Viewing posts tagged "Blogroll"

An article you should read

One of the things that’s so powerful about the energy and water and resource challenges we face are that they touch everyone’s lives on many levels:  As individuals, as communities, as countries, and as a world.  And another powerful fact about these challenges is that we have been now wrestling with them for some time, without making good progress.

In energy in particular, I am constantly hearing about (and learning from) the experiences of those who have been thinking about these issues for a long time.  So many good ideas yet to be executed on.  So much debate recycled from previous debates, without drawing the lessons from what had worked before and what had not.  And so many unfortunate assumptions about what can be accomplished (politically, technically, etc.).

I had lunch today with an investor who pointed me to this article from a long-time veteran of energy and finance.  Theodore W. Noon, Jr. was an oil wildcatter in the 1940s, a petroleum geologist and engineer for 60 years, and an energy investor for several decades.  He was also a bronze star and distinguished service cross recipient, receiving five purple hearts for his service in World War II.

T.W. Noon died last year, but in the final months of his life he wrote two articles full of thoughts and insights on two subjects on which he had a lot of experience—our economic challenges, and our energy challenges. He wrote them while in hospice; he knew they would be his last chance to share the lessons he had learned along the way, and he hoped people would read them.

So please read them.  Some of what he has to say may surprise you.  He doesn’t pull punches, and doesn’t go with the flow.  An oil wildcatter and investor proposing a phased-in energy tax?  Regular readers may recognize that that kind of thinking strikes a chord with me...

I never met T.W. Noon, but I wish I had.  I would have enjoyed the conversations greatly.  I’d like to think he would have been as excited as I am by some of what I’m seeing in the entrepreneurial and policy worlds these days.  But I sure hope we don’t let the opportunity slip by yet again…

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2009: The Year of the Carbon Market

Happy new year, everyone!

A big thank you to the few thousand of you who regularly read this column, and thanks for the kind words many of you have sent my way over the past few years.  I hope these rambling writings continue to be useful for you…

Everyone probably already has a lot of resolutions already in mind for the new year, but allow me to suggest a few additional ones (these are mostly easy, so you can quickly increase your “success rate” if you add them to your list):

• Spend 2 minutes reading this very good article on how 2009 is going to mean big things for carbon markets.

• Spend 3 minutes filling out the Cleantech Investing readers’ prediction questionnaire.

• 2009 will also be The Year for Cleantech Networking (tm)...  Spend 1 minute signing up for the Cleantech Investing group on Facebook, to connect with your fellow C.I. readers.

• Spend 1 minute signing up for the Renewable Energy Business Network (REBN) group on LinkedIn, to connect with fellow entrepreneurs, researchers, and businesspeople in cleantech.  Also, look for REBN events in your city in 2009, where you can network in that most antiquated of modes: Face-to-face.

• Spend 10 minutes adding your thoughts to the ongoing conversation around “What’s wrong with cleantech VC”...  Read the presentation here and add your thoughts in the comments section, or email me your thoughts.  Thanks to all of you who continue to contribute to the dialogue…

• If you haven’t already, spend 3 minutes adding the following sites to your RSS reader or other reading list:  Clean Break...  Cleantech Blog...  Two Steps Forward...  EcoGeek.org...  Switchboard...  and of course, Green Light.  (You can also find links to this column’s RSS feed, or to sign up for email delivery, in the sidebar to the right under “Admin”)

• Spend 5 minutes at the EERE’s Alternative Fueling Station Locator...  And ponder why, with the billions upon billions spent on producing biofuels, it’s so tough to find a convenient retail option near you where you can actually purchase the stuff for your vehicle—and even when you do find such fuels, how can you know how sustainably (or not) they were produced?

• Spend 5 minutes flipping through the early release ppt of the DOE’s 2009 Annual Energy Outlook... And ponder how we’re going to possibly address our looming climate change and energy supply challenges if fossil fuels are really going to remain 79% of the U.S.‘s energy supply mix by 2030.  Major systematic changes are clearly needed…

That’s it!  Just 30 minutes’ worth of to-dos over the holiday weekend, and you can cross 8 new year’s resolutions off of your list.  Best wishes for a safe and peaceful and prosperous 2009 all around…