Review: The Hidden Cleantech Revolution by John Moore and Toby Shute

An ugly truth of the new green economy is that the energy transition away from carbon-based fuels will be slow and powered by the very fuels from which we're transitioning.  We'll be using coal, oil, and natural gas for many years to come. 

Here at The Green Skeptic we've long made the point that we need to fire on all cylinders during this long transition, but do so in a way that is less destructive, less harmful to the environment and that seeks efficiency and fosters innovation.

John Moore and Toby Shute, authors of The Hidden Cleantech Revolution share this view and extrapolate on it in their slim book subititled "Five Priorities for Securing America's Energy Future -- Without Breaking the Bank."

Moore is Chair and CEO of Acorn Energy, a holding company focused on improving the efficiency and environmental impact of the energy infrastructure, and Shute writes about energy for The Motley Fool. 

They suggest that alternative generation is "destined to have negligible impact on our energy challenges for at least two decades." (Emphasis theirs.)

Yet already available technologies can get more out of our current energy system.

Improving productivity, in addition to finding efficiencies and reducing consumption, can be accomplished, the authors argue, by using information technology to make our energy better, which means cleaner and safer, as well as less expensive and more reliable.

The authors suggest we need to get more out of the grid, oil and gas, coal, and nuclear while investing in safety, security and resilience in the energy infrastructure. 

They further postulate that our energy portfolio should be diverse, but that there is much "that is happening today without government subsidies to choose the lowest cost, lower risk and highest return investments to secure our future."

The book will anger some -- especially those who just don't believe another nuclear plant should ever be built in the US again or that coal plants can't be re-engineered to burn cleaner and more efficiently. 

But Moore and Shute make a good case in a briefing style format, backed by a deep understanding of some of the latest technologies (albeit it some technologies from companies clearly disclosed as part of the Acorn portfolio).

"Simply maintaining our electrical grid at its current capacity will soon require a $1 trillion capital investment," the authors offer. "The coal-fired plants that supply 50 percent of our electricity, for instance, on average have a 40-year life expectancy. At this writing, 70 percent of them are over 30 years old."

"Even if we set aside the enormous sums of money involved, these are not trivial concerns," write Moore and Shute. "Choices we make in the next ten years may determine the prosperity and security of our nation for the next hundred."

The book is available for free as a PDF at The Hidden Cleantech Revolution

Related articles

• Mike Casey: Fossil Energy Knows It's a Full Contact Game -- Does Cleantech? (huffingtonpost.com)
• A cleantech revolution in four easy steps (grist.org)
• Election Does Not Spell Cleantech Doom (greeneconomypost.com)
• The Alternative Energy Revolution Is Not For You | Christian Probasco | Energy | NewWest.Net (caddisfly.wordpress.com)

On Energy Transition, US Military Leads

Photo Credit: US Army

As Tom Friedman points out in his column yesterday, "the U.S. military loses one person, killed or wounded, for every 24 fuel convoys it runs in Afghanistan."

Soldiers and others are put in harm's way as part of convoys, hundreds and hundreds of them, needed to transport fuel to run air conditioners and diesel generators in remote bases all over that country.

But what if the "U.S. Navy and Marines could replace those generators with renewable power and more energy efficient buildings, and run its ships on nuclear energy, biofuels and hybrid engines, and fly its jets with bio-fuels"?  One out-come, Friedman argues, would be to "out-green the Taliban."

The military is making a strategic move to alternative energy and energy efficiency, in part because it recognizes the national security issues associated with dependence on fossil fuel energy and the potential impacts of climate change. 

In its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, the Department of Defense (DoD) found that climate change "may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.”

This threat, coupled with an energy budget of $20 billion, has led the DoD to take steps to reduce is dependence on fossil fuels, strive for energy efficiency, and reduce its carbon emissions by developing and deploying clean tech innovations.

They have also recognized the potential threats from so-called "peak oil," warning last spring "that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact," according to a report from the US Joint Forces Command.

The US military has long been a leader in biodiversity conservation as well, with partnerships with organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, NatureServe, and others around the US.  The DoD even has a special "Conservation Conveyance," which allows closed military bases to be transferred into permanent conservation status.

It should come as no surprise that the US military is becoming a leader in green tech innovation.  Defense led much of the global technological innovation of the last half of the 20th Century after the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958. 

ARPA, or DARPA, as it is known today, developed the weapons that transformed warfeare in the last century, but also led to the electronic computer, robotics, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the Internet.

The new green economy may in fact be led by a green revolution in the military, giving new meaning to DoD's mission of deterring war and protecting the security of the US.

As Friedman points out, the green innovations being fostered by the military "could save lives, money and the planet, and might even help us win — or avoid — the next war."

It's About Time for a New Conversation About Energy Innovation

There's a new conversation happening around energy and it's about time.

Readers of The Green Skeptic know I am very interested in the question of how we can use good, old-fashioned American ingenuity to build an economy based on energy innovation, efficiency and manufacturing -- a new green economy.

Yesterday, a group of leading policy think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, Breakthrough Institute, Brookings, along with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation hosted a day-long conference on how to spur energy innovation.

Much of what was discussed there echoes what we've been saying here on The Green Skeptic: we need to focus on stimulating innovation. I also believe that such innovation can't just be focused on future, wish-list technologies, but the practical, real-world solutions of today.

This means an inclusive approach that identifies ways to use fossil fuels more efficiently and in a less environmentally damaging way, as well as increasing the efficiency of alternative energy technologies, the smart grid, storage, and demand management.

While I couldn't attend the event, there has been much written about it by several of the participants and organizers:

Here's Rob Atkinson, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger of Breakthrough Institute writing in advance of the event: Breakthrough

Marc Gunther of Fortune and The Energy Collective: Gunther

And Andy Revkin of the New York Times: Dot Earth

When it gets down to it, the critical question is how can we meet the predicted ten-fold increase in global energy demand in a way that is environmentally benign or even regenerative, while recognizing that fossil fuels will be with us for some time to come?

I'm encouraged that this conversation is starting. We can't afford to wait any longer.

Related articles

• ""Post-Partisan Power" - Report Overview" and related posts (thebreakthrough.org)
• Think tanks' post-partisan energy plan (politico.com)
• "Grand Bargain" of Clean Energy Research Feels More Like Lip Service (news.firedoglake.com)
• Real-World Steps on Energy and CO2 (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Pursuing an Energy Menu That Works for the Long Haul (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How to Change the Global Energy Conversation (online.wsj.com)

BizVoice Interview with The Green Skeptic

A few months ago, I was interviewed by Tom Schurman for BizVoice, a publication of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, on the subject of clean energy, green jobs, and the difficult balancing act of the green movement overall.

Here is a link to a PDF of the BizVoice article "Balancing Act."

Green Decade: Were the Aughts All for Naught?

It was the best of decades; it was the worst of decades. Any way you slice it, the Aughts were a surprising decade for the green movement.

Janus-headed, the Aughts were, as entrepreneur and hedge-fund blogger Howard Lindzon pointed out in his end of the decade post, the "decade was all about two things, creative and greedy destruction."

From the Clinton/Gore failures to act on climate change when they had the opportunity, if not the Congress, to the Bush Administration's eviscerating the EPA and altering documents while encouraging quiet progress on emissions reductions, doesn't seem like a decade of progress.

Still, the Aughts saw "sustainability" and "green" move decidedly more mainstream, but it didn't start out that way.

In early 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst, I was being romanced by a start-up called "Verde.com," which billed itself as "a 360-degree media company, like Martha Stewart." Unfortunately, there was no Martha Stewart in the model, and the idea was seven years too soon. It flamed out by summer.

By 2007-08, Al Gore became the Martha Stewart of Green, and Discovery Communications launched "planet green," which had a lot of similarities to the Verde model. Green became the new Black.

Celebrities jumped on the bandwagon, driven by Mr. Gore, and the environment even had its own rock extravaganza. But despite its celebrity staying power, and some traction even in the wake of recession, at decade's end consumer choices still have "more to do with the personal benefit as opposed to having some sort of general sense that we have to save the planet," as GfK's Tim Kenyon told Joel Makower.

And there is a growing sense that, despite the scientific "consensus" on climate change and heightened public awareness brought about by Mr. Gore's Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," environmentalists and climate scientists alike may have played too heavy a hand when it comes to the "climate crisis."

At the end of the Aughts an increased number of Americans believe global warming is exaggerated and fewer see solid evidence of global warming. In fact, as a 2009 Pew study revealed, more Americans believe in angels than human's role in global warming.

Meanwhile, on the practical side, Green Buildings LEED the way. The US Green Building Council launched its certification in 2000 and in the ensuing years it became not only the gold standard, but ubiquitous in the building trade.  So much so that a survey of commercial real estate executives conducted by Turner Construction Company in late 2008 showed that plans to build green would not be affected by credit market conditions.

Biodiversity loss continued to spiral through the decade, with the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species cataloging 17,291 out of 47,677 assessed species being threatened with extinction.

While a 2004 study by World Wildlife Fund, Status of Coral Reefs Around the World, found that 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been effectively destroyed and show no immediate prospects of recovery, another 24 percent are under imminent risk of collapse through human pressures, and a further 26 percent are under a longer term threat of collapse.

Still, some progress was made on the conservation front with Brazil leading the way. Brazil accounted for 60 percent of total terrestrial conservation during the decade, according to Mongabay.com's analysis of global conservation data. Unfortunately, Brazil also topped the list of forest destroyers, losing 175,000 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest over the decade.

The Aughts may also mark the end of big, global plans, treaties and conventions that fail to inspire or make progress. One of the hard lessons of this decade has been that globalization of environmental action is doomed to failure by entrenched interests. In the teens, big treaties and plans must give way to local action, stewardship, and adaptation.

I learned this the hard way at the Nature Conservancy as we pushed forward with a big hairy audacious goal that was not, ultimately, achievable. When I pressed others on what would happen if we didn't meet our targets by 2015, I was told "we'll just revise the goal." That sounded too much like the UN and World Bank for my taste.

We also watched with horror as centralized decisions to protect forests in one country led to increased destruction in other countries and biofuels production led to unintended consequences, from skyrocketing food prices to forest destruction.

Yet, I have seen how local people from Indonesia to Ecuador and India to the Caribbean are taking action despite big global pronouncements. I remain convinced that conservation needs to be local to be global -- or "glocal," to use Tom Friedman's coinage. We need local action with a global understanding and a heavy dose of scenario planning.

By the end of the decade, the Copenhagen Climate Summit laid a big goose egg on the UN's efforts to get a global agreement on reducing emissions. Tolling the death knell for top-down, government-led negotiations, in my opinion.

This was also the decade when green became gold. Venture investors poured money into clean tech innovations in the latter half of the decade, reaching a record $7.6 billion in 2008 and only dipping to around $5 billion in 2009, as entrepreneurs and investors tried to help lead the economy back to health.

Wal-Mart surprised everybody in the 00s by leading the way with new standards for sustainability on its shelves, in its stores, and up and down its supply chain. Industrial carpet manufacturer Interface made progress on climbing "Mt. Sustainability," and GE re-envisioned itself as a purveyor of "ecoimagination," bringing good and green things to life.

The Toyota Prius hybrid was introduced in July 2000 and, in its peak year of sales 2007, Toyota sold 180,000 units in the United States. But the Aughts truly were the decade of the "other 2-axle 4-tire vehicle," which includes SUVs and light trucks.

In 2000, there were 79,084,979 such vehicles on US roads; by 2007 there were more than 100 million, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In 2004 alone, GM sold 28,898 gas-hog Hummers, many of them to suburban families and even city dwellers.

Despite the resistance and doublespeak of US auto-manufacturers, by decade's end, Ford saw its hybrid sales increase and was betting its future on cars like the Escape Hybrid, Fusion and Focus, while GM, limping along with the help of a government bailout, promised the plug-in hybrid Volt and was looking for a buyer for its Hummer division.

In 2005, I wrote that the green tent needed to be expanded. Over the decade, the tent expanded, but is it yet big enough? At the start of the decade, green was seen as a pursuit of elite, white highly educated liberals. The complexion has changed a little, thanks to environmental leaders like Van Jones, Majora Carter, and Jerome Ringo, along with religious leaders like Ted Haggard, Jim Ball, and Rick Warren, but has it really become more inclusive?

In many ways, it seems the movement is even more liberal than it was last century as, other than Governors Schwarzenegger and Crist, the GOP has largely abandoned the environment despite the legacy of Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. And, in my view, the more partisan this issue becomes, the more ground it will lose.

Were the Aughts all for Naught? I'm guessing not. Really some progress has been made in a decade of extreme triumphs and failures, tragedies and excess. But we've still along way to go.

What lessons have I learned this past decade? I've learned that private, direct action really is the best way to make change happen; that a new green economy is possible only when we figure out how to make it profitable; that neither big governments nor big NGOs are the game-changers and we should put our trust in the entrepreneurs (social or otherwise); and, finally, that efficiency and innovation can help lead the way to a better future.

May the teens, be a decade of progress and prosperity. Happy New Year!

(Thanks to James Bedell of build2sustain and Jamie Burdett of Worn Again for suggestions that led to the focus of this post.)

The Green Skeptic on Fox Business: Paying for Green Demands

Here's a link and video from my appearance on Fox Business today with Eric Bolling:

Red Ink Watch: Paying for Green Demands

MAC Alliance: Promise of Clean Tech in Region

Day Two of the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance Conference this week featured the first clean tech track in the history of the conference, an indication that the sector is emerging in this region.

The clean tech track opened with a "financing panel," a good mix of investors, analysts, and utility service companies, including the publicly traded demand-response play Comverge and PJM, which operates the largest regional electricity transmission grid in the country.

Rob Day, a partner at the venture capital firm Black Coral Capital, came down from Boston, and Tucker Twitmyer of local heroes EnerTech Capital offered the investor perspective, along with John Roy, an energy analyst from Janney Montgomery Scott.

Day opened the session with a humorous take on the myths of clean tech in the US.

"If you read national media or the New York Times," Day opined. "You know that the only good clean tech is happening in Silicon Valley -- and it's only solar, wind, and cars. You also know that it is a capital-intensive business that is only for whiz-bang PhDs, and has nothing to do with service providers or implementers."

After letting the audience in on the joke, Day countered that, in fact, "What we're seeing is a growing awareness of clean tech innovation around the country. Real value chains are emerging here in the Mid-Atlantic region and up and down the east coast, not just the left coast."

Twitmyer agreed, suggesting that the "trend is positive for clean tech: there will be fundamental changes in our energy infrastructure; some chosen, some forced. Carbon will be priced in."

With Comverge and PJM at the table, the talk turned to demand-response and systems that will monitor and control energy assets. The panel could not come to agreement about who will benefit more: central generators and the utility industry or distributed generation resources.

But all agreed that subsidizing the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and smart grid, will enable a range of ancillary energy assets: transportation, reserves, storage; indeed, the entire enabling infrastructure stands to benefit.

As with everything in this sector, however, it will come down to price. (What isn't about price?)

How is the Mid-Atlantic region positioned for clean tech development? The panelists agreed it is well positioned.

"But it isn't really about one region or state over another, " John Ray of Janney reminded the audience. "It is really the US against the rest of the world -- and we have some catching up to do."

My three take-aways from the 2009 MAC Alliance Conference, especially the clean tech track:

1.) The Mid-Atlantic region has great potential, but is competing globally;
2.) We need to keep up the momentum presented by events like this and the REBN events we've held over the past year;
3.) We need more clean tech investors in the region and need to build on existing assets to attract more investors and companies.


(Eleven companies also presented at the conference. I'll write about a few of them in a future post.)

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2009 MAC Conference to Include Cleantech Track, Zandi, and Godin too

Image via CrunchBase

The Mid-Atlantic Capital (MAC) Conference is the premier venture conference in the region, bringing together the private equity and entrepreneurial communities. Over the years, it has been the catalyst for billions of dollars of venture funding and entrepreneurial activity.

The day-and-a-half event offers both sponsors and attendees access to emerging companies from the Mid-Atlantic region; networking opportunities with the movers and shakers from the community; and educational panels and content sessions.

The 2009 MAC Conference, Hosted by Blank Rome LLP, will be held on November 3 & 4 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

And this year, the MAC Conference, will feature a cleantech track, signaling the arrival of the sector as a significant component of the region's economy.

Cleantech companies from the region featured at the conference include Benefuel, BG Automotive Group, Clean Water Resources, CogniPower, Confluense, Enersol Inc., Green Badge, Primet Precision Materials, SRS Energy, and TerraCycle.

Rob Day of Black Coral Capital and Enertech Capital's Tucker Twitmeyer will be among the panelists addressing cleantech investing opportunities in the current environment.

Keynote speakers scheduled to appear are Mark Zandi, chief economist and cofounder of Moody’s Economy.com and the incomparable marketing guru Seth Godin

MAC Alliance is offering a special $200 registration rate for the full MAC Conference to the first 200 qualified entrepreneurs. This is an exciting opportunity for young entrepreneurs to get in front of some of the key players in the region. Spots are almost gone, so register today: entrepreneurs.

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BuildGreen Philly: Prosperity with Sustainability

"No matter how well we develop renewable energy sources, we will not be able to meet global demand," Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said to the crowd gathered at BuildGreen09 in Philadelphia in his opening keynote. "We also need to reduce consumption."

Rendell is a governor that gets it. He understands the economic realities that will drive energy consumption in the future and about a realistic response that includes all sources (including coal and nuclear), as long as can be made clean and with reduced risk. (For coal, he encourages development of carbon capture and storage technologies, to make it cleaner.)

While Rendell gets the economic side, he also understands the limits and boundaries as well. It's not just about finite resources, according to the Governor, but about demand, which will increase as the population increases globally and as economies in developing countries improve and people prosper.

Prosperity with sustainability was the tenor of the two day conference at Philadelphia's Sheraton Center City Hotel (a decidedly unsustainable venue, I might add).

As Dr. Dayna Baumeister, co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, noted in her fantastic presentation over lunch on Thursday, it is "about learning to live and build on a dynamic, non-equilibrium, water-based, boundaried world." And not only to survive, but to thrive.

Others echoed these sentiments and highlighted the economic opportunity that presents itself right now and that is only at the beginning.

Dennis Yablonsky of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and former secretary of the PA Department of Community and Economic Development, cited a recent study indicating there is a $30-40B market in green building, which potentially grows to $200B if you add retrofitting of existing infrastructure.

Companies all across the state are being created while older companies are reinventing themselves around the green economy, Yablonsky noted.

There was evidence of this in the panel discussions, especially around product development and research. There you could find companies such as Armstrong, which started as a cork-cutting shop in 1860, as well as new initiatives such as the team of professors from Philadelphia University who are developing construction materials from alkali-activated fly ash, a waste product of the coal industry.

Green jobs were also on the agenda at BuildGreen, with a focus on economic empowerment and the shortage of skilled and unskilled labor the new green economy requires. Education and training are needed, as well as a clear definition of what qualifies as a green job.

Awareness of the existing opportunities is also needed, however, as was made apparent by Mr. Yablonsky's revelation that there are currently 30,000 "green jobs" posted on an online job bank for Southwestern PA. The jobs range from entry level positions to $100K+ executive roles; that's a lot of job openings in an economy that needs employment. Why are these positions not being filled?

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter also addressed the conference, repeating his pledge to make Philadelphia the Greenest City in America. His plan includes goals to reduce city energy consumption by 30 percent and energy costs by 10 percent, representing savings of over $3 million in a city budget that needs every extra penny.

Philadelphia is not alone in trying to glean benefits from the new green economy. Micah Kotch, from the New York City Accelerator for a Clean & Renewable Economy, an incubator initiative of NYU-Poly aimed at stimulating invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship in New York.

"Our goal is to grow an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, companies and local businesses around clean tech and renewable innovations," said Mr. Kotch.

One of their companies is Rentricity, which captures energy from water pressure reduction -- common to any municipal water distribution system -- to spin turbines and create clean electricity.

BuildGreen was convened by the Pennsylvania Green Growth Partnership and hosted by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, which plans to host the international GreenBuild conference and expo in 2012.

My three takeaways from BuildGreen09:

1.) The transformation of the building sector to adopting green practices is both a great step forward and a great opportunity -- and other sectors, such as financial services, must now follow.
2.) The convergence of talent, resources, and infrastructure in the region is well-positioned to own a significant piece of the new green economy pie, but it still needs to foster and build the financing, commercialization, and innovation opportunities to seize the day.
3.) Biomimicry -- the conscious emulation of nature's design solutions -- is an increasing opportunity for innovation that can lead to sustainable products, companies, and services -- and a better way of life. If only we can "quiet our cleverness," as Dr. Baumeister put it.

Israeli Companies Pitch at US-Israel Cleantech Conference

More than a dozen Israeli companies pitched at today's US-Israel Cleantech Conference at the University of Pennsylvania.

The companies promoting their renewable energy and other green technologies were joined by business leaders, investors, and government agency representative from Greater Philadelphia who shared keys to business development in the region and the state.

The conference, part of a three-day tour of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey for the companies, was organized by the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce and was designed to give exposure to some of the best new start-ups in Israel.

"The high tech sector took 15 years to develop in Israel," said Hillel Milo, Managing Partner of AquAgroFund, which at $100M US is one of the largest venture capital firms in the cleantech sector in Israel. "I have a feeling we will have a robust cleantech sector in five years."

If the companies featured today are any example Israel is on its way.

Of particular interest were several companies developing small-scale alternative technologies, especially solar and wind, for the distributed energy market. As expected, there was a high concentration on solar and wind solutions. Among the noteworthy companies:

AORA is developing community-scale solar thermal power stations that are 100kw in size, enabling an off-grid option for remote communities. (See photo above.)

Variable Wind Solutions, which has developed a voltage regulation system that improves wind turbine performance and efficiency in low, high, and variable-speed winds and connecting small wind turbines to the power grid.

TransBiodiesel, which has developed an enzymatic biocatalyst that can replace corrosive alkaline and acid catalysts in biodiesel production from plant oils, animal fats, and recycled greases.

And finally, Cequesta Water, which has developed low-cost technologies for recycling gray water at the domestic, multiunit dwelling, and large resort scales.

Notable Pennsylvania-based presenters and panelists included Audrey Zibelman of Viridity Energy, Gary Feldman of Lockheed Martin, Brian Yerger of AERCA Advisors, Jay Goldman of Exelon, Mark DeGrandpre of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and Joyce Ferris of Blue Hill Partners.

Curtis Gregory from the Philadelphia Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor, also addressed the audience.

BuildGreen 2009 Conference Next Month in Philly

I learned this week that Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter will attend the 2009 BuildGreen Conference in his home town next month.

That's a coup for this conference that is the first conference in the region that will convene all green building stakeholders in the design/build, policy, manufacturing, and economic development/investment community.

Mayor Nutter has a lot on his mind right now with his budget woes, but he clearly sees the connection between green building and economic development and its importance to the region and his goal of making Philadelphia the "Greenest City in America" by 2015.

I'll be live blogging from the conference here on the green skeptic.


NOTE: Early Bird Registration is Monday, September 14th.

Where and when: October 14 - 15, 2009, Sheraton City Center Hotel, Philadelphia

For more information: buildgreenconference

Is Green Tech Investing Making a Comeback?

Image via Wikipedia

Tuesday was a big day for green tech investing news: Khosla Ventures announced it had successfully raised $1.1 billion in capital for renewable energy and clean tech investments and the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department announced the first round of "Recovery Act" funding of $502.6 million.

Does this signal the beginning of a public-private investment bonanza for green tech? Only time will tell. But a lot of us are glad to see all the new green economy talk finally turn into action.

The Wal*Mart Game-Changer: How Green is Your Sustainability?

Image via Wikipedia

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if anyone can make the transition to the new green economy work, it is Wal-Mart.

Oh, some argue that they are the evil empire, with their huge building footprint and their aisles upon aisles of cheap, sometimes useless stuff.

Others will ask, why don't they treat their workers better or their small business competition?

But no one can argue that the latest move by the bargain-dealing superstore isn't a game-changer: Wal-Mart is launching a Sustainability Index.

A Sustainability Index? That's right. Wal-Mart plans to track and rate the life-cycle of every product it sells in its stores and list the results on the shelf.

According to an article by Marc Gunther on Slate's The Big Money, Wal-Mart has been working with a consortium of consumer-goods manufacturers and universities to develop this index.

Wal-Mart's new CEO Mike Duke will unveil the Index this Thursday, July 16, at the company’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Measuring sustainability all up and down a product's chain is tough, especially if you factor in "people and communities" to the index, as Gunther reports is Wal-Mart's intention. But if anyone can do it the Bentonville Behemoth is probably up to the task.

Kudos to Wal-Mart for taking this next step. Let's hope it works and really changes the game.

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G-8 vows to cut emissions, but developing nations want more

Perhaps it was the smiling French President Nicolas Sarkozy reaching out to grab Mr. Obama's arm, as if he'd just told the best joke the Frenchman had heard from an American since Jerry Lewis.

Or perhaps it was the beaming German Chancellor Frau Merkel giving an appreciative glance at the charismatic American president.

Or maybe it was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling the G-8's non-binding agreement "historic" and German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointing to "a clear step forward."

I couldn't help wondering whether the G-8 summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila wasn't a well-orchestrated jab at the previous US administration and its resistance to 80 percent reductions. It all felt a little cloying.

At the end of the day, the US and other G-8 nations have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050, and agreed that global temperatures need to be prevented from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Of course, not everyone was happy with the agreement. Both environmentalists and developing nations took issue.

While environmentalists welcome the shift in US policy, they are critical of the big industrial emitters' failure to agree on more immediate goals. Developing nations feel that complying with major reductions will hamper their economic growth and keep their people in poverty.

According to sources close to the situation, representatives of developing nations, such as China, India, and Brazil still feel those who have benefited from 100-plus years of unbridled development should do more.

In other words, the burden of emissions reduction should be on those who created the problem, not on those who are struggling to catch up.

There is no question that China and India will be a major force in the upcoming negotiations. They have much at stake: both are still heavily reliant on coal to fuel their economies, but both also seem to be serious about investing in alternative energy development.

China and India seem to be serious about developing a low-carbon economy -- or at least seizing a large share of the market.

Last month, Zhang Xiaoqiang the vice-chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, said that China wants to produce one-fifth of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020.

According to Lou Schwartz, of China Strategies LLC, the Chinese will spend over 3 trillion Yuan (roughly US$462 billion) on alternative energy development in the next decade. This includes 100,000 MW of installed wind power capacity by 2020.

Meanwhile, in a visit to the Solar Energy Centre in Gurgaon last month, Indian Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, pledged that "new and renewable energy will increasingly play a larger role in meeting the development aspirations of a growing economy like India."

The US and other G-8 countries need to take notice, listen to the concerns of developing nations and do more to enable those countries leapfrog dirty technologies, while doing more at home to facilitate their own swift transition.

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• Christie Logic on Energy: Support Obama, Blast Corzine (middletownmike.blogspot.com)
• UN Expert Fears Climate Change Deal At Risk (news.sky.com)
• China targets 20% renewable energy by 2020 (americablog.com)
• G8 summit: China and India reject G8 calls for climate targets (telegraph.co.uk)
• G8 summit: leaders warn global economy faces more danger (telegraph.co.uk)

Obama's Energy Bill passed in the House Friday, but still has a long way to go

In Earth2Tech this morning, Josie Garthwaite has a good piece on Reactions to the Energy Bill: Obama, Cleantech Biz, Environmentalists:

The energy bill passed the House on Friday, but the proposed cap and trade system and new incentives for renewable energy are still a long way from going into law as the Senate needs to pass its own version. As we transition to the next round of negotiations and lobbying, stakeholders from the White House to industry trade groups, environmental organizations and cleantech companies have been weighing in on the version that won approval in the House — and on where they’d like to see it go from here.

Since Friday’s vote, President Obama has continued his support for the legislation, as well as his efforts to win over lawmakers. (He phoned wavering legislators last week to help the bill clear the House.) This weekend during his radio address and media interviews, Obama called for senators to "come together" around the legislation, which he said "will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy." In an interview with a group of reporters, Obama also said the bill would provide "clarity and certainty" and would "end up being much less costly, much more efficient; technology is going to move much more rapidly than people anticipate."

Read the full piece here: Energy Bill Reactions

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e3bank: A new bank built for the green economy

You might think now is a terrible time to start a bank. The banking industry has gone from tailspin to government-owned in the past 8 months.

The collapse of one major financial institution after another -- either through mergers or failures -- has made the very profession seem like, well, something to avoid like swine flu.

But for the founders and principals at a new start-up bank that received its charter this past March, now is the perfect time to start a bank. If, that is, you're starting a bank based on a different value system.

Enter Sandy Wiggins and Frank Baldassarre. Of the two, Frank is the only one who resembles a banker, and that's because he is, and has had an extensive career as a banking professional with such regional institutions as Fox Chase Bank of Exton, PA, and First Financial of Downingtown. Sandy was the charismatic chairman of the US Green Building Council and has three decades of experience in the building industry.

Together, they are launching e3bank, set to open for business this fall and currently embarking on a $30 million private offering to shareholders willing to put up a minimum of $5,000. Their goal is to have a large number of shareholders, most of whom have made a modest investment.

"We don't want to have a single large investor who could call the shots and control too much," Wiggins told me in a recent interview. "We want to be inclusive, so we've made the minimum investment low enough to democratize ownership in e3bank."

So they are seeking a steady stream of small, $5,000-10,000 investors through what is, in part, a social networking campaign, trying to reach more people who understand and believe in the idea of a bank with a triple bottom line.

In fact, according to Wiggins that triple bottom line (enterprise, environment, and social equity) is the single greatest distinguishing factor for e3bank. They will couple that with world-class online banking service that "will be unlike any online banking experience on offer in the US," Wiggins says. "Think about it as Web 2.0 for the banking industry."

E3bank will have a limited building-based footprint. "It won't be your traditional branch bank, more like a resource center," reports Wiggins. "A place for public discourse and information about sustainability. A cross between a comfy living room or local cafe and an Apple store."

They will be few in number and location because, as Wiggins says, "The greenest building you can build is the one you don't build."

E3bank won't just be about atmosphere, Wiggins relates. The bank will offer a range of financial services designed to increase their customer's returns while reducing their customer's environmental footprint. They will also focus on what Wiggins calls "values-based financial incentives," such as interest rates to encourage sustainability choices and providing feedback on customer spending habits.

For instance, the bank will attempt to categorize expenses automatically online and recommend energy efficiency options for customers who have consistently high gas or electric bills.

Their "Green Assist" program is perhaps their most exciting innovation. Designed for residential and small business customers, e3bank will provide an energy audit, fund energy efficient and renewable energy projects, and automatically process all available subsidies, rebates, and tax incentives, as well as connect them with pre-screened contractors in their community.

One goal of the bank is to be a community bank, says Wiggins, "but a community bank of like-minded individuals rather than geography." They'll be coming together around the value system the bank espouses rather than proximity to some branch office.

It's an experiment worth watching. Can a bank tow the triple-bottom line? Other banks, such as Chicago's ShoreBank, San Francisco's New Resource Bank, and some community development corporations among them, have tried for a double bottom line approach. And only one, Triodus Bank in the Netherlands, has experimented with a third dimension, although ShoreBank is attempting to enter the green market as well.

E3bank has the potential to revolutionize the banking industry at a time when the banking industry is in dire need of an extreme makeover.

Ultimately, the goal of e3bank is to support the new green economy and a more sustainable economy and, as Wiggins puts it, his will be the bank for "everyone who cares about a sustainable world."

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Green.Konnect.me Launches B2B Platform for Green Building Trade

"A few years ago I was involved in the design of a green building at Drexel University called the Drexel Smart House," says Jameson Detweiler, CEO of Konnect.me. "Designing the house proved to be very frustrating at times. Finding information about previous buildings and building products, related to sustainability, was a time consuming and frustrating process."

Detweiler's experience was not an isolated case. For anyone embarking on a green building or renovation project, access to quality information is key. Understanding the various certifications and product claims and even finding installers, suppliers, or others who have undertaken similar projects can be an unnerving experience.

"There were so many different types of product certifications, manufacturers all made different claims, and this information was distributed across thousands of sources," Detweiler relates. "To say the least, it was very confusing. This is why we decided to start Green.Konnect.me. We needed a place where all of this information was available, a place for the green building community to both visit and participate in on a regular basis."

Detweiler's Philadelphia-based startup dedicated to reinventing the B2B portal, Konnect.me, announced today it is launching Green.Konnect.me, a community built directory for professionals in the green building industry.

The goal of Green.Konnect.me is to provide accurate and comprehensive information regarding "Products, Projects, and People" in the green building industry.

Detweiler believes "that the greatest advances in sustainability can only be achieved by the transparent sharing of knowledge and ideas."

Prior to founding Konnect.me, Jameson worked as the CEO of Summalux, LLC, an LED Lighting Research Firm, which won first prize in the Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship's 2008 Incubator Competition at Drexel's LeBow College of Business.

I've watched Detweiler and his partners over the past eight months or so as they have developed Green.Konnect.me as part of Konnect.me, which they founded in 2008 to "revolutionize B2B information access and delivery." It's an easy-to-use platform that helps address a critical problem for those interested in green building.

Very exciting to see it launched today.

For more information, check out green.konnect.me

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So What's a Smart Grid Anyway? It's More Power to Ya.

Image by horizontal.integration via Flickr

What is a Smart Grid? Perhaps it is easier to start with what a Smart Grid is NOT.

A Smart Grid is not a bunch of one-way meters spinning around as you consume and a guy who drives around checking the meter periodically, sometimes correcting assumptions made by your electric company about your energy consumption and sometimes not.

A Smart Grid is not a grid that is subject to the whims of weather, mischievous squirrels, bird strikes or spikes in consumption by millions of users.

So, what is a Smart Grid, then?

The good folks at Inhabitat.com put it this way:

A smart grid delivers electricity using digital technology that tracks power consumption with smart meters, special electrical meters that instantly transmit energy usage information to utilities via wireless networks. Smart meters also let us track our own energy use hour-by-hour on the Internet and with third-party computer programs.

Basically, we're talking about real-time, two-way communication between you or your business and your utility provider. This helps manage usage and flow and consumption, can help predict spikes and shift sources rapidly in response to changing needs.

And if you have solar panels, wind turbines, plug-in hybrid vehicles or any other potential generating source, smart grid technology will help you feed that into the mix, so that you become a generator, not just a consumer.

Toronto Star energy writer Tyler Hamilton describes it this way:

The true vision of the smart grid is a self-healing, automated grid that can manage complex flows of electrons, from the hundreds — potentially thousands — of large and small sources of power to the millions of homes, businesses, industrial customers and, potentially, electric cars that require that energy.

Okay, so basically, a Smart Grid is like a brain for energy distribution. Nerve endings all over your body send information back to the brain telling the brain when you are too hot or too cold; that you need more energy in one part of the body or another (exercise and eating, for instance, have different requirements in different regions of the body); and helps you regulate your every action.

Many players are getting involved in the act, from the federal government, which recently allocated $3.3B to Smart Grid technology development, to start-ups and even large companies like IBM and Google.

Google's PowerMeter, which they describe as being in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to your home electricity consumption right on your iGoogle homepage.

Imagine being able to track and manage your own energy consumption so that you know when it will be least expensive to do your laundry or watch that episode of "Lost" that you Tivo'd. (Of course, that time is probably overnight when you are asleep, but nevertheless...)

Essentially a Smart Grid will put more power in the hands of consumers and make them partners with utilities rather than simply customers or rate payers. In the last analysis, a Smart Grid is just what it sounds like: smart.

Here are more resources on the concept of a Smart Grid:

Wired article from March 2009

Earth2Tech.com FAQ, which includes a list of companies working on various components for making the grid smarter.

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Agree to Disagree: Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Tax?

NASA’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen, says he hopes that climate legislation proposed by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman (CA) and Edward Markey (MA) to introduce carbon emissions trading to the United States fails.

Hansen says lawmakers should abandon cap-and-trade initiatives altogether and implement a simple carbon tax instead, according to Nathanial Gronewold, a reporter at Environment & Energy Publishing.

"Trading of rights to pollute...introduces speculation and makes millionaires on Wall Street," Hansen told an audience at a conference hosted by Columbia University climate policy students on Saturday. "I hope cap and trade doesn’t pass, because we need a much more effective approach."

This may be a nice way to curry favor with student environmentalists, but is it smart? According to Reuters, even the Chinese are considering a carbon tax over cap-and-trade. What's the difference, really?

Under a cap-and-trade program, the government will set the overall emissions cap and issue allowances or credits to businesses to pollute at a set amount. A company that reduces its emissions quickly and cheaply can auction their extra credits to another that, because of the nature of its business or available technology, may find it more difficult to comply with the caps.

This market-based approach helps ensure that overall caps are met at the lowest possible cost. Cap-and-trade has been modeled after the U.S. effort to control acid rain pollution, which saw greater reductions at lower costs than originally anticipated.

Under a carbon tax, such as that proposed by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), emitters are required to pay a tax for every ton of pollution they produce. Carbon taxes lend predictability to energy prices, according to supporters, who claim that cap-and-trade systems will simply aggravate price volatility and adversely affect consistent investments in less carbon-intensive electricity generation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

But, argue cap-and-trade supporters, such a system also provides certainty: it fixes the ceiling on emissions (stepping it down over time) and lets the price vary with demand.

Despite rhetoric on both sides, neither system is really more complex than the other, as each requires often difficult monitoring and enforcement.

Cap-and-trade and carbon tax do share another issue: what to do with the proceeds? The Obama administration seems to favor distributing 10 percent of the proceeds to American citizens; others, including Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), would return 90 percent to Americans. Still others call that highway robbery.

Now, Jim Hansen says we'll create a bunch of robber barons on Wall Street if we go this route. But a carbon tax will simply create bigger government, or at least help pay for the biggering and biggering the government has done since last fall.

As readers of the green skeptic know, I firmly believe we won't make the shift until one of two things happens: 1.) we can make boatloads of money off of addressing the issue or 2.) oil prices go through the roof and supply plummets to worse than anticipated levels.

Rep. Markey claims his Bill, the Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act (HR 6186), or iCAP, is a cap-and-invest strategy.

President Obama has already included a line item for cap-and-trade in his budget, which clearly signals the Administration's preference for capping global warming pollution, auctioning all the emission allowances, and investing $15 billion per year in clean energy.

Wither a tax? It's probably, as every politician knows, an idea that is dead on arrival. And it is looking less and less likely we'll get a decent cap-and-trade program in place any time soon. So, perhaps we should just focus, as blogger Gar Lipow suggested in Grist, "on pushing for green infrastructure, paid for the moment by 10-year bonds with a 3 percent interest rate."

If time is money and we're running out of time, then why not support an approach that will generate more money and maybe, just maybe, buy us some time?

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