A number of readers have written in, noticing, with general approval, the developments in the 2GreenEnergy site itself. My partner, George Alger is hard at work making all this happen behind the scenes. He does great work, and I’m very appreciative.
In addition, there is something happening here that may be less obvious: people are writing in requesting that certain of us at 2GreenEnergy do work for them on a consulting or contractual basis. I’m already elbow-deep in writing business plans for clients, conducting market research projects, and providing certain other advice in the sales and marketing arena, which was my area of expertise for 25+ years.
But many of these business questions I’m receiving pertain to subjects in which I’m far from expert: legal, financial, organizational, engineering, etc. So, over the coming weeks, you will notice that we’ll be populating various 2GreenEnergy pages with reference to a set of “associates” who can assist renewable energy businesses in a full range of business disciplines.
Please feel free to write in and pose any business-related questions you may have on your mind, and we’ll try to get right back to you.
I happened to run into one of the most interesting people I could have hoped to meet at a chili cook-off I attended over the weekend: a university professor whose focus is hosting seminars on terrorism for graduate students. I spoke with him for over 30 minutes, hanging on every word. Here I bring you the basic ideas he communicated:
Terrorism, of course, is a tactic. It makes no sense to say you’re waging a “war on terrorism” any more that one would say you’re waging a “war on hand-grenades.” This use of language to pander to the masses represents the depths to which the US has fallen in the integrity with which it thinks and communicates.
One can’t fully address the terrorism that we see from Muslim Fundamentalists with a war of ideas. Yes, we can make the situation worse with the missteps of the warmongerish Bush Administration that has fostered Al Qaeda recruitment by creating intense hatred for the West. The Muslim world itself must iron out its own differences, and history has shown that this is a monumentally difficult thing to do. In any case, the challenge is not amenable to something like an advertising campaign from the West.
The real issue is the fanaticism of certain people who have risen to lofty places, having become highly respected by certain groups of disenfranchised Muslims. Extremist movements that have any chance of success almost always are derived from alienated people from privileged backgrounds. Peasant movements are normally squashed immediately, because they are the product of poor, uneducated people rising up in spontaneous anger with no real planning and foresight, and thus are usually crushed immediately by those in power. The privileged few, by contrast, have the education, as well as the time on their hands, to think through exactly what they are doing, what they feel their ideals ought to be, how they should recruit, raise funds, promote, operate, etc. This is the case with Al Qaeda.
I asked why this extremism isn’t attached to all monotheistic religions – why it doesn’t arise anyplace in which one group of people has the belief that “their God is better than someone else’s God.” He told me that indeed there are extremist Christians, trying to establish a theocratic United States, for example, but they’re generally regarded as the lunatic fringe, and they gain no traction.
When I asked why theocratic Christians fail, where Muslims succeed, he offered two explanations that I found fascinating:
a) Like the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible, the Koran has a new and an old part. However, unlike the Bible, where the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament is replaced by the loving God of the New Testament, the case with the Koran is the reverse. During Mohammed’s life, his early followers were first at Mecca, and, though they were oppressed, things were generally hopeful, and thus the tenor of the religious scripture was one of peace and tolerance. Ten years later, they were forced to fight, and wound up at Medina. They survived the fight, and thus took away a kind of “bring it on” mentality. As a consequence, the writings that found their way into the Koran were generally bellicose and intolerant of “infidels.” And today, the interpretation of the Koran includes this idea: where there appears to be a contradiction between the old and the new, the new is to take precedence.
b) The Western world had its Age of Enlightenment, its French Revolution, and its US Constitution, all serving to divide church and state. And even our Bible contains passages that serve to tell us to separate religious from public matters, e.g., Matthew 22:21 in which Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” There are no analogies in the Muslim world. The idea of a theocracy is an intrinsic part of the way Muslims think. While it’s true that certain Muslim nations tend to be stricter about the way Islam is imposed on all aspect of its citizens’ lives, the idea of a secular government really has no legs on which to stand.
You may be wondering why all this history has made it into a blog on renewable energy. Here’s your answer:
I asked, “Well let me ask you about the money that forms the power to make this all happen in the first place. I suppose this is really about oil. It would seem to me that, if it weren’t for the unfortunate geologic accident that these countries happen to be sitting on a large portion of the world’s oil reserves, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They would be even more completely marginalized, and no one would care.” He believes that this is precisely correct. The only force making any of this relevant in today’s world is oil.
He wonders why a US government that is concerned about its own security is not doing everything it can to move away from oil. To him, it’s a complete mystery. I’m out of answers there too.
I don’t want to appear as if I don’t have a life outside of 2GreenEnergy, but each Friday night, I try to watch Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS. Occasionally the content directly or indirectly affects the renewable energy debate, and last night was a good example. Two extremely senior constitutional attorneys took on a question that one of the two will be arguing in front of the US Supreme Court this week: does the right to free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment (including the right to exert pressure over the electoral process) extend to corporations?
Of course, this issue is central to the growing debate over where our democracy is headed and whether, as some say, it’s been abrogated so many times and so thoroughly that we no longer have a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word. As a citizen concerned that ordinary people are losing too much power to corporate giants, my immediate reaction was to favor restricting the rights of corporations to influence the political process in their own favor. Yes, there are campaign contribution limits, but the corporations, with their extensive legal support, exploit the many loopholes in the form of political action committees, etc. And, as someone pointed out on tonight’s show, the ultimate work-around is for the corporation simply to run a political campaign at its own expense, to elect representatives known to favor its positions. At first glance, this seemed to work against the ideals of our society — if only the idea of one person, one vote.
Yet I must say that I was swayed by the first speaker, whose claim was that the First Amendment does not identify who does and who does not have the right to free speech. He freely acknowledged that free speech isn’t free at all, that wealthy people can own television networks and newspaper chains, and thus enjoy hundreds – or probably millions — of times more “free speech” than you or I could possibly dream of affording. But we don’t restrict rich people’s freedom; and by extension, the fact that a corporation is big or wealthy does not mean that it must not communicate.
I must say that I was flummoxed on this issue and, as a fair-minded guy, I was about to give up hope and turn on Jeopardy! when the second speaker came on. But I’m happy to report that at the end, I think he won the day. He pointed out that corporations, defined under law as “fictitious persons” are given enormous power to achieve their one and only goal: to make a profit. Human beings, i.e., voters, are not fictitious, but real people. Unlike these fictitious persons, we get sick, we die, we are given no special powers outside of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and we have a multitude of interests: familial, religious, social, etc. If we now grant corporations, who have by force of law unnatural profit-making powers the right to communicate without restriction about matters of their one concern (profit), they will use that profit to exert extreme pressure on the political process — potentially at the expense of human voters.
He went on to point out that ExxonMobil made $85 billion last year, and, if left unrestricted, could ensure the election of only those who would work against global warming mitigation. He also mentioned that the coal and nuclear lobbies, funded similarly, could make it impossible for these industries ever to be brought down — even by fair competition from renewables. This, for what it’s worth, is *exactly* what is happening now as I see it.
It will certainly be interesting to see on what side the Supreme Court comes down.
In any case, for those readers who may be new, this blog follows three different courses within the issues that surround renewable energy: the scientific, business, and political/philosophical issues. I argue that anyone serious about pursuing a clean energy business needs to have a solid understanding of all three “legs of the stool,” so to speak. And to that end, I’ve recently begun working on bringing on contributing authors to augment each of these three discussion threads. If any of you wish to make such contributions, please contact me.
Over the next few days, I’ll be posting a few articles on my company’s work with the island nation of Bermuda. From the standpoint of the raw facts, Bermuda is probably the best candidate on the planet to “go green” in a big way. As a people, they’re wealthy and enlightened. As a tourist destination, they’re anxious to make a statement. As a physical locale, they suffer from the pollution of their power plant’s historic reliance upon diesel. And as a candidate for electric transportation, can anything be more auspicious than expensive gas, high tariffs on internal combustion engine cars, short driving distances and low speed limits?
At this point, I would like to introduce you to the Bermuda Electric Light, Power & Traction Company or BELCO – the power utility that is wrestling with a great number of alternatives to fossil fuels: solar, wind, tidal, etc. I invite you to read the reports of the vendors that have been asked to create proposals for five different green technologies. As you read these documents, perhaps you’ll be thinking along the same lines that I am: How many do they really need? Isn’t one better (probably FAR better) than the other four?
I’m always amused by the pundits who say that we in the US need to blend many different alternative fuels. Outside of politics, exactly why? Given the configuration of our land mass vis-à-vis the sun’s path, our predominant wind patterns, the location and depth of our subterranean pockets of heat, the flow of our rivers, and the nature of our ocean currents, isn’t there one best solution? I think so.
One hears a great deal about the cyclical rebound in many of the phenomena we come across in our lives – especially political and financial. I’m always amused by the consultants who urge us to invest in blue chip stocks like General Electric and so forth, on the basis that they’ve taken a momentary downturn, but they always come back. Hey, don’t panic, kid — it’s business as usual — it’s feast and famine. But stop and think. Do you know the normal consequence of famine in nature? It’s Death. It’s Extinction.
My point is not to depress you. I don’t think of myself as a cynic; I think of myself as a pragmatist. I’m here to point to what’s real. And that reality is that we are all directly and systematically oppressed. We are all being deliberately lied to and confused by the energy industry.
OK, but what’s new here? Hasn’t the common man been on the receiving end of the deceit of the super-rich pretty much throughout recorded history? As far as I can tell, the answer is yes. But a hundred years ago when we suffered under the exploitation of the great robber barons, the consequences of those lies by the powerful and ruthless people of the day were monopolies and economic depressions. But now, the consequences are the ruination of our oceans, our atmosphere, and the generally hospitable climate on the only planet we have.
So here’s my point. Don’t expect a miracle. In fact, I have a prediction: There will be no miracle. If there is a chance for us, it will come from you and me with our sleeves rolled up, working hard to expose the facts, and make big changes — fast. We live under tyranny – a tyranny of corporatocracy and corruption, where the huge interests of the energy industry are determined to do everything they can to defeat renewables. Why? Why are money and power so alluring to some people who live on the same dying planet with you and me? I don’t know. That’s beyond me. Ask them if you get a chance and let me know. All I’m trying to say that this: if you and I don’t create a huge impact on our way of life right now, we will not get another chance.
Henry Kissinger said not too long ago that if it weren’t for the opposition of the common American to the war in Vietnam, we’d still be there. That’s amazing, isn’t it? An admission of the truth: By the early 1970s, the war had become so unpopular that our leaders in Washington were forced to take a different course.
The situation now is the same. The great oil, coal, and nuclear energy companies and the lobbies that own the congressmen who create the policy at their behest will turn this planet into a wasteland in which only the super rich will have any real quality of life – unless we do something.
Over the coming weeks, you’ll see more functionality here on 2GreenEnergy that will enable us all to become more vocal and more active in making a real change in world energy policy. Let’s hope there’s still time.
I’m pleased to see that blogger Frank Eggers has become active here, who writes:
As one of the comment-posters stated, too little attention is being given to reducing the need for driving . . . With better urban planning, people could often walk where they need to go, ride a bicycle, or use public transportation. But with scattered development, public transportation cannot be made efficient.
This is all true. And I do think I see the seeds of this thinking in young people leaving college with the relevant degrees to get into this subject professionally. Clearly, however, such change will be a long time in the making.
Another issue slowing down the reduction in driving is simply individuals’ resistance to change. I’m reminded of Thomas Edison, who, when he introduced alternating current in the late 19th century, recognized that it represented a scary paradigm shift for American consumers, and wanted to “mess with” that paradigm as little as possible. So, to suggest a way in which electricity could replace gas for room lighting, he put his new lights in the wall sconces where the gas lamps had been. Previously, one could only light a room from the walls, since gas lamps on the ceiling would have brought the whole place down in flames. Even though Edison wished he could show the world a breakthrough in illuminating a room with the more practical and effective ceiling lighting, he wanted to introduce no more change than was absolutely necessary.
My point here is that the best ideas of the generation and use of energy are those that call upon people to make the least change in their attitudes and behaviors. This, btw, is my chief concern about the Commuter Car in the previous post; it calls upon the automotive consumer to make a radical shift in perception, and it’s unclear to me how that will be embraced.
I just had the pleasure of speaking with Rick Woodbury, CEO of Commuter Cars. Rick and his highly pedigreed team of auto designers and strategists have assembled a business plan surrounding the Tango, the small and unique commuter car. There are numerous write-ups floating around on the subject – most notably those on EV World — that I won’t try to paraphrase. In my mind, the facts are simple, and besides, the picture here tells the story quite well:
A super-quick, fun-to-drive NHSTA-approved EV needs to be designed from the ground up, at the considerable expense that one would associate with such a project. The car will meet the needs of commuters who will be asked to pay a premium over an ICE-equivalent for a narrow, short, two-person car that they can maneuver through stop-and-go traffic and park easily (parallel or even perpendicular to the curb).
Other quick details:
a) The Tango is the only enclosed and protected vehicle in the world at this time that can lanesplit, i.e., drive between lanes of stopped or slow-moving traffic, legal in California and most of the world for motorcycles, some of which are 5-inches wider than a Tango.
b) Tandem 2-seater, only 39-inches wide and 8-foot 5-inches long; the same width as a police Harley, and 5-inches narrower than a Honda Gold Wing
c) Most of its weight (batteries) is under the floor, providing a static rollover threshold equivalent to a Porsche 911.
d) With over 1,000 ft lbs of torque, and a zero to 60 acceleration in under 4 seconds, it can out-accelerate most supercars.
Obviously, the demand for such a vehicle has yet to be established. In fact, one could argue, it would be impossible to ascertain such demand with any accuracy, since the car represents disruptive technology; it’s SO different than anything available today that it’s hard to imagine the value of a focus group or quantitative market research effort in pointing to a reliable assessment of actual consumer acceptance.
I think it’s obvious that commuters outside of places like New York City, Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, London – etc. will have little appetite for the car, considering that its price – even with a good economy of scale in production, will be unlikely to be under $25,000. I’ll grant that it’s a blast to drive, but the real appeal is the convenience of a far faster commute, and much easier parking once that commute is over. This is a proposition that seems quite real to me for those in extremely congested areas. But the company is left with the challenge of selling this idea to investors with some fairly deep pockets and willingness to take significant risks.
I enjoyed Rick’s bright mind, his optimism, and the fact that he wasn’t in the least put off my “devil’s advocate” questioning. “Oh don’t worry about that,” he quips; “I’ve heard far worse.” Rick points out that, if a significant number of Tangos were deployed, the entire volume of traffic would decrease for everyone. Of course, I noted, this in and of itself skirts the issue that people do not make purchases based on the welfare of the society. Fortunately, as Rick responded, the value proposition for the consumer himself is considerable: less time in his car commuting to and from work; that society wins too is a lucky side-benefit.
Some current customers who have well over $100,000 apiece for hand-assembled kits include George Clooney, and the Google Founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Of course, that there are a few celebrity environmentalists who can afford to do anything they like does little to convince anyone of the ultimate market demand. Yet I have to agree that there are millions of people who deeply resent their commute, are looking for creative new options — and wouldn’t mind doing the right thing in the process if it proves to be possible. The Tango certainly fits the bill.
Fresh back from my 36-hour pilgrimage to Manhattan, I have to admit the jolt to the system that a trip like that represents for a 54-year-old guy like me. As a younger man, I did the over-scheduled travel scene for decades (e.g., a trip from the East Coast at dinner to attend all-day meetings in Europe the next day — only to come back to the US that night) – but this one reminded me that I’m not 30 years old any more.
In any case, I’m happy to announce that the trip was more than worthwhile. I spent the day with Adrien Corbett, an extremely senior investment banker who has already begun to play a major role in helping 2GreenEnergy readers achieve their goals — making wise investments in renewables, and raising the investment capital necessary to achieve success. More on this soon.
I get the impression that folks don’t really understand the cost of electricity to charge an EV… When the local Costco decided after years of letting my charge my EV while shopping that I was stealing too electricity from them, I called the local power company got their commercial rate and figured out my 3 hour shopping spree cost them about $.45.
Actually, what seems to be happening here to me is the opposite: mall owners are establishing free charging stations to encourage their customers to stay longer (and thus spend more).
But you bring up a critically important point concerning the facilitation of the migration to electric transportation. I.e., an important factor is the use of information technology (based on the Internet) to square up for the purchase of electrical power when one is away from home.
You’ll be happy to know that dozens of people and organizations are working hard to bring this about. You will probably not be as happy to learn that by my wits, there is very little cooperation and sharing of knowledge between them. In fact, many of them seem to be deliberately working against one another, each seeking to establish a different “standard”, each fighting for leadership and ultimate market dominance. This, of course, would be no different than cell phone technology, computer hardware (Mac vs. PC), software (Microsoft vs. Linux/Unix) or any of dozens of different ways that corporate giants profit at the expense of the consumer.
I’ll ask Brian Wynne to comment on this more directly, as he’s in a unique position to look into this process and to comment on what I wrote here.
Thanks for the “Brass Tacks.” I am not suprised at your finding that market surveys very often ask the wrong questions and so get the wrong answers. The most recent in the auto field was of course the Ford Edsel.
I’m not sure that was the most recent, but in any case, thanks for the comment. And you’re so right about research – especially groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting things. I suppose all the discussion of consumer demand for EVs is mere speculation at this point. As you know, I personally believe that an EV at a good price and a decent range will sell like hotcakes—especially if it’s a family’s second car.
Speaking of paradigms, I think a great number of us are tired of “dad’s car,” “mom’s car,” and “Junior’s car.” We’re more than willing to trade that in for “the car for local driving” and “the car we take out of town when going someplace that will take us through a substantial stretch of questionable charging infrastructure.”
Even more to the point, I think a great number of us are rethinking our role as “consumers,” a word that actually means “destroyers.” Fortunately, more and more of us are not happy going through life destroying things for our own fleeting convenience.
Over the next few days, I’ll be posting a few articles on my company’s work with the island nation of Bermuda. From the standpoint of the raw facts, Bermuda is probably the best candidate on the planet to “go green” in a big way. As a people, they’re wealthy and enlightened. As a tourist destination, they’re anxious to make a statement. As a physical locale, they suffer from the pollution of their power plant’s historic reliance upon diesel. And as a candidate for electric transportation, can anything be more auspicious than expensive gas, high tariffs on internal combustion engine cars, short driving distances and low speed limits?
