A Hopeful Call to Arms

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

-- Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor S. Geisel

f you’re on the e-mailing list for the Environmental Defense Fund’s newsletter, you got a message similar to mine recently from the organization’s president, Fred Krupp. "Dear Gail," it said, "Over a year ago, my colleague Miriam Horn and I set off on a journey to tell the story of farsighted inventors and entrepreneurs racing to revolutionize the way we meet our energy needs. The result of our journey is Earth: The Sequel, a hopeful call to arms on the urgent need to embrace the race to reinvent energy and stop global warming. I’d like to introduce you to a few of the most inspiring energy innovators we met. These people are in the vanguard of a new generation of global warming solutions."

He went on to give the link for an accompanying online video. ("Watch [it] and get inspired," he urged, which I didn’t do because I only have dial-up.) Thanking me for being part of this adventure, he signed off, adding two postscripts: the information that all profits from sales of his book will go to support the Environmental Defense Fund’s global warming campaign, and a direct link to Amazon.com so we could order the book "if you haven’t already."

I want to get inspired. Hey, all God’s children want to get inspired. "Discover an optimistic, entrepreneurial, profitable environmentalism that uses the great forces of our global economy -- the vision and spirit of the smartest and savviest inventors and investors -- to solve the most important challenge of our time," begins the description of Earth: The Sequel -- The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming on the blog Left Edge North. "A high-stakes race has begun, involving the best minds in America, from venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and scientists in the Alaskan wilderness to inventors in garages. The goal: to solve the world’s greatest crisis. The means: the reinvention of energy as we know it. The prize: the biggest explosion of wealth ever witnessed."

That last phrase makes me just the teensiest bit queasy. Will we find clean alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, and then just continue being crazed consumers, depleting the Earth’s natural resources and ricocheting around in our cars?

Since 1984, Krupp has been president of the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense, spearheading such innovative market-based solutions as the acid rain reduction plan in the 1990 Clean Air Act. According to the advance promotional sheet from Norton, the publisher of Earth: The Sequel, his book describes "how the multi-trillion dollar energy sector is being transformed -- right now -- by the American entrepreneurial spirit." After interviewing venture capitalists such as the first funder of Google, John Doerr, as well as top climate scientists, energy experts and market analysts, Krupp went on to map out "a whole new galaxy of farsighted inventors who are devising the technologies that will remake the economy and the world."

Energy is "the mother of all markets," Krupp quotes Doerr in his book. The competition to find the best alternative energy sources means that the winners, the fact sheet goes on, "will not only save the planet but also make fortunes that will dwarf those made in computing, networks and software," so venture capitalists are in a feeding frenzy to fund clean-energy start-ups. In fact, in the third quarter of 2007, clean technology became this country’s leading venture-investment category, for the first time surpassing information technology and biotechnology.

Some of these bold inventors may sound pretty wacky to us in this still-fledgling stage of the 21^st century: Scientists who travel to the most extreme environments on Earth, from vents deep in the oceans’ floors to volcanoes in farthest Siberia, to bio-prospect for "extremophile" microorganisms that can digest wood and plant wastes to be fermented into fuel. A bioengineer redesigning viruses so that they assemble themselves into the most powerful batteries ever seen. Physicists and chemists manipulating materials at the atomic scale to make flexible photovoltaic films that can be printed like billboards and rolled onto any surface to produce electricity at one-tenth the cost of conventional solar cells. Power harvested from the Pacific’s roughest waves. A neurobiologist devising a filter to clean smokestack gases at coal plants using the same enzyme that removes carbon dioxide from the human bloodstream. Flying windmills. Artificial carbon-eating trees.

"One of my favorites," Krupp says in Norton’s advance publicity, "is the Massachusetts innovator GreenFuel Technologies. They targeted the carbon dioxide that spews out of power plant smokestacks -- the single largest source of global warming pollution. What they’ve invented is a way to feed that carbon dioxide to a ravenous type of algae. Then the algae turn the carbon dioxide into a useful fuel. So GreenFuel creates two benefits at once -- reduced global warming and increased fuel -- and they’re working with an Arizona electric company to demonstrate its practicality."

All of these ideas sound so proactive, so "seize the day." But how feasible are the solutions themselves? Is it really possible to figure our way out of this seemingly no-exit situation we’ve created for ourselves at this late date -- and make a gazillion bucks while we’re at it?

Take Krupp’s favorite example, GreenFuel. In the May 2005 CNET News.com article "Start-Up Drills for Oil in Algae," staff writer Martin LaMonica explains how the process works. Algae, he writes, are some of the most robust organisms on Earth. "Using technology licensed from a NASA project, GreenFuel builds bioreactors -- in the shape of 3-meter-high glass tubes fashioned as a triangle -- to grow algae. The algae are fed with sunlight, water and carbon-carrying emissions from power plants . . . and are then harvested and turned into biodiesel fuel." GreenFuel hopes to sell its products to energy utilities, and "being perceived in the public eye as a ‘green’ -- and community-minded -- company may also help drive up sales," says LaMonica.

According to Wikipedia, the biofuel yield using GreenFuel’s technique is 30 times higher per hectare than the yield of oil derived from conventional biofuel crops. Emissions of carbon dioxide are reduced by 40 percent and emissions of oxides of nitrogen are reduced by up to 85 percent.

However, Wikipedia goes on, "Despite its promise, there have been questions with respect to the viability of this technology. A case study on GreenFuel has argued that its claims contradict the laws of thermodynamics. In July 2007, the company laid off half of its employees and changed the CEO, amidst setbacks in its Arizona facility. Furthermore, its South African licensee has been exposed as a scam by the investigative TV program Carte Blanche. Scientific experts who were skeptical about GreenFuel and its technology have been threatened by the company’s law firm."

In the October 2007 issue of Men’s Vogue, journalist Robert Sullivan describes Krupp’s career in his article "Green’s Keeper" (tag line: "Fred Krupp is doing what heads of state can’t: using big business to save the planet"). He’s always been dedicated to the cause, writes Sullivan. "While a lot of environmentalists headed for the hills in the ’80s, Krupp made his mark by looking for market incentives to inspire green business. When Environmental Defense helped negotiate acid rain reductions with the first Bush administration, tax credits were offered to companies that were quick to reduce carbon emissions. ‘What that does for the first time is it uses capitalism to solve a problem,’ says Krupp, ‘because instead of just ordering people to do something, you make it profitable for them to do more than what is required.’"

Sullivan finds healthy skepticism in the comments of Bill McKibben, author of the recent Deep Economy, in which he compellingly critiques market processes that are degrading the planet. "The rest of the environmental community tended to think Environmental Defense were wimps," says McKibben. But, Sullivan adds, "McKibben has noticed ED’s recent push for greenhouse gas reduction. ‘On the issue of climate control, they seem to have recognized that getting a little is the same as getting nothing at all, and they seem to be playing tougher.’"

Krupp is convinced that business is fully capable of leading the way for government in cutting greenhouse gases. He formed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership with an impressive list of companies, among them such giants as General Motors, Johnson & Johnson and ConocoPhillips, who have agreed of their own volition to reduce emissions between 60 and 80 percent by an unspecified amount of time.

And, although Krupp targets the private sector as the mainstay of support for these inventors, he believes there is also a part for the federal government to play. "Government needs to set a declining cap on global warming pollution," he continues. "That single action will send businesses knocking on the doors of these inventors to get them to scale up and commercialize their ideas at the speed that we and the Earth need." And as soon as that cap is set, he maintains, the market will find the most efficient and effective ways to achieve it. "Government shouldn’t try to pick the winners. We’ve seen what happened with corn-based ethanol, where the lobbyists had more say than the scientists. Instead of picking winners, a cap will create a level playing field."

Acknowledging that legislation is forthcoming, Krupp adds, "There will be a big climate change bill, and it can do the job, or it can be a big bill that says ‘Climate Change’ on top and fools people into thinking the job is done."

More and more people agree that government will not, of its own volition, sufficiently address the problem of global warming. But if we hand the job over to venture capitalists, will the prospect of their own dazzling profits obscure their judgment? Noted environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken, in the book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, points to deeper concerns with continuing to conduct business as we know it. In the past three decades, he writes, one-third of the Earth’s natural wealth has been consumed. Moreover, every living system on the planet is losing its inherent ability to sustain the continuity of the life process. The next industrial revolution, according to Hawken and coauthors Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, involves shifting from the goal of accumulating the most goods and purchases to one of satisfying human needs with desired services.

Could the sequel to Earth’s story pair the vision and spirit of these smartest and savviest inventors with some kind of, dare we say, altruism -- theirs and ours? Could we venture out, ourselves, to create a grassroots support for these most inspiring energy innovators Fred Krupp introduces to the world? Now, that’s an adventure I’d like to be part of: working together as a functional, connected family to directly address the problem. Which sure puts a different spin on John Doerr’s statement about energy being the mother of all markets.




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A Hopeful Call to Arms Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. -- Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor S. Geisel f you’re on the e-mailing list for the Environmental Defense Fund’s newsletter, you got a message similar to mine recently from the organization’s president, Fred Krupp. "Dear Gail," it said, "Over a year ago, my colleague Miriam Horn and I set off on a journey to tell the story of farsighted inventors and entrepreneurs racing to revolutionize the way we meet our energy needs. The result of our journey is Earth: The Sequel, a hopeful call to arms on the urgent need to embrace the race to reinvent energy and stop global warming. I’d like to introduce you to a few of the most inspiring energy innovators we met. These people are in the vanguard of a new generation of global warming solutions." He went on to give the link for an accompanying online video. ("Watch [it] and get inspired," he urged, which I didn’t do because I only have dial-up.) Thanking me for being part of this adventure, he signed off, adding two postscripts: the information that all profits from sales of his book will go to support the Environmental Defense Fund’s global warming campaign, and a direct link to Amazon.com so we could order the book "if you haven’t already." I want to get inspired. Hey, all God’s children want to get inspired. "Discover an optimistic, entrepreneurial, profitable environmentalism that uses the great forces of our global economy -- the vision and spirit of the smartest and savviest inventors and investors -- to solve the most important challenge of our time," begins the description of Earth: The Sequel -- The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming on the blog Left Edge North. "A high-stakes race has begun, involving the best minds in America, from venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and scientists in the Alaskan wilderness to inventors in garages. The goal: to solve the world’s greatest crisis. The means: the reinvention of energy as we know it. The prize: the biggest explosion of wealth ever witnessed." That last phrase makes me just the teensiest bit queasy. Will we find clean alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, and then just continue being crazed consumers, depleting the Earth’s natural resources and ricocheting around in our cars? Since 1984, Krupp has been president of the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense, spearheading such innovative market-based solutions as the acid rain reduction plan in the 1990 Clean Air Act. According to the advance promotional sheet from Norton, the publisher of Earth: The Sequel, his book describes "how the multi-trillion dollar energy sector is being transformed -- right now -- by the American entrepreneurial spirit." After interviewing venture capitalists such as the first funder of Google, John Doerr, as well as top climate scientists, energy experts and market analysts, Krupp went on to map out "a whole new galaxy of farsighted inventors who are devising the technologies that will remake the economy and the world." Energy is "the mother of all markets," Krupp quotes Doerr in his book. The competition to find the best alternative energy sources means that the winners, the fact sheet goes on, "will not only save the planet but also make fortunes that will dwarf those made in computing, networks and software," so venture capitalists are in a feeding frenzy to fund clean-energy start-ups. In fact, in the third quarter of 2007, clean technology became this country’s leading venture-investment category, for the first time surpassing information technology and biotechnology. Some of these bold inventors may sound pretty wacky to us in this still-fledgling stage of the 21^st century: Scientists who travel to the most extreme environments on Earth, from vents deep in the oceans’ floors to volcanoes in farthest Siberia, to bio-prospect for "extremophile" microorganisms that can digest wood and plant wastes to be fermented into fuel. A bioengineer redesigning viruses so that they assemble themselves into the most powerful batteries ever seen. Physicists and chemists manipulating materials at the atomic scale to make flexible photovoltaic films that can be printed like billboards and rolled onto any surface to produce electricity at one-tenth the cost of conventional solar cells. Power harvested from the Pacific’s roughest waves. A neurobiologist devising a filter to clean smokestack gases at coal plants using the same enzyme that removes carbon dioxide from the human bloodstream. Flying windmills. Artificial carbon-eating trees. "One of my favorites," Krupp says in Norton’s advance publicity, "is the Massachusetts innovator GreenFuel Technologies. They targeted the carbon dioxide that spews out of power plant smokestacks -- the single largest source of global warming pollution. What they’ve invented is a way to feed that carbon dioxide to a ravenous type of algae. Then the algae turn the carbon dioxide into a useful fuel. So GreenFuel creates two benefits at once -- reduced global warming and increased fuel -- and they’re working with an Arizona electric company to demonstrate its practicality." All of these ideas sound so proactive, so "seize the day." But how feasible are the solutions themselves? Is it really possible to figure our way out of this seemingly no-exit situation we’ve created for ourselves at this late date -- and make a gazillion bucks while we’re at it? Take Krupp’s favorite example, GreenFuel. In the May 2005 CNET News.com article "Start-Up Drills for Oil in Algae," staff writer Martin LaMonica explains how the process works. Algae, he writes, are some of the most robust organisms on Earth. "Using technology licensed from a NASA project, GreenFuel builds bioreactors -- in the shape of 3-meter-high glass tubes fashioned as a triangle -- to grow algae. The algae are fed with sunlight, water and carbon-carrying emissions from power plants . . . and are then harvested and turned into biodiesel fuel." GreenFuel hopes to sell its products to energy utilities, and "being perceived in the public eye as a ‘green’ -- and community-minded -- company may also help drive up sales," says LaMonica. According to Wikipedia, the biofuel yield using GreenFuel’s technique is 30 times higher per hectare than the yield of oil derived from conventional biofuel crops. Emissions of carbon dioxide are reduced by 40 percent and emissions of oxides of nitrogen are reduced by up to 85 percent. However, Wikipedia goes on, "Despite its promise, there have been questions with respect to the viability of this technology. A case study on GreenFuel has argued that its claims contradict the laws of thermodynamics. In July 2007, the company laid off half of its employees and changed the CEO, amidst setbacks in its Arizona facility. Furthermore, its South African licensee has been exposed as a scam by the investigative TV program Carte Blanche. Scientific experts who were skeptical about GreenFuel and its technology have been threatened by the company’s law firm." In the October 2007 issue of Men’s Vogue, journalist Robert Sullivan describes Krupp’s career in his article "Green’s Keeper" (tag line: "Fred Krupp is doing what heads of state can’t: using big business to save the planet"). He’s always been dedicated to the cause, writes Sullivan. "While a lot of environmentalists headed for the hills in the ’80s, Krupp made his mark by looking for market incentives to inspire green business. When Environmental Defense helped negotiate acid rain reductions with the first Bush administration, tax credits were offered to companies that were quick to reduce carbon emissions. ‘What that does for the first time is it uses capitalism to solve a problem,’ says Krupp, ‘because instead of just ordering people to do something, you make it profitable for them to do more than what is required.’" Sullivan finds healthy skepticism in the comments of Bill McKibben, author of the recent Deep Economy, in which he compellingly critiques market processes that are degrading the planet. "The rest of the environmental community tended to think Environmental Defense were wimps," says McKibben. But, Sullivan adds, "McKibben has noticed ED’s recent push for greenhouse gas reduction. ‘On the issue of climate control, they seem to have recognized that getting a little is the same as getting nothing at all, and they seem to be playing tougher.’" Krupp is convinced that business is fully capable of leading the way for government in cutting greenhouse gases. He formed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership with an impressive list of companies, among them such giants as General Motors, Johnson & Johnson and ConocoPhillips, who have agreed of their own volition to reduce emissions between 60 and 80 percent by an unspecified amount of time. And, although Krupp targets the private sector as the mainstay of support for these inventors, he believes there is also a part for the federal government to play. "Government needs to set a declining cap on global warming pollution," he continues. "That single action will send businesses knocking on the doors of these inventors to get them to scale up and commercialize their ideas at the speed that we and the Earth need." And as soon as that cap is set, he maintains, the market will find the most efficient and effective ways to achieve it. "Government shouldn’t try to pick the winners. We’ve seen what happened with corn-based ethanol, where the lobbyists had more say than the scientists. Instead of picking winners, a cap will create a level playing field." Acknowledging that legislation is forthcoming, Krupp adds, "There will be a big climate change bill, and it can do the job, or it can be a big bill that says ‘Climate Change’ on top and fools people into thinking the job is done." More and more people agree that government will not, of its own volition, sufficiently address the problem of global warming. But if we hand the job over to venture capitalists, will the prospect of their own dazzling profits obscure their judgment? Noted environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken, in the book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, points to deeper concerns with continuing to conduct business as we know it. In the past three decades, he writes, one-third of the Earth’s natural wealth has been consumed. Moreover, every living system on the planet is losing its inherent ability to sustain the continuity of the life process. The next industrial revolution, according to Hawken and coauthors Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, involves shifting from the goal of accumulating the most goods and purchases to one of satisfying human needs with desired services. Could the sequel to Earth’s story pair the vision and spirit of these smartest and savviest inventors with some kind of, dare we say, altruism -- theirs and ours? Could we venture out, ourselves, to create a grassroots support for these most inspiring energy innovators Fred Krupp introduces to the world? Now, that’s an adventure I’d like to be part of: working together as a functional, connected family to directly address the problem. Which sure puts a different spin on John Doerr’s statement about energy being the mother of all markets.		Krupp is convinced that business is fully capable of leading the way for government in cutting greenhouse gases.