A few readers have written in, worried about Aptera, afraid that they might have gone belly-up. No, they’re alive and well, though still in pre-production. They’ve moved to a nice facility in Oceanside, which I plan to visit next time I drive to San Diego:
4010 Ocean Ranch
Oceanside, CA 92056
760-477-2300
Their website is out-of-date; I’ve encouraged them to get their act together there.
Bill Gates gave the concept of Feed-in tariffs a bit of a battering during his recent publicity drive to promote energy R&D funding.
Feed-in tariffs have given renewable energy companies a major boost in countries such as Germany and Spain. But Gates believes the money could have been better spent: “The world has spent a massive amount of money which, in terms of creating both jobs and knowledge, would have been far better spent on energy research,” he claims.
Gates firmly believes that R&D is the only viable solution and R&D will not be properly funded without government action. He sees a need for what he calls ‘miracles’ to reduce our CO2 emissions. Reductions of 20 per cent in CO2 output won’t cut it.
“There is absolutely no hope if you just say the world should use less energy. The only hope is less CO2 per unit of energy.” There is no existing technology that at anywhere near economic levels gives us electricity with zero CO2.”
I spent a chunk of the day hunting up mailing addresses for the most influential folks in environmentalism/sustainability I could find — the Al Gores and Bill McKibbens of the world. I’d like to send a a signed copy of Renewable Energy — Facts and Fantasies to each as a gift, as reciprocation for their work in enlightening the people around them.
I included people from Grist, Greenpeace, Mother Nature Network, World Wildlife Fund, and the United Nations’ Environmental Programme,. On the list are Tom Lovejoy from the H. John Heinz III Center for Economics and Science, Ken Cook from Environmental Working Group, Frances Beineke from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Robert Redford and the League of Conservation Voters, Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth/NY Times, Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, and other folks like Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Thomas Friedman.
If anyone has other good suggestions, please let me know.
My first duty tomorrow morning is dropping off my daughter Valerie at school.
Then it’s off to breakfast with Bruce Severance, one of the true visionary in electric vehicles and sustainability. I’ve spent many hours with Bruce — mostly driving all over the state — headed to EV conversion seminars, as well as meetings with battery suppliers, carbon composite car body designers, and everything in between.
The common denomintor? Listening. I don’t speak; I take notes.
Consuelo Mack’s award-winning show WealthTrack on PBS just aired the second part of the interviews they conducted with Bill Paul, 2GreenEnergy’s financial analyst. Again, our thanks to our friends at PBS for all the airtime, and congratulations on their decision to hail Bill Paul in the same way we do here: a visionary whose strength is based not on his bombast, but on his track record.
Of course, Bill’s core abilities lie in what he knows about the industry, and his ability to distill the enormous quantity of information he pores through every day. But I also admire the way he handles himself in front of the camera: he’s completely imperturbable. Catch his interviews here.
Traipsing around the Solar Power International show just now, I was struck by the overwhelming scale of the event itself. I was one of a swarm of people – tens of thousands of them from countries all over the world — rambling over two gigantic halls hosting acres of displays.
Accompanying that impression of enormous scope is the feeling that this industry is here to stay, communicated by how many older and established industries have formed strong interconnections. In addition to the dozens of PV and CSP systems (different technologies, configurations, materials, etc.), we have:
Components (uncountable numbers of connectors and subsystems)
Testing and certification (Companies that test everything from bulldozers to Band-Aids now have business practices that specialize in the safety and efficacy of solar.)
Robotics (Machine tools that make cars and printed circuit boards now arrange PV cells into panels.)
Supply chain management. (SAP had its own booth, demo’ing its enterprise resource planning software developed specifically for the solar industry.)
Financing (equity capital, debt, tax, project financing)
State and local government (each extolling the virtues of their region of the world)
Media (online, print magazines, and events)
I’m thrilled to see a trade show of that scope – one which, if it had been held 10 years ago, would have fit nicely in my living room.
I’m constantly amazed at how talented people are nowadays. Take the two folks who duked it out on this debate on California’s Prop 23 this morning on KPCC (Pasadena, CA) — both of whom did a terrific job of articulating their positions.
Of course, as a renewable energy advocate and a fan of living things, I have to admit that I was rooting for the No position, but that woman on the Yes side handled herself pretty darn well — in the face of what many people would consider overwhelming rationale in favor of her opponent. Not one but both gubernatorial candidates are against Prop 23, and 98% of the money funding the initiative comes from two Texas oil companies. I’m glad they didn’t ask me to try to defend that one!
If you have a few minutes, you may what to check it out.
The motto of 2GreenEnergy is: “The Answer’s Always Yes.” I.e., I don’t want to find myself in a position where I have to tell someone with a business in sustainability that I can’t help them due to my not having as associate in some particular business discipline. Yet several people have noticed that I don’t (yet) have an associate practicing the types of law that would be most relevant to entrepreneurs in this space, e.g., intellectual property protection.
I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a path to rectify this, and I think I’ve nailed it. At the Renewable Energy Finance Forum a couple of weeks ago, I met a top-notch lawyer with a not-too-ridiculous billing rate from Santa Monica, and I’m trying to put together a working arrangement. More soon.
The Bell Group's New Mexico parking lot solar array was built by Schott, a local solar company
The Bell Group announced at the end of August that they have built the largest solary array in New Mexico at their company headquarters. The five-acre installation uses more than 5,000 solar modules and will generate in excess of 1,600,000 kWh of electricity annually. That is enough to meet 80 percent of the company’s electricity needs there. Bell’s solar arrays form a roof over what was previously an open parking lot, shading employee and visitor vehicles as well as providing power.
The Bell Group’s array will not be the largest in the state for very long. The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Health Care System in Albuquerque, New Mexico, announced it is installing a 3.2 MW photovoltaic system that will include a car port as well as roof-mounted arrays. (more…)
A guy called me yesterday hoping to meet me at the Solar Power International show and ask me about the industry. I really don’t mind creating appointments to meet people; I have several lined up, as this is a major show — and right in my back yeard, too. But I wanted to get a preview of what he wanted.
“Oh we plan events. I want to know the most probably future for residential PV is — the precise adoption curve that the industry expects to see. I just spoke with Stephen Lacey from Renewable Energy World.”
I laughed. “I’ll be happy to talk with you. But you’ve already gotten the scoop from the world’s foremost expert. Stephen is about half my age, but he knows 10 times more about industry details like this than I ever will. The young man is ‘nails’ – as I like to say.”
I’m not a walking encyclopedia, but I’ll be there as well. If anyone wants to chat, please let me know.
