Here’s Part Two of the interview that EVWorld editor Bill Moore conducted with me shortly after Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies was published last year. In the course of the discussion, he asked me to provide my high-level impression of some of the main clean energy technologies: solar, wind, biomass, and hydro.
Here’s an NPR spot on Bellingham, WA and their new rail terminal that will facilitate the shipment of enormous quantities of coal from Montana and Wyoming to China. Understandably, locals are not happy. Though some folks are salivating over the jobs that will be directly associated with building and operating the terminal, others fear a loss of tourism, as this historically pristine and eco-conscious spot loses its charm and becomes a temporary home to trains of coal cars, each one over a mile long, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Proponents assure community activists that all sorts of high technology will be deployed to minimize the coal dust that would otherwise coat the landscape and nearby Puget Sound. But most Bellinghamians aren’t thrilled to see their town become noisier, and associated with the dirtiest of all forms of energy.
It certainly does seem a shame that mankind can’t find a better way to conduct itself than mining coal out of the middle of the United States, shipping it by rail to Bellingham, and putting it on barges bound for China, where it will be burned in plants that belch forth their deadly fumes.
Please take a moment and consider the work of the Turimiquire Foundation, run by a dear friend, his brother, and a few others in a remote region of Northeastern Venezuela. You’ll travel a long way to find a group that, dollar-for-dollar, makes a bigger impact on our world. When Turimiquire first came to this rural valley in 1977, most young women were illiterate and began giving birth at the age of 14 or 15, bearing a new child every other year or so into their thirties. After decades of education and family planning, the entire demographic of the region has morphed into something far closer to sustainability.
Last year, Turimiquire’s first high school graduates succeeded in getting into community colleges in the nearby city of Cumaná, and several even made it into the State University. Now more students – especially the young women – want to attend one of the local community colleges where inscription is fairly open and low-cost…..
But there is little financial assistance available for even their modest needs. Turimiquire wants to support them in this brave new venture as well. Please reconsider adding this fine organization to your holiday gift list; I’m proud to have them on mine.
By some strange coincidence, I have a couple of clients whose company’s purpose is “to be acquired.” While there is nothing wrong with that per se, I suggest that it’s rather like putting the cart before the horse. I recommend getting the company into a position where it’s of great value, and that means filling a previous unmet market need.
Make yourself a pain in the neck to competitors in your space by eating into their market share. Or, better yet, dominate a new market category. If you can do that, the exit strategy takes care of itself.
I was giving a speech earlier this month about Energy Security, and while preparing the speech came upon some stark realizations about electrical generation in the US:
1) Solar is equivalent to an insignificant rounding error for electrical generation in the US.
2) Coal will remain by far the dominant form of electrical generation assuming the status quo for at least 5 years and will probably be the first or second generator for 10 years.
3) Assuming current trends, solar not be out producing petroleum product (petroleum liquids, petroleum coke) for about 4½ to 5 years.
4) Growth of 40% per year in 5 years solar will still be a rounding error for electrical generation in the US.
5) With growth of 60% per year in 5 years solar will finally achieve the status of being a rounding error for electrical generation in the US. (more…)
I’m down in Los Angeles for a series of meetings tomorrow, one of which I’ll conduct at the Huntington Library, where, for the princely sum of a $120 per year membership, I get unlimited visits during which I can bring a guest for free. As I’ve learned through experience, it’s a terrific place to discuss the business of renewable energy – far better than a cookie-cutter Starbucks or some sterile office building.
While we’re strolling through the building that houses the European art, I routinely point out this wonderful portrait of James Watt. If this is a true representation of his personality, it’s easy to see why people naturally took him and his steam engine so seriously.
To my shame, it was just now that I watched the movie “Fuel”; here’s a link to the film on YouTube.
I only wish I had the talent to make media so wonderfully accessible, so beautifully immediate in its impact.
Are there inaccuracies and oversimplifications? A few, regrettably. But they got almost all of it right – especially the core message: at the root of our oil addiction are the most powerful people on Earth, who have essentially bought the U.S. government in their quest to ensure their cruel monopoly remains in place.
My hat’s off to Josh Tickell and his team.
As we scour our civilization in an effort to identify and rid ourselves of all things unsustainable, perhaps we should look past cleantech for a moment and examine a wider circles of our lives – perhaps including our involvement with medicine. Rightfully, we’re all very grateful for the advancements in medical technology that are enabling us to live longer and healthier lives. But don’t we have an inkling that, just as we look back on the standards of medical practice 100 years ago with a mixture of pity and horror, the world even a few decades hence will regard what we’re doing here and now in the same way?
In particular, posterity will remember our generation for its fanaticism with the diagnosis of “disease” and the over-prescription of drugs for an enormous and ever-growing set of physical and mental conditions. This morning, 8 million school children in the U.S. alone received a dose of Ritalin, an extremely powerful psycho-active drug given to quiet the child’s mind – and thus his body, creating greater docility in an effort to address the effects of an ostensible disease, ADHD. Elsewhere today, tens of millions of adults will pop pills to deal with a wider range of other “diseases” — from restless leg syndrome to sexual dysfunction. For more on this, Google “pharmaceutical companies invent diseases” and check out some of the 1,120,000 sites that offer additional detail.
If you’ve ever wondered if there really are high net-worth individuals who happily invest their own money in start-up ventures, and calmly allow the entrepreneur to pursue his business, I’m here to tell you that such creatures do, in fact, exist. Here’s a picture taken a few weeks ago in Seattle, in which a friend and I are standing on either side of this glorious couple, Mr. and Mrs. William Eberlin, the angel investors in the ETM (Energy Transfer Merchant), a high-end EV charging station.
Note the Nissan LEAF and Tesla Roadster in the background of this ribbon-cutting ceremony for the ETM.
Here’s a grainy but clearly audible video in which EVWorld editor Bill Moore interviews me over a Skype session on my book, Renewable Energy — Facts and Fantasies. He’s a good guy, and asked some terrific questions.
