Lessons Learned (10) at RETECH
1. Did you know 37 countries have legally binding Renewable Energy Standards? The United States (U.S.) isn’t one. How is that possible!!!
2. Six percent of the U.S.’s energy is spent moving water around. In California, it’s 20%. Wow. That’s a lot.
3. The first publicly financed solar project in the U.S. was in San Diego in 1983. Guys, we’ve got to get going.
4. In 2008, the U.S. installed as much new renewable energy generation as it did fossil fuel generation. Hey, this could be the biggest tipping point ever!
5. The 2008 Wall Street melt-down combined with the great recession has, in some people’s minds, made the government (read: the Congress) more ambivalent about its ability to do big things. That makes climate change or even energy hard to deal with. Sadly that’s the backlash of the mortgage security based derivative implosion. No one knew how it happened, but everyone is scared about how to present/understand/handle any new programs…especially ones that are labeled market based…hmmm sounds like cap and trade. Really, we need the smart people to step up.
6. There’s enough domestic ethanol manufacturing capacity to replace 10% of the U.S.’s gasoline usage. Who knew corn had so much potential power.
7. South Korea, China and Japan are expected to outspend the U.S. 3x on investments in clean tech over the next year.
8. Mexico’s government is thinking seriously about a solar feed-in-tariff. Why? Easy to administer, clean, safe, and controllable. But, it’s still a non-starter in the U.S. Hmmm.
9. Last year, 60% of project finance business was devoted to renewable energy. Looks like the red headed step-child may be coming home.
10. And, oh, Ladies. There are so few women on these renewable energy panels that it’s crazy. Come on, GET IN THE GAME!
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There's no strategic energy policy in this administration
Energy is a strategic commodity. If you went to the gas station and couldn't get gas ... I mean there was none ... you'd be concerned. If ships of the U.S. Navy were stuck in port because of no fuel, you'd be concerned. If there was no diesel fuel to run the equipment of the U.S. Military and foreign navies were fooling around in our 200 mile limit on our shores (which they sometimes do), you'd be concerned. Our government and perhaps our society have wrong perceptions about the big bad oil companies. Oil companies are big for a reason ... it's really expensive to develop the sites to drill for oil or get natural gas out of the ground. Few companies can suffer five years of losses and then five years of profit at an average of 5% as a regular way of doing business without scale. Fossil fuels aren't going away anytime soon ... like in my lifetime and likely not in our children’s lifetimes. We need a strategic energy policy. And it need not be a policy of penalizing part of our society to force them to align to an alternate energy future. Incentives have always worked better than penalties. Until this government gets together and stops vilifying fossil fuel and its producers who could and would be strong partners in alternate energy, we will likely lag behind the rest of the world. And a final note: ethanol from corn is a bad idea. Any bio fuel that produces more CO2 than gasoline or diesel in the total production and burning of the fuel is a waste of time. Especially one that causes the price of food and feed to rise.
I couldn’t agree more about
I couldn’t agree more about needing a robust, strategic energy strategy. I also agree that fossil fuels will have to be part of our overall energy mix for a long time to come — as will nuclear, hydro, solar and a host of other generation options. Right now, renewables are seated far away from the action, like the kids table at Thanksgiving. We need to move renewables front and center to create an environment in which they can scale and build the next great industry. You mentioned that oil companies are big because they need to be. But they weren’t always those behemoths. It took time to build the worldwide supply chain and to build large scale refineries that drive down costs. They are also big, and can spend years developing new technologies and fuel sources because they receive an estimated $90 billion in subsidies and tax incentives. That’s how the fossil fuel industry was built. Now, it’s time for renewables!
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