Craig Shields interviews Paul Scott as part of the TV series, “The 2GreenEnergy Video Report.” This is the complete 30 minute interview. There are also short clips of this interview available by searching for “Paul Scott” on the 2GreenEnergy.com website.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been working on a new book on renewables, which is just about completed — it’s largely based upon interviews of some of the top 25 minds in the renewable energy industry. I plan the main title of the book to be: RENEWABLE ENERGY: FACTS AND FANTASIES, as it addresses the tough realities of clean energy from a wide range of perspectives: technological, economic, and political.
If I may ask a quick favor, I need some help determining the subtitle. Please click the following link and select your choice for a subtitle.
Title: RENEWABLE ENERGY: FACTS AND FANTASIES
Subtitle #1) Examining the Technological, Economic, and Political Implications of Mankind’s Most Important Challenge
Subtitle #2) Interviews with 25 Subject-Matter Experts
Subtitle #3) Exploring the New Energy “Triumvirate”: Technology, Economics, and Politics
Subtitle #4) How Proper Direction in Clean Energy Will Prevent the Immanent Collapse of our Standard of Living
Please write your preference in the comments below. Minimally, I’d love your feedback on what you consider to be your favorite subtitle. If you are also able to provide a sequence from best to worse, that would be even more helpful.
Finally, if you wish to suggest an alternative title, please do so.
Thanks.
One of my most important jobs here at 2GreenEnergy is speaking with the few dozen people who call or write each week looking for help with their clean energy projects. I conduct these interviews with an eye toward helping out in some fashion in any of the wide range of disciplines that is represented by our Associates: engineering, IP protection, raising capital, etc. But in truth, my first thought is to look at the caller’s problem as a marketing challenge. In the words of a friend of mine, “I’ve never seen a business problem for which more sales revenue was not the solution.”
In particular, I find myself repeating the same advice: conduct market research. Whether you do it yourself or outsource it to a team like ours, you need to find a rigorous, disciplined way to develop a profound understanding of your target customer segments.
Establish market demand — by segment. What do various kinds of people want? Why do they want it? How and where do they want to buy it? How are their workstyles and playstyles changing in ways that are most relevant to the matter at hand? What are the gut-wrenching emotional issues that are keeping them up at night – and how does what you’re offering address those topics?
I was looking at an old project database the other day and had a realization that made me feel kind of, well, old. Since I started out in the early 1980s, I’ve done more than 800 market research projects — for clients on five continents: IBM, H-P, Sony, 3M, Xerox, Philips, Pioneer, Magnavox, Mitsubishi, Porsche, AT&T, FedEx – not to mention hundreds of smaller, venture-capitalized start-ups and the like. From those research efforts were sprung some of the most well-known – and (at the risk of appearing immodest) most successful, highest-ROI campaigns the business-to-business marketing world has even seen.
If you’d like to discuss your venture in the context of market research, please don’t hesitate to contact us; we’d love to chat about your specific mission.
In fact, feel free to call right now; just hit “contact.” I’m in the office all this week — on and off the phone — as usual.
“China missed the first industrial revolution, missed the computer revolution, and the biology revolution – they want to be a leader in the green revolution,” said Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy. (Scientific American, “Is ARPA-E Enough to Keep the U.S. on the Cutting edge of a Clean Energy Revolution?” March 3, 2010).
And indeed they are rushing ahead. From nowhere, they are now the third largest producer in the wind power market and one of the fastest-growing in domestic wind installations. For the fourth consecutive year, says the World Wind Energy Report 2009, China doubled its wind installations, which is no small feat. While the U.S. was number one in world total installed capacity with China number two, China had the most share of new capacity in 2009 (13,800 MW to America’s 9,922 MW). The following chart, courtesy the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) illustrates new capacity in 2009.
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You may have noticed a few posts on the subject of corruption. And coincidentally, my friend Mike Austin of Blue Planet Almanac wrote earlier today to alert us to a website on the subject. I call your attention to Transparency — a wonderful organization that, for 15 years, has been helping people understand and deal with corrupt regimes. Part of this is the “CPI” – Corruption Perception Index — a quantitative rating of the level of corruption that 180 countries around the world are perceived to suffer under.
Are you curious? Where do you think the United States sits with respect to the others in terms of perceived corruption in the public sector? Check it out.
Of course, this is all about the perception of corruption — as opposed to its reality. People perceive all kinds of yo-yo things — even unaided by a media that is deliberately distorting the picture. Still, I find it interesting.
Blue Planet Almanac founder and host Mike Austin was gracious enough to have me live on his radio show a few weeks ago. For anyone who would like to hear the podcast, here it is. Click on February 22.
Mike is a fantastic guy with a great mission. Best of all, he has and a warm and calming on-air demeanor — a good thing to have around, since I’m sometimes not 100% calm on live radio and television.
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced controversial legislation on March 3, 2010 that could affect renewable energy and specifically wind. He says that stimulus money is going abroad and wants to suspend the program; his legislation wants the law fixed so all funds stay in the U.S. If this legislation passes, stimulus funds will have a “Buy American” clause that applies to any government project that is awarded funding.
Schumer specifically took aim at a large wind farm project in Texas. Announced last October, the project is a joint venture between Texas-based Cielo Wind Power, China’s Shenyang Power Group and the U.S. Renewable Energy Group. Cielo and U.S. Renewable Energy Group own 51% of the joint-venture. The project is expected to cost about $1.5 billion, and would be one of the largest wind farms in the U.S. When complete, the 600 MW project could generate enough electricity for 180,000 homes.
Cielo President Walt Hornaday said the company has not applied for stimulus funds, and that at least 70 percent of each turbine will be manufactured in the U.S. Vice Mayor Yang Yazhou oversees environmental protection and economic growth in the city of Shenyang. He said in a press release on October 29th, 2009 that the project would demonstrate “…how the two countries can share both the risks and the benefits in a huge wind power project.” (Reuters, Washington D.C., October 29, 2009).
On the morning of March 12th, plans were announced that two of the players Schumer has targeted, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, Ltd. (a shareholder in Shenyang Power and China’s leading provider of power generation systems) are to build a large wind turbine plant in Nevada along with America Nevada Group. The 320,000 +/- square foot property would employ about 1,000 Nevada workers. It would supply turbines for the Texas Cielo joint venture project as well as supply customers in North and South America. (Las Vegas Sun, “Plant to Bring Green-job Windfall”, by Stephanie Tavares. March 12, 2010). Will this news dampen the firestorm started by Schumer?
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I appreciate all the comments to my recent article “On Corruption.” If my schedule permitted me time to respond to them all, I certainly would.
For some perverse reason, I am more apt to pry loose a few mintues to reply to comments that put me on the defensive – especially astute ones, like this one from Andrew, who asks some very good questions, including:
“You seem to be against a profit motive in health care. If so, you are on the wrong side of history. Whenever the profit motive is removed, innovation is also greatly diminished (if not eliminated). Do we want that in our health care?”
And …
“Would you argue that the profit motive should also be removed from your own industry?”
Whenever I wax philosophic, I know I’m doing so at the risk of alienating large groups of people. And insofar as I’m primarily a businessman and not a philosopher, I should probably keep my utopian ideas to myself. But as long as it’s come up, I may as well say that, in an ideal world, I think that certain human pursuits should be not a part of our for-profit world. I would start with criminal justice — but right behind that I would put healthcare. I believe professionals in this arena should be well very paid, but I think it’s clear that a profit motive works directly against the health and wellbeing of everyone in our society – except, of course, shareholders.
Again, I hesitate to mix political philosophy with business, but if you want to know more about my ideas here – including how I believe that the pharmaceutical industry should be reined in against its attempt to completely rape our people, please see this essay.
Thanks again for the honest communication, Andrew. And please keep up the counter-argument. It’s only by questioning our beliefs that we grow.
Here’s more about shale natural gas:
Pundits in the US natural gas industry have revised supply estimates in last few years. In effect, some companies claim to be able to increase sustainable production over the long term.
Exxon is a big player in energy by any standards and the company’s halo effect is likely to bring about the positive change for the market participants including natural gas explorers, producers and transporters. The deal has overnight changed the sentiments for shale natural gas. In a recent deal, Carrizo Oil & Gas sold some of its stake in a Texas shale project to Sumitomo Corporation for US$15.7 million.
Onshore produced shale gas with lower transportation costs is likely to be used in electricity generating plants (replacing coal), heating and cooling our homes and power automobiles. However, it would be wrong to conclude that natural gas is the sure shot remedy to all our energy issues. ExxonMobil has some synergies to justify a 25 percent premium on XTO Energy. Besides being an oil giant, ExxonMobil has a chemical business and thus can use the feedstock in any of its chemical facilities.
In the US, shale gas resources are very large and relatively evenly distributed over several states unlike oil. Some analysts claim that the shale gas could contribute up to half of the US total gas production by 2020. Such a scenario would be highly satisfying for US with reduced dependence on not just foreign oil, but also from greener sources which are highly dependent on specific countries for key components (Read rare earth metals in China and lithium supplies in Bolivia).
A recent run-up in the stock prices of shale gas companies warrants for a caution. Like other times, it appears that Wall Street has underestimated the real cost of shale gas, and overestimated how fast its production can be expanded. Some studies point towards the overestimation of shale gas supplies by some companies. Also, there are some concerns regarding the long term viability of shale gas extraction in a lucrative manner.
Empirical data tells us that the production in shale formations drops off rapidly after two to three years of high production. However, it will be too early to write off this option only on the basis of high price, that also when a lot of other energy sources are getting federal grants for relatively expensive technologies. The competitive landscape is expected to become clear in next two to five years after the production of shale gas starts on a mass scale. In due course of time, we’ll come to know if all this hype is real or just fizz.
Every so often, I like to write a short article that gets us thinking about the rate at which electric vehicles will be assilimated into our culture and brought onto our roads, replacing internal combustion engines. Here are a few ideas to consider.
1) What does Big Auto think (or, at least, claim that they think) about EV production rates? Considering there are 230 million cars on the road in the US alone, the needle will not be moving in the short-term:
Nissan: Has pre-orders for 56,000 LEAF all-electric cars.
GM: Last year, had 50,000 expressions of interest in the Chevy Volt, though presumably that figure is somewhat larger now.
Mitsubishi: Bumped up its 2011 production schedule of the i-MiEV from 8,500 units to 9,000.
Better Place: Placed an order with Renault for 100,000 electric vehicles based on the Fluence ZE for its deal with Israel.
2) But is there any reason to believe anything coming out of Detroit?
Today, the population of Detroit is about half of what it was in 1950. The city has 33,500 empty homes and 91,000 vacant lots. A recent AP article asserts that vacant property totals 40 square miles. But Big Auto is not at all apologetic for the meltdown, and points out they couldn’t have foreseen the dynamics of oil prices that created sharp inflection points in the demand for fuel-efficient vehicles in favor of the Hummer and other gas-guzzlers. If this is false, they’re disingenuous; if it’s true, they’re incredibly obtuse. Either way, it’s hard to trust what they’re saying.
One thing for sure: there is nothing good in EVs for the big OEMs. They are happy to drag this transition out for decades, selling gas- and diesel-based cars and trucks as long as possible.
3) The Department of Energy apparently is not bullish on pure (battery) EVs.
Check out this report on the future of the automobile. Although the author sees lots of hybrids in our future, he really doesn’t see any pure EVs. Remarkable. I have to think this is simply a mistake.
4) Industry analysts are hedging their bets.
As reported in EV World, Accenture recently performed a survey that showed that six out of 10 consumers are more likely to buy a hybrid or electric vehicle “only when it is superior to gasoline-only models in every way.”
I understand that merely “being green” isn’t good enough for the vast majority of car buyers. But this report strikes me as the usual MBA malarky — a consultant who reads your watch and then tells you what time it is. What about the other 40%? Isn’t that a substantial market? And what exactly does “superior in every way” mean, exactly? How will the typical consumer react to a value proposition that includes dramatically lower fuel cost and huge reductions of other pieces of his total cost of ownership?
My belief: Give me a freeway-speed battery EV with comparable fit and finish to a garden-variety 5-passenger sedan, a 75-mile range, and price tag under $25,000 after rebate, and you won’t be able to manufacture enough of them.
