The Modern Energy Matchmaker: Connecting Investors with Entrepreneurs
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The Modern Energy Matchmaker: Connecting Investors with Entrepreneurs
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Overview
Explaining the trends and key words in the green energy movement, this book examines the idea of modern energy—a combination of old and new energy resources—and the costs involved in making them operational. Resources that include wind, solar, nuclear, wave, biofuels, biomass, smart grid technologies, magnetics, hydropower, oil, gas, and coal all need to be partnered with entrepreneurs to bring them to life. Fusing intellectual and financial resources can secure a modern energy-reliant future, and this proposal directs the world's investors to begin that partnership.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781936374212 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Addicus Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 100 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Modern Energy Matchmaker
Connecting Investors with Entrepreneurs
By Michele Ashby
Addicus Books, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Michele AshbyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-936374-21-2
CHAPTER 1
Coloring Our World Green
Modern energy has come to be known by many names: clean, green, alternative, and renewable. Regardless of what you call it, this type of energy is here to stay. Growing demand and higher prices for energy are leading to increased development of modern energy sources around the world. Making the shift from tried-and-true energy sources to alternative, cutting-edge forms is a daunting, yet exhilarating, undertaking.
The transformation will require tremendous human and financial resources, and huge doses of innovation, collaboration, and prudent risk taking. We'll need to learn from early failures and build on early successes. And, most important, we'll need to balance our strong sense of urgency to achieve our clean-energy vision, with a significant supply of patience for carrying out the steps to achieve our vision. We will get there, not just because we want to, but because we have to.
We want — and need — a clean, green planet, where Mother Nature in all her generous bounty provides us with an infinite supply of inexpensive renewable energy.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), world energy demand is projected to grow by 55 percent by 2030. Most of this growth is expected to come from emerging economies. And the growth rate is projected to be 200 percent by 2050.
Experts tell us we have reached "peak" everything — oil, gas, minerals, and resources of all types. We are rapidly nearing a point in time, when energy price points will be less of an issue than the very availability of energy, clean water, reliable food sources, and other life necessities.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that an estimated $16 trillion will need to be spent worldwide between now and 2030 to meet the projected demand for new electricity and fuel sources. If just 30 percent of that amount went into clean-energy technologies, the annual influx of capital would be approximately $200 billion a year, which is a lot of investment!
If only we could wave a magic wand and produce this needed supply of clean energy now. Is it realistic to hope that, through the combined efforts of like-minded people in multiple countries, we eventually will be able to create an infinite energy supply? Many, including me, believe it is possible and that clean energy sources possess tremendous potential for meeting all the world's growing energy needs.
Of course, we have a long way to go. At present, according to what I read and hear from reliable sources, renewable, clean, green, modern energy now accounts for a mere 2 percent of the world's energy! At the same time, predictions made by some in the field suggest that by 2025, this percentage will increase tenfold, to 20 percent.
The Energy Evolution Won't Be Easy
Let's be frank: In the developed world we are seriously spoiled by the consistent energy service we enjoy in our homes, businesses, and communities. This form of energy service, which is commonly referred to as base load power, is provided by our basic utility electric plants, and these plants run primarily on fossil fuels. With electric power you are able to plug in everything and have instant access to electricity. Unless the power is down, which is generally rare, everything works reliably.
But with both wind and solar energy there is a huge storage problem, so this becomes intermittent power. Let's put it this way: When the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, you need to have access to stored power, or the lights are off and nothing moves. At this moment, the technology for storing such energy is still pretty primitive. And the challenges don't end with energy storage.
More Questions than Answers
Making the transition from primarily fossil fuels to clean energy will not be a quick and easy journey. For starters, consider the following questions, all of which present complex challenges to be conquered:
Where are the technologies needed to turn wind, sun, and water power into energy?
Where are the technologies needed to transform naturally regenerating essences as algae, hydrogen, and other materials into energy?
How can energy creation be accomplished in a reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable manner?
How can we accurately calculate what exactly is needed to warm and light our homes and offices, our streets and highways, and provide us with energy for all our other human wants and needs without waste?
How can we produce and apply this needed energy — while preserving the planet's ecological balance?
Of course we need to drastically reduce our dependence on coal and oil, replacing these fossil fuels with alternative fuels, for so many good reasons. But has the desire for clean energy emerged years, or even decades, ahead of our ability to create clean energy? Are we clear on what's possible today and what we can reasonably (and even unreasonably) aim for in the near term, mid-term, and long term? And what kind of time frames are we talking about anyway?
Whew! Are you getting discouraged yet? Don't be. The great race car driver Mario Andretti once said, "If you feel like you have everything under control, you're not driving fast enough."
At this early stage of modern energy's development, I will confidently make three predictions about its future. Number one: With the depletion of fossil fuels, global warming, consumer demand for more green solutions, and favorable policies to incentivize and subsidize energy development, modern energy options are here for the long haul. Number two: New technologies are going to be needed to move us from 2 percent to 20 percent use of clean, green, modern energy. Number three: This energy evolution will require billions of dollars and millions of new jobs.
Happily, this is a time of great innovation and opportunity, and we are bringing significant intellectual and financial resources to bear to realize our vision of utilizing solar, wind technology, new fuel sources, water power, and many other resources to meet our ever-growing energy needs.
Visionary men and women across the globe are racing to find solutions to our energy challenges. These individuals include those who run biotech companies and savvy investors who want to find the next big thing in this arena and "do well while doing good." And let's not forget the cadre of dedicated engineers, geologists, environmentalists, political leaders, and a host of others who are just as passionately engaged in finding ways to access available resources cheaply without causing major destruction. As we need to be reminded, you can chop down a tree and use it for fuel, but a replacement tree can take another hundred years to grow.
Kermit the Frog said, "It's not that easy being green." He was right. But he is already green. It's even more difficult to go green — to formulate and sustain ultra-modern energy sources without being shortsighted and causing additional damage to the planet.
The fact is, we are beginning to make strides in the creation of a cleaner environment, even if it is not happening as fast as many of us would like. And don't shoot the messenger, but it is not going to happen any faster without significant changes in public and personal behavior, along with major financial investment, leadership from business and government, true entrepreneurship, and technical innovations. To continue our progress, we'll also need a lot of patience, realistic expectations, and the ability to compromise along the way.
I'm optimistic we'll succeed. Let me give you just two examples of companies that give me great hope for the future of modern energy.
Two Early Success Stories
The first success story comes to us from Texas, where one hardworking, visionary family, the Zilkhas, had in just twelve years built a successful oil and gas business. They eventually sold their interest in Zilkha Energy for more than $1 billion to Sonat in 1998.
Here's what's so interesting. The Zilkhas then reinvested those dollars into wind farms, which they then extensively built out and developed. In just two years, the wind farms they bought and expanded were purchased by Goldman Sachs for a reported $2 billion. The family then reinvested the wind-farm profits into developing biomass power plants, which run on natural resources. Will this be their next big success story? I am watching to see.
The second success story is occurring in Fort Collins, Colorado, at the Solix Biofuels' Demonstration Facility, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Solix is located at Coyote Gulch in southwestern Colorado near the city of Durango on land provided by the company's partner, the Southern Ute Alternative Energy Fund.
Solix is one of those algae-growing companies you may have heard about. (Bill Gates invested heavily in this technology and so did Exxon.) What's interesting to me is not so much that Solix grows algae and then turns it into fuel. What's interesting is where the company put the algae plant and how it grows the algae. Solix located its algae farm right next door to a coal-fired power plant, and then it began feeding the algae with carbon dioxide gas (CO2 carbon bad guys). The gas, which is directed into the algae ponds, feeds the algae and helps it grow faster, making a cleaner biofuel to burn in vehicles and machinery! Voilà, Solix is cleaning up dirty gas from a power plant and using it as food to grow a clean fuel to run engines. What a great solution to a big pollution problem.
Want to learn about other success stories and further explore the promise of modern energy? Keep reading.
CHAPTER 2Americans' Attitude toward the Environment
As a nation, the United States has experienced an on again, off-again concern and appreciation for the environment.
Some of us fondly recall the very first "Earth Day" celebration back in the spring of 1970. Modeled after the Vietnam War "teach-ins" (educational forums) on college campuses, this national day of observance attracted millions of American participants concerned about growing environmental problems. The founder of Earth Day, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, wrote about the celebration's profound impact on America:
Americans made it clear that they understood and were deeply concerned over the deterioration of our environment and the mindless dissipation of our resources. That day left a permanent impact on the politics of America. It forcibly thrust the issue of environmental quality and resources conservation into the political dialogue of the Nation. That was the important objective and achievement of Earth Day. It showed the political and opinion leadership of the country that the people cared, that they were ready for political action, that the politicians had better get ready, too. In short, Earth Day launched the Environmental decade with a bang.
In the forty years since, our national environmental agenda has been impacted by tremendously powerful influences: the priorities and policies of eight U.S. presidential administrations, countless man-made and natural environmental disasters, and probably billions of words written and spoken about the beauty and fragility of Planet Earth.
The '70s Revisited
To better understand the environmental attitudes of today, let's take a quick tour through the decades, beginning with the '70s. This is the era that gave America such cultural fare as the first Star Wars movie, pet rocks, and disco dancing. It's also the era of the Vietnam War's final years, the Apollo XIII explosion, and the Watergate drama, which led to the resignation of the thirty-seventh president, Richard Milhous Nixon.
From the start of his presidency in 1969, Richard Nixon was consumed by the Vietnam War and besieged by anti-war protests. In 1970, Nixon's approval rating for his handling of the Vietnam War averaged 54 percent, according to Gallup. Against this backdrop, the new president saw championing legislation to improve the environment as an opportunity to be "the good guy" and improve his popularity.
In 1970, Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The plan called for the reorganization and consolidation of many administrative agencies into the EPA. Primarily composed of attorneys, engineers, and economists, the EPA developed a complex regulatory structure that categorized and addressed environmental issues by pollutant and medium. Nixon also signed a flurry of landmark environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act — ushering in the vanguard of a new government. With the establishment of the EPA and the passage of a variety of environmental laws and policies in the 1970s, environmental issues became mainstream.
During this era, legislation focused primarily on reducing the harmful impact of pollution on ecological systems. In addition to water-quality legislation, air-pollution laws passed in 1965 were expanded in 1970 and 1972. Growing concern over pesticides led lawmakers to revise existing pesticide law, resulting in the Pesticides Act of 1972.
Likewise, the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 was passed in direct response to concerns during the previous decade regarding dredging and filling, industrial settings, and offshore oil development. It was only later that the environmental movement advocated for legislation emphasizing the harmful effects on human health. Despite these legislative milestones, environmental laws did not prohibit pollution, but rather controlled pollution according to health-based standards.
Throughout the '70s, toxic-chemical episodes attracted negative publicity and provided momentum to the environmental movement. Moreover, an energy crisis during the winter of 1973-1974 alarmed the American public. Oil shortages became indelibly etched into the American consciousness, underscoring that human consumption has limits.
A New Decade Brings New Challenges
By the early '80s, "mainstream environmentalism" emerged in the wake of the Reagan administration's anti-environmental deregulation policies. Based mainly on a system of market-based incentives, rather than regulations to entice companies to stop polluting, this approach frustrated environmental-protection advocates.
Reagan led the country from 1981 to 1989. From the administration's inception, a new set of government leaders made clear that the environmental movement was obsolete. As the Reagan administration routinely overlooked grassroots environmental groups, mainstream environmentalism began evolving into a collection of public-interest groups, which specialized in lobbying, legal expertise, scientific expertise, and the art of compromise.
A Planet in Peril, about to Be Saved
Many thought the Earth had a prayer of being saved only through the growing force — and sheer will — of mainstream environmentalism groups. And then the movement stalled, and efforts to protect the environment waned. The momentum slowed for a variety of reasons during President Reagan's first term: There were internal squabbles and a growing backlash that government and "greens" could be doing more harm than good. The Reagan administration's anti-regulation message swept the country, and enforcement of conservation and pollution laws declined dramatically.
During Reagan's second term in office, the pendulum began to swing in the reverse direction, following one of the worst industrial accidents in history — the 1984 poisonous gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the densely populated city of Bhopal, India. Two years later, the world witnessed the worst nuclear power plant accident in history: a reactor explosion at the Soviet Chernobyl plant, which released a radioactive cloud over large parts of the former Soviet Union, across Europe, and reached as far as Greenland and parts of Asia. Following these catastrophic events, the bad news kept piling up: Americans learned about the hole in the ozone layer, the early reports on global warming, and widespread destruction of large areas of the world's rain forests.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Modern Energy Matchmaker by Michele Ashby. Copyright © 2010 Michele Ashby. Excerpted by permission of Addicus Books, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Introduction,
1 Coloring Our World Green,
2 Americans' Attitude toward the Environment,
3 Financing the Demand for Modern Energy,
4 Golden Opportunities for Innovators and Investors,
5 Learning about Investment Opportunities,
6 Partnering Investors and Energy Companies,
7 The Carbon Cap Train: Ready to Board?,
8 The Future of Modern Energy,
Appendix,
Glossary,
About the Author,