Bonnaroo Carbon Shredders – Promotional Video (2009) from Corey Drayton on Vimeo.

groSolar’s CEO, Jeff Wolfe, keeps popping up all over the place in the world of solar power. From speaking at events like PV America to helping craft policy to help grow the renewable energy industry, Jeff is an active and familiar face in the industry. Most recently Jeff was listed as one of the featured presenters on TheClimateProject.org. The Climate Project is an international non-profit founded by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore with a mission to increase pubilc awareness of the climate crises at a grassroots level worldwide. Jeff is one of just 2,600 people worldwide trained by The Climate Project to educate people about the effects of global warming.

The confluence of events that has brought us here today is staggering.

Once upon a time, a husband and wife decided to leave Chicago and return to Vermont to “simplify” their lives, and follow their passion to create a small solar energy company. Then they come to understand the magnitude of climate change, and this couple decides they should work on solving it. (Naiveté has always been a strong suit). And so groSolar began.

Business school case studies will be written about this time in the solar industry, and the business transformations that occurred. More examples:

• An entrepreneurial solar enthusiast transitions his solar company into a recycling company when solar tax credits are unwisely rescinded, and then after that success becomes a venture capitalist in order to promote his ideals before his wallet. History will look back on Dave Kirkpatrick as a visionary.
• A woman working to bring social justice through economic and non-economic motivations that help all people, creating a ‘contingency of the whole’ instead of combatants of the parts. Majorca Carter is an inspiring leader.
• Nicholas Parker, Cleantech Group – Parker pioneered the first sustainability-driven private equity fund, participated in one for the first solar initial public offerings, and introduced the clean investment concept to the business community.

Why are we all doing this? Aren’t there easier ways to make money? Aren’t there better ways to have a simple life? (We blew that one!) Sure there are. But is there any more important task and mission at hand than the solution of climate change? While I don’t sleep much as it is, I could not sleep at all if I thought we were not bringing our personal best to the fight and solution.

Of course, that’s not the only reason we’re here. The confluence of events that brings us here today is no less than the need to reorder our economy, restructure the biggest industry in the world (energy), retrain a huge percentage of our workforce, and save our planet. Because as Al Gore said so well almost a year ago, “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.” That’s why we’re doing this, that’s why we’re here.

And this is why the good Lord gave us caffeine.

Each of these tasks is fundamentally impossible given our current economic structures. Fortunately, they are all occurring at once, creating a synergy whereby they collectively present an opportunity for success that does not exist with each item individually. We find ourselves in a situation where we must succeed at them all, or fail completely.

• Without the failure of our economy, we would not have so many workers, at all levels, available to retrain and repurpose.
• Without the climate crisis, we would not have a large enough problem to solve. And that is what our economy is really good at, solving large problems.
• Unless oil and other traditional fossil energy sources were peaking in capacity, soon to decline sharply, and coming from increasingly insecure and unfriendly parts of the world, we would not have the strong cost and continuity incentives to change our energy industry
• Unless all of these were happening simultaneously, we would not have sufficient motivations to solve the climate crisis. As it is, we still need to leverage and reinforce these motivations to create the level of change we need.

As an example of what we need to do, the groSolar story is interesting. What groSolar has done to-date is to create:

• The largest 100% US owned solar distribution company.
• The 4th largest residential solar installation company in the US
• A large commercial systems integrator, pleased to announce today that we are underway with the largest PV project for Progress Energy in North Carolina, a 2.2 MW system.
• The leading downstream brand for solar energy in the United States
• An award winning company for our work environment
• An award winning company for our socially responsible business practices
• A force for policy change at the state and local levels.

We now have about 200 employees, 4 distribution centers with a fifth coming, residential work in 11 states, and a growing commercial channel. We’re the second fastest growing company of any kind in Vermont, and while Vermont is a small state, it’s still a growth rate of 3790+%, over the last 5 years, which is pretty good in any state.

It is our growth rate that has allowed us to more strongly influence policy, and that is a lesson for us all. Legislators truly care about only a few things, and one of the top is job creation. Our growth rate and potential possible future growth rate allowed us to have the force of presence and stature to push through the first legislated feed in tariff bill in the US in Vermont last month, over the Governor’s strident objections. The lesson here is that when we create strong growth, we can use it to create the environment for even stronger growth. And when business and labor work together to create the jobs, our leverage is extended.

We’ve gotten here through a series of three acquisitions and three financings. Our first acquisition was Energy Outfitters, which made us a nationwide distribution company. The subsequent two were regional installation companies, Chesapeake Solar in Maryland, and Borrego Solar residential division in California and Massachusetts. Combined, they have provided us with the foundation to attract investment and grow like crazy.

But the acquisitions did not create the growth, the growth allowed the acquisitions. Through a series of three financings, we have gained the financial foundations to allow us to build the management foundations that can drive, accept, and accommodate the growth. Our management team includes a COO, CFO and CIO, as well as VPs for construction, sales, and marketing. These people bring a diversity and depth of experience and ability to groSolar far beyond what my wife and I could have dreamed when we started 11 years ago.

Our first financing was lead by David Kirkpatrick of SJF Ventures. Working with Dave has been great – not just for our capital raises, but also for our business development, PR, policy, and workforce plans. Dave helped us create a broad-based option plan has been a big assistance in recruitment (there’s that partnering with labor again). SJF has also been active in and supportive of solar industry policy at both the state and federal level. The combination of Venture Capitalist and non-profit organization is perhaps unmatched in the venture community, and is helping to move the capital markets toward where they need to go.

So groSolar has built an incredible management team, backed by very strong financers, supporting a true national brand. It certainly was crazy to think that could happen even five years ago.

Dori and I got into solar because, well, we thought it was cool, and thought we needed some clean energy in our mix. We did not understand the climate crisis. No one understood energy security. And our economy was doing fine, or so we thought. I had not planned on leading formation of national energy policy, or implementation, on working to figure out how to retrain, empower, and strategize with labor, and attempt to finance one of the fastest growing companies in the country. But, that’s about where I’m at.

We’re getting updated science from some of the leaders in climate science. We’re getting information on human health effects (right now while I’m multi-tasking and typing this actually). We’re getting information on the just released draft of the Waxman -Markey climate bill. And of course, we’re getting motivation and direction for immediate action.

The overriding message is that the time is now, this is the moment. Historians look back through time and note those periods when significant change happened. It is unusual to be able to understand at the time of occurrence, that this is an historic moment in the history of the world. This is such a moment, such a time.
Such a moment for what? As Paul Krugman said Thursday, “It’s time to save the planet.” How? Most immediately get climate legislation passed in the US Congress before the Copenhagen climate conference. The Waxman – Markey bill is not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and is a start. Let’s start. What we’ll find once we start is that saving the planet has a whole bunch of benefits! Energy security, green jobs, economic recovery, controlled and perhaps reduced energy costs, healthier lifestyles, and a more peaceful world. Yes, China is a huge problem. They will follow, or join us in leading, but we’ll never know unless we lead.

Can we afford it? On a purely economic basis, yes. We’re wasting $420 billion dollars per year due to electrical system outages and electrical system inefficiencies. We’re spending unknown (at least to me) billions treating disease from pollution that is avoidable (like asthma due to air quality issues) and will spend many billions more fighting diseases brought on by climate change. Frankly, we cannot afford to not beat climate change on a pure economic basis. Of course, there is also the question about where we will all live if we don’t beat it and stabilize global temperature increase to 2 degrees. Last I knew this Earth is our only option.

Jeff

Global Warming Is Reversible

by BERNIE SANDERS

“Scientists now tell us that the crisis of global warming is even worse than their earlier projections. Daily front-page headlines of environmental disasters give an inkling of what we can expect in the future, multiplied many times over: droughts, floods, severe weather disturbances, loss of drinking water and farmland and conflicts over declining natural resources.

Yet the situation is by no means hopeless. Major advances and technological breakthroughs are being made in the United States and throughout the world that are giving us the tools to cut carbon emissions dramatically, break our dependency on fossil fuels and move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In fact, the truth rarely uttered in Washington is that with strong governmental leadership the crisis of global warming is not only solvable; it can be done while improving the standard of living of the people of this country and others around the world. And it can be done with the knowledge and technology that we have today; future advances will only make the task easier.

What should we be doing now?

First, we need strong legislation that dramatically cuts back on carbon emissions. The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act (S. 309), a bill that I introduced with Senator Barbara Boxer and that now has eighteen co-sponsors, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050.

Second, if the federal government begins the process of transforming our energy system by investing heavily in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can accomplish the 80 percent carbon reduction level and, at the same time, create millions of high-paying jobs.

Energy efficiency is the easiest, quickest and least expensive path toward the lowering of carbon emissions. My hometown of Burlington, Vermont, despite strong economic growth, consumes no more electricity today than it did sixteen years ago because of a successful effort to make our homes, offices, schools and other buildings more energy-efficient. In California, which has a growing economy, electric consumption per person has remained steady over the past twenty years because of that state’s commitment to energy efficiency.

Numerous studies tell us that retrofitting older buildings and establishing strong efficiency standards for new construction can cut fuel and energy consumption by at least 40 percent. Those savings would increase with the adoption of new technologies such as LED light bulbs, which consume as little as 10 percent of the electricity that incandescent bulbs do and last twenty years.

Transportation must also be addressed in a serious manner. It is insane that we are driving cars today that get the same twenty-five miles per gallon that US cars did twenty years ago. If Europe and Japan can engineer their vehicles to average more than forty-four miles per gallon, we can do at least as well. Simply raising fuel-efficiency standards to forty miles per gallon would save roughly the same amount of oil as we import from Saudi Arabia and would dramatically lower carbon emissions. We should also rebuild and expand our decaying rail and subway systems and provide energy-efficient buses in rural America so that travelers have an alternative to the automobile.

Sustainable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal have tremendous potential and often cost no more than fossil fuels (and, in some cases, even less). Increased production and research should cause sustainable energy prices to decline steeply in the future.

Wind power is the fastest growing source of new energy in the world and in the United States, but we have barely begun to tap its potential. Denmark, for example, generates 20 percent of its electricity from wind. We should be supporting wind energy not only through the creation of large wind farms in the appropriate areas but through the use of small, inexpensive wind turbines available today that can be used in homes and farms throughout rural America. These small turbines can produce, depending on location, more than half the electricity that an average home consumes while saving consumers money on their electric bills.

Solar energy is another rapidly expanding technology. In Germany, a quarter of a million homes are now producing electricity through rooftop photovoltaic units, and the cost of that technology is expected to decline steeply. California is providing strong incentives so that 1 million homes will have solar units in the next ten years. The potential of solar energy, however, goes far beyond rooftop photovoltaic units. Right now, in Nevada, a solar plant is generating fifty-six megawatts of electricity. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the US Energy Department, “Solar energy represents a huge domestic energy resource for the United States, particularly in the Southwest where the deserts have some of the best solar resource levels in the world. For example, an area approximately 12 percent the size of Nevada has the potential to supply all of the electric needs of the United States.”

As a strong indication of what the future holds, Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest electric utility in the country, has recently signed a contract to build a 535-megawatt solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. This plant, which should be operating in about four years, will have an output equivalent to a small nuclear power plant and will produce electricity for about 400,000 homes. Most important, the price of the electricity generated by this plant, about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, is competitive with other fuels today and will be much cheaper than other fuels by the end of the twenty-five-year contract. Experts in the industry say that dozens of these plants can be built within the next twenty years.

Geothermal energy, the heat from deep inside the earth, is another overlooked resource with real potential. It is free, renewable and can be used for electricity generation and direct heating. A recent report for the US Energy Department by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that geothermal could supply 100,000 megawatts of new carbon-free electricity at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, the going rate today. It is estimated that electricity from geothermal sources could provide 10 percent of the US baseload energy needs in 2050.

As the nation at last confronts global warming, it is no time for denial, greed, cynicism or pessimism. It is a time for vision and international leadership. It is a time for transforming our energy system from the polluting and carbon-emitting technologies of the nineteenth century into the unlimited and extraordinary energy possibilities of the twenty-first. When we do that we will not only solve the global warming crisis; we will open up unimaginable opportunities for improving life all over the planet.”

So that was bad for carbon emissions, and good for getting our message out more broadly. And based upon response, I’ll be speaking quite a bit more going forward.

Dori, my wife, co-founder, and continuing partner, was active in getting the StepItUp message out. We had some signs made up and distributed. Photos are just coming in to our website and the StepItUp web site. It’s not too late to add your photo, the action continues! Go to Take Action now and get a yard sign, then follow the instructions we’ll send with it to submit your picture. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it helps get the message out!

As part of our action, we also financially supported the StepItUp actions in Burlington, Vermont and Concord, Massachusetts. groSolar also attended the StepItUp event in Concord, MA. (Thanks Kevin!) Like most locations in New England, the weather was dreadful, keeping numbers down. But what impressed us was that no elected officials failed to show. U.S. Senator John Kerry, U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas and several state legislators were right on time. And the location!!! Just steps from the famous North Bridge in Concord where the first shots of the Revolution were fired. And a few more steps from The Old Manse, the house owned first by Emerson’s father and then by Nathaniel Hawthorne and visited frequently by Thoreau. What would they be thinking today as climate change legislation is slowed in Congress by legislators worried about preserving the carbon-based economy?

About 50 hardy souls braved the monsoon-like weather and delivered their pitch to the political leaders. Kerry said not one more old-fashioned coal-fired power plant should be built anywhere in the world unless it has the latest in clean technology and has the ability to sequester the carbon. He called also for major new funding for solar, wind and other renewables, nothing short of an energy revolution. Thoreau would have been proud.

the whole thing about StepItUp is to START actions, not be the only action. Keep it moving. Stay tuned to StepItUp, and 1Sky. Meanwhile,

Make this the subject of cocktail party, dinner time, and office conversation!

If we all work on this, we CAN not only make a difference, we can make the difference we need to make.

The following is a letter I’ve just sent to our local paper, the Valley News. While it’s specific to that paper, it also highlights a continuing and growing problem in our press today. That is the reporting of “balance” rather than “truth and opinion”. Too often today we see opinion framed in the same manner as fact. Using quotes from non-peer reviewed magazines, misstatements about what scientists are saying, and purposely misusing terms to further confuse the subject has become standard fare in the media today. Unfortunately, the problem goes well beyond global warming, and has infected all discourse today. (And yes, I’m going to blame the neo-conservatives more than the “liberals”. One fault, if you will, of liberals is that we tend to listen to other views. Even when we may have our mind made up, we allow others to hold their opinions. Frankly, I do not see that in the neo-conservative side of the media.) The motivation to write this letter came from an editorial cartoon which sows confusion over the difference between climate change and current local weather.

But global warming is the central issue here. While our government may go down in flames if we cannot arrest the decay and subversion currently underway, it is our world that will go down in flames if we cannot arrest global warming. While I desire neither, while I work to avoid both, clearly global warming represents a larger problem, and not one that can be “fixed later”.

Here is the text of my letter, which hopefully will be published this week. I’ve added in a web link to the offending editorial cartoon.

“It concerns and confuses me that the Valley News is still running editorial cartoons that lampoon the concept of global warming. It concerns me because global warming is real, and we have a very limited amount of time to start acting very seriously to limit the effects. Cartoons like the one in Friday’s paper (by Glenn McCoy, http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/2007/07/10/, added reference for Blog) encourage people to not take global warming seriously, and to doubt the conclusions of one of the largest scientific research efforts ever undertaken.

I am confused because I do not know why the Valley News published the cartoon. Was it out of some warped sense of “fair and balanced” or because the editorial staff actually has doubts, or because they found it humorous and think that everyone understands the reality of global warming. (I wish that was true.) “Fair and balanced” does not mean that opinion can be set against fact. While we still have much to learn about climate dynamics and the speed and severity of climate change, there is NO doubt in the broad scientific community that global warming is real, and is largely caused by the actions of people. Yes, there are individual scientists who do not believe that global warming is real. There are also individual scientists who believe the earth is flat, and that aliens inhabit among us. But peer-reviewed science, the kind that gets published in the name-brand science journals (“Science”, “Nature”, etc.) has 100% agreement that global warming is real and that we are causing it. When you trace back the funding for the skeptics, an amazing number turn out to be funded by the oil companies.”

So I hope that the Valley News can present factual news on global warming. It is the most pressing issue of our time, and needs constructive action taken, not misinformation given.”

Lower than what?

With continued “unplanned refinery outages” (oh they learn so fast) just as we’re moving into storm season (seems the tornados are starting out pretty strong this year), I cannot even begin to predict. If we actually get a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, I predict we’ll see $4/gallon this summer.

But it really does not matter. This summer, next summer. We’ll see $4/gallon for regular gas by the end of 2008. The sooner the better, as discussed in my last post, for keeping prices lower longer. Of course, I’m not convinced that lower prices are a good goal. higher prices not only encourage conservation (read as “reduce global warming emissions) but also make alternative fuels more profitable. And nothing drives investment and invention like profit.

So do we attempt to take the lead and seize the moment? Tax gas up to $4/gallon now, and collect the revenues while we wait for the actual price to go up? We could phase it in over the next 3 months. But if a hurricane hits in the Gulf, we might be more than a bit behind the actual price rise.

Now, I’m not surprised that gasoline is at $3.00/gallon. I knew that it just went down for the elections and would go back up again afterwards. But I am shocked at two things. First, it’s going up quickly. Second, and more surprising, is that we’re not hearing about it. It’s the great non-story. Here we are, close to the prices we saw in this area for gasoline after Katrina, yet there has not been a hurricane (or hard winter, or spring flooding, or any new war, or any other large oil-influencing event). So what gives? Anyone have an opinion? According to an EIA (US Energy Information Agency) April 10, 2007 report, “U.S. retail motor gasoline prices surged over the last 2 months, rising by more than 60 cents per gallon due to higher crude oil prices, unplanned refinery outages, increased demand for gasoline, and low levels of gasoline imports from Europe. Although gasoline prices began their seasonal increase about a month earlier than usual, the rapid rate of price increase is projected to slow over the next few months.” Unplanned refinery outages. Almost sounds like the California electric supply a few years ago.

So now we have $3 gas again. Of course, when we had $2.25 gas, it was “too expensive”, and so we could not add a higher tax on it to fund renewable and alternative fuel technologies. We needed to keep the price down. Well, the price just went up again, and ALL the money is going into the oil companies coffers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m for free enterprise and profit-making companies. I’m also for taxing things that are bad for us, to try to create things that are good for us. (It’s called creating social policy with tax policy. We do it all the time in the US, don’t let anyone tell you differently.)

What if we had increased the tax on gasoline when it was at $2.25/gallon. Make the tax increase the cost to $3/gallon, with the tax reducing if the gas price increased, to hold it at $3/gallon. What would have happened? Most likely, several things:

- We would now have a LOT of money to fund some research, subsidies, or other programs with to encourage alternative fuels, clean vehicles, or anything else we wanted.

- Poorer folks would have a hard time paying for gasoline (I’m not sure I buy this, but I’ll go along for the ride. I mean, poor folks have a hard time paying for everything.)

- Businesses would know for certain what to budget for gas. $3/gallon. No question. (Assuming it did not go ABOVE that level. And our government says it will not even get to $3, so, oops, we’re there already, sorry.)

- We would likely have used less gasoline. Higher prices do encourage some conservation, even in the US.

- Lower gasoline usage would assist in reducing the price of gasoline (less demand, less price pressure). So maybe the price of gasoline really would stay below $3.

- People would complain that gasoline is too expensive.

So, to keep gas prices low, we need to increase the price of gas to reduce demand, and to create funding for gasoline alternatives which also help to keep the cost of gasoline lower by creating alternatives.

But of course, we cannot do this, because at $2.25/gallon, gasoline is too expensive to add taxes to. Oops, sorry. Gasoline is now $3/gallon. And soon we’ll be seeing those beautiful, but potentially devastating storms in the gulf, just like the slides from Al Gore’s presentation.

Now what do we do?