be excellent. Each has a solid team, proven technology, and a large, protectable target market.
We hope you can join us on Tuesday, November 22 at 10 AM PST, for this fast-paced discussion, during which we’ll field your questions live.
Earth Policy Institute’s Lester R. Brown credits the Sierra Club and other activist groups for creating the conditions under which U.S. carbon emissions have fallen precipitously over the last couple of years – largely due to our new-found distaste for coal. The campaign Beyond Coal has resulted in an environment in which virtually no new coal plants are being built, and the oldest and dirtiest are likely to be decommissioned soon. Simultaneously, wind energy has grown dramatically, to over 40 gigawatts, lead by Texas, Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Illinois.
The obvious question, however, is this: If the U.S. economy heats back up, what precisely will we do to power it? Depending on the degree to which coal is regulated and taxed, it’s still the least expensive form of energy – and by far the least expensive form of non-intermittent “baseload” energy. If we do not force ourselves to pay for the externalities of coal (and other forms of energy), we will never create a climate in which renewable energy ultimately dominates our energy policy. But do we have the political will to do this?
Here’s a radio interview I did the other day on a station in Cedar Rapids, IA. The show is cleverly called “Clean Up Your Act,” and deals with hundreds of different issues associated with sustainability and clean energy, in particular. I thought this gentleman did a good job at peppering me with sharp, relevant questions.
“Sustainability” is such an important concept in our world today, and it’s magnificent to see so many people and corporate entities working hard to contemplate the effects their actions have on posterity. On the other hand, we come across atrocities every day that demonstrate how a great many of our deeds and policies run 180 degrees counter to this notion.
There is nothing magic about the number 7 billion, which, according to the United Nations, became the population of planet Earth sometime earlier today. The resources available to feed, clothe, house and transport the world’s people aren’t stretched far thinner today than they were yesterday. But it’s good to have milestones like this to cause us to think about where we’re going.
As discussed in this NPR segment, the critical pinch points of a growing population are not so much associated with running out of room, but running out of stuff. The populations that are growing fastest, those in India and Africa, are going to want to live like we do here in the US, i.e., as mega-consumers.
So what’s the big deal? Well, it’s that delivering on that promise of lots of stuff requires vast amounts of energy that currently can come only from fossil fuels and nuclear, all of which come with significant costs to the health and safety of our environment – as well as to us personally.
As physicist Dan Kammen, head of an energy laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley notes, “What’s needed is renewable energy that’s cheap and won’t run out. But by essentially every measure, we’re not moving fast enough.”
Those of us who can’t wrap our wits around the Republican party’s indifference (some might substitute “antagonism”) to the environment need to remember that the GOP didn’t always take this stance. This post on Mother Nature Network documents 
