Clean Energy Real Estate: Position = Investment

The latest post on Watthead, authored by Garrett Brennan of Focus the Nation, includes the following:

"If we’re serious about solutions, we need people in power to get serious about investment in clean energy research, development and adoption, and then empower young entrepreneurs with tools to unleash their creativity. Climate change is NOT the defining issue of our generation. After all, today’s ‘millennials’ didn’t put all that global warming pollution up there. But building a clean and prosperous energy economy that averts the risks of climate change—and leading that effort in a way that inspires people in diverse communities across the country to take part in that collective effort—this is the defining issue of our generation."

Across the US, Focus the Nation are organising events for young entrepreneurs, professionals and future energy workers to engage in Clean Energy Forums. These types of movements need to, and will go global, under a variety of locally named and locally driven groups and will be across political boundaries, engaging a generation who already connect using the mediums of social online media.

Many previously prosperous and mature industries would be wise to take heed of the potential wealth to be derived from this creativity and that the "new energy economy" is already happening, in pockets and spaces around the globe. Change is upon us - embrace the change and get serious about opening doors for those who will drive the Clean Energy industries of the next decades, and in doing so, you also open the door to solutions that are needed to adapt and to minimise the risks of climate change.

Picture from Focus the Nation http://focusthenation.org/

Farming Liquid Green

In Perth last week, at a Sustainable Energy conference, I came across this company called BioLectric, doing very interesting stuff with Algae. They claim that "algae can capture and convert CO2 into biomass at a rate higher than any land based plants" and the CO2Algae process cultivates algae on marginal land utilising poor quality water. BioLectric promote their hot house pond systems which use the natural characteristics of the algae.

Algae to biomass/biofuels is an interesting and rapidly emerging area of investigation into energy systems - and has great potential, plus uses natural processes. And this reminds me of the business opportunities of the early computer days, when everyone was interested, but only a few took up the early challenges to change. Rethinking our processes and our energy systems is what is needed, and algae farming may just be one of those opportunities staring at our global collective face.

Image from http://www.biolectric.com.au/co2benefits.html