2GreenEnergy – Checking Out Sustainability-Related Businesses on the East Coast

Sorry to have been absent from the blogosphere for a bit here.

Thursday I was standing in a dairy in Northern Virginia surrounded by hundreds of cows — checking out a methane digester, talking about waste-to-energy, and how feed-in tariffs and carbon credits change the game for dozens of different types of farmers. A few minutes later a thundershower swept in and drove us to cover, but not before a bolt of lightning struck almost directly over our heads. I thought we were goners, but we were spared. Maybe the Man Upstairs recognized that we were trying to do something good down here.

After the meeting, I took my rental car a couple of hundred miles south, through the stunningly beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Friday found me in Charlotte, NC talking to some extremely seasoned auto execs about their business plan concerning practical and very affordable electric pick-up trucks. They lament, as do I, that exactly zero dollars of the stimulus money went to start-up EV companies, and that 31 of the 32 grants went to companies over $1 billion in revenues — despite the promises that the core concept was to create growth in nimble and innovative businesses.

I’m in Syracuse, NY right now, preparing for my meetings tomorrow; the discussion centers around paper made from sugar cane waste — affordable, high-quality paper that leaves the world’s trees standing. This trip’s first two meetings were very quite productive — but this has the potential to be the best of the three.

Home tomorrow night.