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Clean Tech Breakfast Series 4: Energy Storage

Event Date: Jul 29, 2008
Location: Sunnyvale, Calif.

Recent Posts by Marc Gunther

Alaska’s Wild Women

Published: July 20, 2008

I’m heading home from an eight-day, action-packed vacation in Alaska. Hiking, biking and sea-kayaking, I saw snow-capped mountains, the largest ice field in North America, a couple of glaciers, countless bays and rivers, abundant and beautiful wildflowers, salmon swimming upstream, bald eagles, seals, a sea otter, marmots, a porcupine and bears (three!) – all in one corner of the state, the Kenai Peninsula. But what really impressed me was the women. There are surely more women who call themselves feminists on New York’s Upper West Side than there are in, say, Anchorage. But women in Alaska — at least the ones that we met – are plenty strong and self-reliant. Of the 199 runners who completed the grueling Crow Pass marathon this past Saturday, twenty-eight were women. I

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How Wal-Mart Became the New FDA

Published: July 16, 2008

The plastics industry is dealing with a nightmare these days when it comes to potentially toxic chemicals. Because so many people no longer trust big business or federal regulators to protect them and their health—perhaps with reason, perhaps not—companies are vulnerable to campaigns by activist groups, politicians and trial lawyers who want to get alleged dangerous toxics off the market. The latest example: Bisphenol-A, the chemical used in polycarbonate bottles, including baby bottles, and in the linings of aluminum cans and in many, many other products.I’ve spent a fair amount of time—more than I’d intended to—looking into the controversy around BPA. The result is a column that was posted today on fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. The FORTUNE websites is also running a video

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Do Food Miles Matter?

Published: July 14, 2008

There’s no doubt that buying and eating local food is a hot trend. But is it good for the environment? Recently, I got a press release from Wal-Mart saying that Partnerships with local farmers have grown by 50 percent over the past two years—one example of the company’s efforts to support local economies, cut shipping costs and provide fresh food offerings. For the 4th of July, a Wal-Mart Supercenter in DeKalb County, Ga., featured Georgia-grown Vidalia onions for burgers, Georgia cantaloupes and watermelons for fruit salad and Georgia peaches for cobbler, the company said. Meanwhile, Chipotle Mexican Grill reports that it has stepped up its efforts to buy local produce. The fast food chain says it is the first and only national restaurant company committed to buying local

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My New (Green?) Car

Published: July 7, 2008

One of the great things about the environmental movement is that it provides cover for those of us who are, shall we say, prudent about spending money. You can probably guess where I’m going here. Now, when I tell my wife that, no, we don’t really need to turn on the AC even though it’s 78 degrees outside, or when I urge my daughter to spend just a little less time in the shower, or when I cringe at the way we waste food in our home, I am no longer a skinflint or cheapskate. Seizing the moral high ground, I am now the guardian of our family’s carbon footprint. Unfortunately, there are times when my intention to be “green” and to be frugal come into conflict–which brings us to my new car. I’m not into cars, to say the least. I have been perfectly happy with my 1994 Volvo

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How GE Gives Away Money

Published: July 1, 2008

The easy way to do corporate philanthropy is to write a little check to everyone who asks. Many companies operate this way–$5,000 to the Boy’s Club, $5,000 to the YMCA, $5,000 to the local cancer society or heart association. This is mostly a feel-good exercise, performed, it must be said, with other people’s money. Today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com is about GE, and the company efforts to be strategic in its corporate giving. I met Bob Corcoran, who runs the GE Foundation, on a trip to Ghana in 2004, and had a chance to see GE’s health care initiative in action there—the company donated medical equipment, a generator, money and lots of expertise to a hospital in rural Ghana. Last week, Bob and I had a chance to catch up when he was in

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A $3 trillion climate-change battle

By Marc Gunther
Published May 15, 2008

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With climate-change legislation headed toward the Senate floor in a couple of weeks, it’s time to take a closer look at the arguments that are sure to unfold. Today’s Sustainability column looks at a big issue—the question of whether to auction or allocate the permits that companies will need to emit greenhouse gases under any cap-and-trade scheme.

Yes, it’s inevitably wonky, but the stakes couldn’t be higher. The permits will be worth roughly $150 billion during the first year the bill takes effect; over time (that is, between now and 2050), their value will likely exceed $3 trillion. As you would imagine, there are lots of ideas about how to spend that money.

The Lieberman Warner bill spreads the wealth around—giving some to utilities, others to forestry and agricultural projects that store carbon, others to fund energy research, energy-efficiency projects, even job training. Supporters of the legislation are using the funds, in part, as way gather more votes—60 will be needed to pass the bill in the Senate, given likely attempts to filibuster. Of course, all that money won’t be created out of thin air–it will ultimately be paid by consumers of energy (and most everything else) as the price of emitting carbon dioxide is spread through the economy.

The complexity of climate-change policy is daunting, which is why you don’t see a lot of coverage of the legislation in the mainstream press. Just explaining cap-and-trade is a challenge; digging deeper into the next-level issues of auctions/allocations, a safety valve or price controls, the role of offsets, and banking/borrowing permits seems almost certain to drive away all but the most dedicated readers. Yet these questions matter. I don’t have a solution to this problem.

Here’s how the column begins:

A climate-change bill that has widespread support as it heads to the Senate floor will create an estimated $150 billion of new assets in the first year it takes effect. Between now and 2050, regulating greenhouse gases could easily generate $3 trillion worth in value in the United States.

Should that value go to utility companies, electricity customers who will face rising rates, government investments in new technology or tax cuts? Or should it be returned to all Americans?

That question is being debated vigorously by energy companies, politicians and environmental groups. Next week, an influential coalition of big companies and green organizations called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (U.S. CAP) — its members include GE (GE, Fortune 500), General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford (F, Fortune 500), DuPont (DD, Fortune 500) and Shell (RDS-B), as well as utilities Duke Energy (DUK, Fortune 500), FPL Group (FPL, Fortune 500) and PG&E (PCG, Fortune 500) — will take up the issue.

Business interests will have a big voice in Congress as the bill moves through the legislative process. Passage is unlikely in 2008, but you never know. You can read the rest of the column here.