Socially Speaking

My thoughts have been on communication, and in particular, using Blogs, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. What is the optimum package? And there are many thoughts on this - see a really thoughtful article on this based on the writings of Steve Rubel. The article shows how we are evolving - from printed media, radio, TV, then to websites, blogs and we are now in the era of social networking.

Obviously, too many formats! So something has to give. I rarely read newspapers, though I do like the odd well written magazine, and TV is much less important - and less credible, as it attempts to mimic the social element of blogs and twitter. Daily news now comes to me via my computer, and mostly through the blogs and selected twitter feeds that I receive. The real key, is to focus on what's important to you - and to filter out the overwhelming mass of quite useless chatter. Social Media is global, so no-one in your local geographic area, with their own agenda, such as an owner of printed media or TV, can control what is there.

It's taken a while but I have decided that I like Twitter - I tune in to short bits that I find interesting but only from those who I trust. While I may blog once a week or so, I put links up more often on my Twitter page - and I share what I find useful! -see GoBizGreen Twitter.

All-Energy now in Australia

For nine years, Aderdeen in Scotland has hosted a major renewable energy exhibition and conference, called All-Energy. At the recent All-Energy ’09 event, some 380 companies exhibited and 5,500 people from all industry elements came from 60 countries.

In the past, I have attended similar overseas events and certainly, there’s a buzz that so far has been absent in Australia. That – hopefully - is about to change! Melbourne, with support from the Victorian Government, has now secured the first All-Energy Clean Energy Show in Australia for companies actively involved in the clean energy industry. And the bonus is that the exhibition and conference sessions are free for visitors from business, industry, government and the university sectors.

All-Energy 09 Australia will be held in Melbourne in October and is set to become Asia Pacific’s major clean and renewable energy exhibition and conference, with sponsors such as Abengoa Solar already on board. Coming just before the Government's call for tenders for the major Australian solar contract, it's well timed. So mark it in your diary for 7/8 October, and – click here to check it out.

Funding Deployment

In the US, the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) is making it's way through Congress, and being aggressively debated. However, one key amendment, the Clean Energy Deployment Administration seems to have bipartisan support.

According to a post on Watthead "Clean Energy Deployment Administration: added as an amendment overwhelmingly adopted on a 51-6 bipartisan vote during markup, this provision establishes a sort of public clean energy bank to finance and accelerate clean energy technology commercialization and deployment.

Sponsored by Representatives John Dingell of Michigan, Jay Inslee of Washington and Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the provision establishes a new Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) that will be responsible for creating an attractive investment environment that will spur the widespread deployment of advanced clean energy technologies, including higher risk "breakthrough technologies." The Administration would also support the widespread deployment of critical enabling infrastructure technologies (like new grid technologies), energy efficiency technologies and advanced clean energy manufacturing technologies."

Now is the time for deployment of emission free dispatchable power and it is encouraging to see the US moving in this direction - it's now also the time for support for this urgently needed deployment to happen on a global scale.

Re-powering our cities

This week I was delighted to meet one of my heroes, Allan Jones, former CEO of the London Climate Change Agency. Allan was speaking at an event in Sydney. He talked about his "show by doing" approach and he updated us on on the work at Woking and in London. Allan does not wait for the future, he creates it, by taking technology that is proven and using that to develop low emission projects that link to other projects. In Woking and London, these projects are based on cogeneration and photovoltaics and they deliver energy savings in very short time spans, and he designed this for both new buildings and for retrofit of older ones.

There is no one solution to the new energy era - it's a combination of renewable utility level power and local decentralized systems, smart grids and energy efficiency. We are now in the deployment phase and every organisation can "show by doing". In Allan's words, "the barriers to this (a sustainable low carbon future) are not technical but regulatory, mindset and vested interest".

The City of Sydney has an ambitious plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% by 2030 - so we need lots of Aussie people to follow Allan's example of the Power of One and to be part of this new future!

Beautiful sea holds the power

Yesterday I attended a full day Alternative Energy forum in Sydney. One of the speakers was Dr Tim Finnigan from BioPower Systems. Tim is passionate about wave and tidal power from our coastal seas, and equally passionate about an unobstructed view across the water. His systems are designed around natural movements and are resident on the sea floor.

Tim spoke about the two 250KW pilot programs being developed off King and Flinders Islands, Tasmania, and about his vision of plants ranging from 40MW up to 100MW. Waves and tides are considerably more consistent than wind, so it's an interesting option to power coastal cities in countries where coastal conditions are favourable.

BioPower Systems is one of the companies exploring this option in Australia. Hopefully, in a not too distant future, Australia's beautiful and powerful beaches will be famous in one more way, the power generated from under the waves.

Sunshine is NOW Deployable

"Now is the Time for Deployment of Emission Free Dispatchable Power"

This week I will be presenting a Global snapshot of Large Scale Solar Power Generation -looking at the larger systems operating in both PV (photovoltaic) and Solar Thermal and also taking a peek at what's on the drawing board around the world.

When I first began preparing this talk for the Sydney Group of ANZSES, there was very little to say about Australia. Other than one system under development in Victoria, we do not come close to having any operational system that could be deemed commercial. Fortunately, the recent budget proposals make Australia's utility level solar power scene much more interesting. It's not a technical discussion - this talk is about deployment, what's happening and what's planned. If you are interested to attend the session at 6pm Tuesday May 26th at UTS in Sydney, then see details here.

pic by Sun ex Flickr by onlinewoman

Taking on Coal in the USA

In the US, there is a ground swell against building more coal fired coal power plants, and this is leading to some interesting advertising campaigns. Essentially, these campaigns are making it much more difficult for the coal industry, and makes long term investment in new coal fired power plants a high risk venture. Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability Representative for the Sierra Club, comments: “Coal plants are simply a poor investment, no matter where in the country you are building them. We need to be investing wisely, especially in these economic times, and that means looking at energy efficiency and renewable energy projects that can create jobs and help fight global warming, without the drawbacks of coal.”

If you want to see why we need to re-power with truly clean energy sources, see Al Gore's latest TED TALK. The seven minute video also includes some rather strange coal company promotion attempting to convince us that coal is not only clean, it's cute?