I’ve been trying to decide my feelings on the Pickens Plan since T. Boone Pickens announced it last summer. At the CleanTech Investor Summit in January, Pickens further evangelized the plan, calling for the U.S. government to invest billions in large-scale wind development through a federally funded loan program or “bank.” Started in July, the program calls for miles of wind turbines from Texas to Canada as well as converting American cars, trucks and fleet vehicles to run on natural gas to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
I agree with most of the “pillars” of the plan — creating millions of jobs in the renewable energy sector, updating the electrical grid to handle a transition to renewables, and providing incentives for homeowners and the owners of commercial buildings to enhance their energy efficiency. But Pickens also advocates “using America’s natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel,” calling natural gas the “clean, cheap, domestic gas.”
But natural gas, in spite of its eco-friendly-sounding name, is a nonrenewable fossil fuel that produces carbon dioxide and consists primarily of methane — which also contributes to global warming — butane and propane. Drilling for natural gas, while thought to be safe since the EPA’s 2004 study (PDF) found that it posed no risk to drinking water, has since been linked to over 1,000 cases of serious water contamination, as reported by ProPublica in this great investigative article (which I highly recommend reading).
Photo courtesy of Kirk Johnson and the Pennsylvania Sierra Club
The Pickens Plan suggests that natural gas be used as a transitional energy source, “Natural gas is not a permanent or complete solution to imported oil. It is a bridge fuel to slash our oil dependence while buying us time to develop new technologies that will ultimately replace fossil transportation fuels.” The problem is that during a transition that promotes the use of natural gas, more drilling will occur — the effects of which are not entirely known, but are potentially dangerous to our already endangered water supply — and carbon dioxide emissions will continue to pollute our atmosphere.
It’s good to see an oil-tycoon and political conservative embracing renewable energy in this way (not the typical resume of the environmentally-minded, though that’s changing). But, of all the benefits to come from the plan, Pickens stands to benefit the most from his heavy investments in both wind and natural gas development.
I’d like to see Pickens and his plan place more emphasis on conservation by encouraging energy efficiency. As stated on the Pickens Plan site, the U.S. is responsible for 25% of the world’s oil demand with just 4% of the world’s population. That’s the energy gap we should focus on bridging.
Last week, I attended the AlwaysOn Going Green conference in Boston; in the midst of the economic meltdown and corresponding malaise, it was very refreshing to hear from and about a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators that are focused on, well, changing the world. Hearing about how coal can be efficiently converted into cleaner energy (see Great Point Energy and CoalTek), wastewater can be quickly transformed into clean drinking water (Oasys Water and Hydropoint Data Systems), or biomass can cheaply produce high quality ethanol (Zymetis), really gets one excited about a profoundly different future for ourselves and the planet.
I’ve worked with a handful of upstart green and clean technology companies recently (this is a relatively new market of course), but most of our clients over the years have been of the more conventional computer technology variety. Software, hardware, networking, Internet and the like.
The conference got me thinking about The Next Big Thing, and how the world of technology and innovation are likely to shake out in the coming decades (I lost track of how many times someone at the event mentioned a year like 2030 or even 2050). The last 30 years or so have been dominated first by the computer/PC and then the Internet revolutions, which affected pretty much everything and have had a huge impact on our lives. Consider what things were like before we had a computer at work (or home), a mobile phone, or web sites that sell you anything you want or give you access to any piece of information in a moment.
Those revolutions were spurned and driven by folks like Bill Joy, Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates, who were at their core engineers and programmers, aka Computer Geeks. They were brilliant people at the right time and place who used their science and math-based minds to create world-changing technologies.
But in this new wave that is upon us, we’re talking about a whole different kind of geek. The people behind the new ideas and companies that will spark the green/clean tech revolution are for the most part not electrical engineers and computer scientists. Instead, they are of the more traditional (and I guess original) geek variety. We’re talking about biologists, chemists, geologists and other ists most of us have never heard of. Just your everyday, straight-on scientists.
And to be sure this is quite a different breed. These are people that aren’t naturally inclined to sit in front of a computer screen for weeks at a time writing code and loving every minute of it. These folks like to play in the sand and get dirty. They wonder at nature and all its various elements and nuances. They like to mix things together and make explosions. They look at the sky and ponder what’s out there to be found.
It’ll be very interesting to see how this coming revolution evolves, and how the different traits and skills among this set of geeks manifests itself.
– Jason Mandell, Partner, LaunchSquad
This post can also be found on LaunchSquad’s Exclamation blog.
