After 10 years of service, 3,000 articles written, and 10,000 articles edited, I'm taking leave of GTM. Helping GTM grow and succeed from its early days is one of my favorite things I've ever done.
I'm sending gratitude to the people and companies that are fighting the clean energy fight, the GTM founders for being smart enough to hire me, to everyone who ever worked at GTM, to writers and copy editors everywhere, and especially to our readers and commenters.
Shameless self-promotion
Here are a few articles I'm proud to have written:
- California's renewables subsidy program really needed to be improved. I'd like to think that GTM played a small role in encouraging a better version of the $80 million per year giveaway.
- VC-funded energy storage startup LightSail's tale of entrepreneurship gone awry. (This is a vintage premium Squared article that we've liberated.)
- Khosla's cleantech portfolio: Vinod Khosla fell in love with biofuels, but they broke his heart. (Another liberated Squared article.)
- Fuel cell company lists. Flow battery company lists, Algae biofuel lists. IPO lists. Solar companies formed. Solar companies deceased. SunEdison timeline. IPO lists.
- Overlooked: Pioneers using isothermal compression to produce power in 1907, I almost bought HECO, First 100 days of energy policy in the Trump administration.
- Tesla test drive (fiction).
Last words
- When I started tracking renewables in 2003 (pre-GTM), non-hydro renewable sources made a meaningless contribution to the grid and nobody was making money. Fifteen years later, non-hydro renewables make a very small contribution to the grid, and some folks are making money. With that in mind, I'll suggest that the sniping going on over the 100 percent renewables goal modeled by Professor Mark Jacobson is an epic example of Sayre's law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."
- That said, consider running for local office on a renewables platform. Apply for a job at your state's PUC -- they are hiring. Call the offices of your elected officials and politely tell the aides how you feel about solar, wind, and storage. Invent something new. Found a renewable power startup. Write an article or an op-ed. Teach someone young about energy policy.
- As much as it pains me to say this, Gary Kremen was mostly right. Eight years ago, over breakfast, the entrepreneur and Match.com founder told me that there was no economy of scale in nationalizing a home contractor business like HVAC or plumbing or SolarCity, Verengo or Sungevity.
- Throughout my tenure at GTM, or my entire lifetime for that matter, no fuel-cell company has had a profitable year. Bloom Energy remains a private company. And the damn $3 million half-built hydrogen filling station on the corner of my street remains half-built.
- A C student should not be leading our energy policy or safeguarding our nuclear stockpile.
- Calling negative news "fake news" is the mark of a despot. With exceptions, the press is doing a decent job of reporting on the incompetence and malfeasance of the Trump administration. Access for the sake of access is bullshit -- journalists need to band together and walk out of the room when faced with propaganda and lies.
Greentech Media editorial is in the capable and creative hands of Editor-in-Chief Stephen Lacey, Senior Editor Julia Pyper, Grid Whisperer Jeff St. John, and Staff Writer Julian Spector.
If your language is too salty for the comment section, you can reach me at wesoff@mindspring.com.