The current administration seems strongly in favor of doing something to stem the tide of climate change. Why is nothing happening?

Actually, something is happening, but many of the government’s actions so far have merely righted reversals from the brief Republican administration.

For example, the administration has resurrected a requirement of the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act that had been axed by the former guy, requiring that climate impacts be analyzed and local communities have input before federal agencies approve mines, road expansions and other major projects.

Early in this presidential term, the United States rejoined the Paris Accord. The participation of the world’s superpower and beacon of capitalism is crucial to the cooperation of smaller nations.

But government sometimes works against its own interests. President Joseph Biden pledged to eliminate carbon emissions from the electric industry by 2035. Meanwhile, the largest federal utility, TVA, is betting on natural gas to replace retiring coal-fired power plants, locking in greenhouse gas emissions for generations to come.

Legislation is the long-term way to mitigate damaging climate change in the U.S. On this Earth Day, President Biden is on our region talking up solar energy and offshore wind farms authorized last year as part of a trillion-dollar-plus infrastructure package. But meaningful climate legislation is nearly impossible in Congress, where Republicans blockade any effort to protect Americans from the devastating and unequal effects of global warming.

Legislation won’t get any easier if Democrats don’t hold onto Congress in 2022, as President Barack Obama learned.

That leaves rulemaking as the expeditious path. Regulations have been restored on the release of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to developmental damage in children, from coal-burning power plants.

On the regulatory front, President Biden is rolling back recent damage to tailpipe emissions rulemaking by restoring California’s authority to set its own rules on vehicle emissions. This is important for the nation, not just California, which is a leader in fighting climate change. Seventeen other states and D.C. have adopted California’s cleaner standards.

And then there’s the economy. The president who promised to stop drilling on public lands is in favor of more drilling on public lands, now that a major war and related sanctions are disrupting supply and driving up the cost of oil, which in turn drive high inflation. Extracting more petroleum won’t make any difference in oil prices for years, as new wells are developed.

The only consolation is that the world’s most profitable industry will pay more for the right to return fossilized carbon to the atmosphere.

Play the episode 

In this selected episode, host and CNN climate change analyst John Sutter interviews Daniel Schrag, the director of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment, about the role of technology in combatting climate change. 

Solar and wind are now cheaper than natural gas for electricity in many parts of the world, but not as flexible, Dr. Schrag says. 30% renewables is attainable and should be done fast. 

The Climate Investment Fund backs projects that others won’t, and one of those is a concentrating solar power project in Morocco. CSP is a technology I covered back in 2004 when it was little more than a science project, but it advanced quickly because it made then-inefficient photovoltaics more cost effective. 

In the second half of this epi, Reporter Sebastian Bouknight takes listeners to Morocco and the Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex for the story.

The other 11 episodes cover topics ranging from activism to investments and food to urban design. 

Please share your thoughts with us and your friends by posting this on your favorite social media network. We’ve provided sharing buttons to make it easy. Mention  @Cleantech. You can also send comments to me by email.

Register and get 30% off standard registration with our DISCOUNT CODE: ELS-energypriorities30

Mark has dedicated his 30-year career to working with utility and Fortune 1000 customers to deliver value, success and profitable growth. He has deep experience in sales, product marketing, go-to-market strategy and profitable general management of ongoing business operations.

Clearly communicate the value of your clean energy technology innovation. Talk to P5 Group today.

As Itron’s senior vice president of Customer and Market Experience, Mark is responsible for leading Itron’s sales, marketing, channel management, business development, customer support and customer success activities across the full company portfolio. Prior to joining Itron, Mark oversaw consulting, support, hosting and account management at Silicon Energy.

The #energyleadershipsummit2020 will have two keynote speakers.

Paula R. Glover, President and CEO of American Association of Blacks in Energy, will open the virtual conference.

The American Association of Blacks in Energy is a national energy trade association that represents all sectors of the energy industry. Paula leads a 2000-member association with 40 chapters nationwide. The association’s focus is to represent the voice for African Americans and other minorities on energy policy, regulations, and environmental issues.

Paula directs the association’s strategic plan, business development and policy positions. She represents the organization before energy industry executives and national and state policy makers. She is an industry thought leader for issues around diversity and inclusion. Her work on international energy issues underscores the importance of energy to improve the quality of life for people throughout the African Continent.

The association under Paula’s leadership has partnered with the US Department of Energy on its Minorities in Energy initiative as well as business development programming for minority entrepreneurs. She has also testified before Congress about the impact of policies on underserved communities.

Paula has more than 25 years of experience in the energy industry, including 15 years in both electric and natural gas distribution companies where she has worked in government affairs, regulatory affairs and economic development. In March 2014 Paula was appointed to the National Petroleum Council by U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz. She continues to serve on the Council having been reappointed by Secretary Perry in 2016 and Secretary Brouillette in 2020.

The summit agenda will continue with a featured plenary session where regional experts will debate “Re-Envisioning  the Grid for Deep Decarbonization” followed by three breakout tracks.

Our session picks:

Track A: Zero Net Energy: Scaling Solutions, featuring Haley Gardner, International Living Future Institute, and Lawrence Tsang, Convergent Energy + Power. The market potential is exciting.

Track B: The Equity Imperative: Advancing Environmental Justice in the Clean Energy Economy. This issue is no longer on the fringes.

Track C: Energy Storage: Connecting Renewable Supply and Resilient Demand.

Register here for the event, which will be held online November 12, 2020. Get 30% off standard registration with our DISCOUNT CODE: ELS-energypriorities30

It’s been a fun 16 years. I’ve stopped writing about the category, and instead help individual companies communicate the value of their sustainable cleantech innovations through energy marketing communications.

I’ll be listing these fantastic domains for sale so someone else can benefit from them.

Two energy milestones

This week the world reached a symbolic landmark. The price of oil dropped below zero for the first time ever. One benchmark’s negative price, attributed to a slump in demand during the Covid-19 pandemic , lasted just one day.

But it was a shot heard round the world. From this momentous occasion let’s take a look back, then forward.

You started a what?

In 2004, “blogging” was a new term and it was taking off. I had run a website for 10 years that was a blog, just not called a blog. This should be familiar turf, I thought.

What the blogosphere and media landscape lacked was coverage of sustainable energy for business readers. I felt that several outlets would fill that gap within a few years and I wanted to be among them. I had nothing to lose by going first.

But the early examples of blogging per se were snarky political rants that left me not wanting to be part of it. Could I turn Energy Priorities into a magazine?

There weren’t many examples of online magazines then, but fringe outlets had spent millions to establish the category. Slate was owned by Microsoft, and David Talbot’s Salon had reached its peak of paying – yes, paying! – subscribers. Huffington Post and many others would soon follow.

So I started writing, and by 2006 I was also trying out another new medium, podcasts.

We still talk a lot about energy

As an International Business student in the seventies I learned about climate change in, of all places, Foreign Policy magazine.

Today, every media outlet covers sustainable energy and climate change. Fortune’s 50th Earth Day cover is “A Planet in Crisis,” with a feature essay by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben.

Denis Hayes and Greta Thunberg have stepped in to fill the vacuum left by Al Gore.

National Geographic’s April 2020 edition has two halves with two covers – one optimistic and one pessimistic – about the world on the 100th Earth Day.

So, how well have we done in the past 50 Earth Days?

Renewable energy equipment prices dropped, which enabled large-scale projects across the United States. Solar costs came down 99% since 1975. Technologies improved rapidly, too. For what my wife and I paid for solar panels at our off-grid cabin in 2001, we can get four times as many kW in 2020.

But renewables still produce a tiny fraction of the electricity and heat needed to get America off fossil fuels – which will have to happen if we want to mitigate the worst physical and social effects of climate change.

Americans created the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the E.P.A. All three are proving brittle at the hands of conservative politicians and appointees bent on destroying them.

The Paris Climate Accord came – and went. Unanimous ratification was a most exciting moment for the environmental community. Modest as the accord was, it was too much for some countries, especially ours, to bear. Paris still has a pulse.

The Clean Power Plan looked like a path to decarbonizing our centralized electric generation system. But it’s being crushed under the heel of an administration that is beyond apathetic.

Public opinion is under attack

A loud minority of Americans are similarly hostile toward environmental regulations. What was once a conservative cause, then a bipartisan issue, has somehow become politicized like everything else.

We can thank the Koch brothers, fossil fuel companies and big political donors for funding long, Merchants of Doubt-style disinformation campaigns to influence American opinion.

But it hasn’t worked.

While the dinosaur industries say we can’t stop climate change, young Americans say, “hold my beer.”

According to Pew Research, a majority of young adults 18 to 38 think the U.S. government is doing too little about climate change.

78% of millennials and 61% of Gen X say the more important priority for our energy supply should be developing alternative energy, not expanding fossil fuels. And that’s among young Republicans. For Democrats overall, the figure is 90%.

What are your energy priorities?

Through Energy Priorities Magazine I published content that was widely shared and syndicated. I collaborated with high-profile publications on energy and sustainability reporting. Podcasts I produced were aired on NPR and available to millions more online. I barely made a dent. But it was a dent, and I was not alone.

The next step is yours. Read about energy and climate change in your favorite news outlets. Get a paid subscription and support independent journalism.

For a deeper dive, try Greentech Media, founded in 2007, which later under the guidance of Editor in Chief Stephen Lacey became the leading bridge publication, making industry technical insider news accessible to business readers outside the energy industry.

Act on what you know. Write letters, volunteer for causes, donate generously — and vote.

Clean energy is good business

Today, energy use and environmental impact are issues every large business takes seriously. Businesses now have three bottom lines instead of one.

Insurers and creditors are asking about carbon risk. Customers and investors are demanding corporate social responsibility reports. Funds are demanding divestiture from fossil fuel industries. Combating climate change is moving from a public cost to a possible path out of economic recession with green jobs.

If you invest, do it responsibly, and take part in governance.

There is a “silver bullet” for our sustainable energy future. It’s not an idea, a technology, a kilowatt, a dollar or pound — it’s the people who bring those things together to make a difference. That includes you.

Don’t stop caring.

Denis Du Bois
Founder
Energy Priorities Magazine

April 22, 2020

How do I pick education sessions to see at Greenbuild?

What sessions should you attend at Greenbuild 2019?

What else is going on at Greenbuild in Atlanta?

Join your peers on November 19, 2019 at the Washington State Conference Center in Seattle to explore the nexus of energy, climate change, and the region’s economy with more than 400 industry leaders and policymakers from across the Northwest.

There’s plenty of room in the exhibit hall, so sharpen your B2B marketing messages and reserve your space. This event attracts the C-level energy executives and utility managers you’re looking for.

Presented jointly by the CleanTech Alliance and the Northwest Environmental Business Council, this unique event connects policy with practice and addresses the industry’s current challenges and future opportunities.

Register before November 1, 2019 to take advantage of early bird registration rates. Click here for more information.

That’s how long it will be until Inauguration Day 2021, as of this writing.

See an up-to-the-minute POTUS Turnover Countdown Clock.

The Building Science Podcast is a production of Positive Energy, a residentially focused engineering firm in Austin.

https://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/175346/57610511

This is one long-form podcast I watch for in my feed so I can set aside time (typically an hour) on a flight or long drive to really listen. They’ve been podcasting since 2015 when they grabbed my attention with an episode about PCM. The hosts explore various technical aspects of the built environment from a people-centric perspective.

The second decade of the AIA 2030 Commitment is approaching. In this example episode of Building Science, architect Nathan Kipnis FAIA of Chicago’s Kipnis Architecture + Planning talks about sustainability in the firm’s culture, the energy focus and getting client commitments. Over 500 A/E/P firms have adopted the AIA 2030 Commitment, launched in 2009 to support the 2030 Challenge. Kipnis is an architecture school graduate of my alma mater Arizona State University and Co-chair of the AIA National 2030 Commitment Working Group.

Podcast co-hosts Kristof Irwin PE and Miguel Walker dive into the topic of the month with wide-eyed fascination. Irwin is a principal of the firm and its lead engineer. Walker is Positive Energy’s chief rainmaker and a board member of Passive House Austin. The duo does a good job of keeping up a monthly podcast schedule. Production quality varies, but the discussions are always thought provoking and deserve a place in the environment podcast anthology.

Please share your thoughts with us and your friends by posting this on your favorite social media network. We’ve provided sharing buttons to make it easy. Mention @BldgScienceATX and @Cleantech. You can also send comments to me by email.

https://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/93415/56915808

Climate One is a project of The Commonwealth Club of California, produced in association with NPR affiliate station KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. Thanks to podcasting, we can enjoy the show everywhere.

The sample episode I have chosen, “Climate Silence: Why Aren’t There More Votes,”  is from back before the 2018 midterms. Most epi’s are not so centered on politics. New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel tells how climate and energy issues were (or were not) playing in the elections.

Sam Arons, whom I met five years ago when he was still buying wind power for Google data centers, explains how he encouraged his Lyft coworkers and customers to get out and vote. And Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project, described what his organization was doing to mobilize the more than 10 million Americans who cite environmental protection as a core value but who don’t vote regularly. And we all know how that turned out (I’m looking at you, WA).

Host Greg Dalton founded Climate One in 2007, but you may remember his name from his 12 years covering news for the Associated Press, “McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,” and Industry Standard magazine. His broadcast experience is reflected in the overall quality and professionalism of Climate One.

Please share your thoughts with us and your friends by posting this on your favorite social media network. We’ve provided sharing buttons to make it easy. Mention @ClimateOne and @Cleantech. You can also send comments to me by email.

Computers keep getting smaller and cheaper. Everything in our lives is becoming smart and connected. We are just scratching the surface of how technology will change our lives in the next 10 to 15 years, Steve Brown told an audience of energy utility representatives.

Mr. Brown is a futurist who helps large companies and industry organizations understand trends so they can plan for where the world is going. He gave a keynote address at the 2018 Efficiency Exchange conference hosted by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and Bonneville Power Administration.

Six technologies will shape the near future for every industry, including energy utilities, Mr. Brown said, and “each technology is about building more bridges between the physical world that we inhabit and the digital world where technology is constantly advancing.”

The big six technologies of the future

In his 15 years at Intel, Steve Brown, an engineer by training, worked at the forefront of digital computing, so he knows about technology. He also worked for a cultural anthropologist at Intel, so he understands how people think about and react to change. And he worked on early Energy Star standards for PCs.

Artificial intelligence tops his list of the big six technologies of the future.

“Artificial intelligence is a big, big deal,” Mr. Brown said. “AI is a completely different type of computing than the digital computing we use today. You program AI computers by training them and showing them data.” AI enables the digital world to learn and imagine.

I caught up with Mr. Brown after his talk and asked him how he would prioritize these six technologies. Is there one we should be paying the most attention to? “If I had to pick just one, it would be AI,” he told me. “If we thought the last 40 years was amazing, in the next 10 years we are likely to see more change in our lives than in the last 40 because of AI’s capabilities. The energy industry should be paying attention to it.”

“You can think of AI as the second coming of computing,” he said in his keynote address, “one that is able to solve a completely different kind of problems.” Self-driving cars would not be possible without AI.

The internet of things is giving the world a nervous system by implanting sensors everywhere. You’re already carrying 8 or 9 sensor that are built into the phone in your pocket. Mr. Brown said there will be around 100 trillion sensors in the world by 2030, telling digital systems what’s happening in their and our physical environment.

“With IoT we can create control loops, where we sense something in the physical world and use that to make a decision and act on it in the digital world,” Mr. Brown told me later. “If we can use AI and sensors to look for patterns in the way people use energy, we have more of an ability to optimize the usage of that energy.”

He said several companies are starting to use AI to look for patterns in people’s usage of energy and coach consumers on how to use less. One IoT example in his presentation was a wallet that becomes harder to open when the owner’s bank balance is low.

In an audience of 400 energy efficiency experts, I wasn’t the only one wondering how we could make a switch harder to turn on when electricity is more expensive.

Autonomous machines are AI inside of robots. Mainstream robots today can’t understand much about the world around them, but with AI they will be able to safely interact with humans in more meaningful ways. Autonomous machines enable the digital world to act.

Blockchain is the technology underlying crypto currencies. “I prefer to think of blockchain as a new platform upon which people will create incredible new value,” Mr. Brown said, “and crypto currency is one of the tricks that make blockchain work.”

Mr. Brown described blockchain as a fancy database, distributed across many computers, with no central owner, and all the data is stored with military-grade encryption. “Blockchain allows us to create decentralized applications, like a social media platform without one central company in control of it.”

Blockchain also enables distributed open-source development of applications as well as shared ownership in small portions of projects. Think community solar, with many owners of small shares coming together to make the project a reality.

If you’re tired of your mobile phone’s slow and intermittent internet connection, hang on, Mr. Brown said, 5G is coming. “The Internet of things will need a constant connection and low latency,” he said. “5G networks don’t just make data go faster, they make connections more reliable.”

One technology that will need 5G’s always-on broadband is augmented reality.

“Augmented reality takes digital content and overlays it on the physical world,” Mr. Brown said. “Essentially the world becomes your display.” He showed a short video illustrating some of the many possibilities for augmented reality, which goes far beyond virtual reality in its capabilities.

How the big six technologies combine to shape the future

Mr. Brown gave some examples of how these six technologies will come together to change the world we live in a decade or more from now.

“Cobots” are robots that will work alongside humans. These AI coworkers will be able to train people on the job, perform quality assurance in manufacturing, and alert equipment owners to upcoming maintenance needs.

AI-enabled autonomous cars will become a shared resource. “We are about to make a major leap in transportation,” Mr. Brown said. We won’t need nearly as many cars, but they will all be electric. Makers and nations are committed to zero emissions vehicles. Uber is experimenting with air taxis.

“Things are going to flip quite quickly, and that’s going to mean people want a lot more electricity.” Electric vehicles and blockchain, among other upcoming technologies, consume enormous amounts of energy. But these trends portend some good news for renewables: more storage.

Electric cars are a giant battery, Mr. Brown said. “Utilities could get into the car fleet business. Why let Uber do that? EVs could become grid level storage.”

What about all that privacy and cybersecurity stuff?

I asked Mr. Brown about privacy and security, given the challenges we already have without these new technologies, and the risk aversion of utilities.

“Privacy matters, and security matters more,” he told me. “People are willing to give up privacy so that companies can gather the data they need to better serve their customers. Make it opt in. Promise security. Explain the benefits and be transparent.”

In his keynote speech, Mr. Brown said that regulation is one tool for keeping up with these technological advances – and keeping them out of manipulative hands – “but fundamentally we need to have a cultural conversation about how we embrace technology,” he told the audience.

“I deputize you as deputy futurists to go have this conversation about the world we want to build and the world we want to avoid. Conversation before regulation.”

“You have a very bright future,” Mr. Brown said in closing. “Your customers are going to go through rapid changes, and so are you.”