Introduction to Chapter 18

Americans are sheep,being lead to slaughter
by forces unknown. I see no future for my
children, we were the country that led the world but now we are a discrace. Mark my word something will happen before the election that will make people vote for another 4 years of failed leadership, we'll all feel safer but in our hearts know that we are less safe.I want my country back, fascists must be held accountable for their lies. I hope it's not too late.

I have been working for several years on the idea of converting biomass into methanol with a specific focus on a non-invasive variety of the Chinese Tallow tree.
Please see: http://www.esrla.com/pdf/tallow.pdf
In meeting our demand for transportation fuels, we do not have to wait ten years to be free of foreign oil.

Many thanks.
Paul

E.P. makes a good point with T. Boone Pickens - he's used the internet and traditional media to get more attention to wind power than anyone else in recent memory.

In response to Friedman's latest column (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07f...), he supports a top-down approach to innovation this way. I wonder if the Gates Foundation could be convinced to fund research prizes into clean tech in addition to their disease eradication and education efforts. (Or is this already happening?)

Here's a program that ties in well with Mr. Friedmans thoughts. Maybe they should use his book to teach this "braintrust" ! This was just posted in Mass High Tech paper.

For veteran tech execs, clean-energy class offers a new beginning
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
Featured video

Per Suneby has been working in the corporate world since he graduated from Harvard Business School in 1979. But this summer he went back to school, taking classes and even field trips with 11 other well-known local executives through the Clean Energy Fellowship program. This week, he and his 11 classmates will take their final exams, making presentations to a panel of investors and clean energy insiders.

The program, which was designed by the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) and funded through the state’s Green Jobs Act passed earlier this year, will send 12 experienced entrepreneurs from other tech sectors into alternative energy — helping to fill a dearth of experienced executive talent in the new industry.

The program is expected to help fill the void, said industry insiders, but more will have to be done if the region’s maturing clean energy cluster is to become a national leader.

“This sector is going to grow at an extremely quick pace and the problem, which exists on all levels, is that it is going to be difficult to get the requisite number of people to run those companies,” said Nick d’Arbeloff, executive director of NECEC.

The alternative energy sector’s roughly 15,000 jobs statewide are expected to grow 20 percent per year for the next two to three years, most coming from startups and small companies, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

The fellowship program aims to fill the executive pipeline by taking entrepreneurs and executives from more mature industries, such as software, biotechnology or networking, and giving them a foundation in alternative energy. The first group of fellows includes well-known local entrepreneurs such as Richard Daniels, a former Polaroid Corp. executive who helped to spin out coatings maker MultiLayer Coating Technologies LLC and then sold its key assets to Lowell-based Konarka Technologies Inc.; and Charles Digate, a former CEO of MathSoft Inc. and founder of past software startups Beyond Inc. and Convoq Inc.

The first class began its training in June, and this week, after a series of lectures, interviews and trips — including to the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Colorado — participants are finishing training with final presentations being made to a panel of investors.

Suneby, who has launched or been an executive at communications companies such as Indus River Networks Inc., Enterasys Networks Inc. and Chantry Networks Inc., said most of the fellows expect to continue on to early-stage ventures, where executives from the entrepreneurial side of the ledger are hard to find. “Energy, in a macro sense, is the biggest industry in the world, but it hasn’t been an area for small companies or startups,” he said. Because of its highly regulated and capital-intensive nature, “it’s a legacy industry based on legacy models.”

As the fellowship program continues to move forward — a new class is expected to be announced this fall — the local alternative energy pipeline is also being filled by executives outside the program and outside the region.
According to Leonard Vairo, the managing director for the local technology and clean tech practice of executive recruiting firm Russell Reynolds Associates, executives from the small-business units of large energy companies are beginning to look to Massachusetts and New England as an area with new opportunities.

“(Existing) companies are looking for executive talent, but so are private equity firms and startups, so the whole supply-and-demand scale is out of whack,” he said. “As a result, you are also going to see people coming from out of state who are attracted to the opportunity.”

Russell Reynolds, for example, recently recruited Chicago native and former Illinois utility executive Michael Metzner as CFO of Newton-based wind developer First Wind Holdings Inc., which last month filed to go public.

While the executive pipeline is slowly being filled, insiders expect the demand to continue to outstrip the supply for the next two to three years. Several of the fellowship graduates, including Suneby, hope to have new ventures up and running in the next year, but none have announced any specific plans.

P.S.
Brandeis launches ‘Green’ MBA program [September 4, 2008]

Canada is having its own problems dealing with the emergence if ET. I live in Saint John, New Brunswick which is currently experiencing growth around becoming an "Energy Hub". Unfortunately, the growth is built around a new oil refinery, natural gas processing and a new nuclear reactor – very little talk about renewable “ET”. Four years ago I was asked, as a non-academic, to co-direct the MBA program at the local university. The entire program needed to be re-engineered and I proposed that we focus on the creation of a business institute that had a related design institute and technology institute and focus on creating and supporting “ET” entrepreneurs and businesses. Although they implemented components of the plan (courses on innovation and commercialization of products) the big picture of a sustainable ET ecosystem was not. Short-sited as the growth of the energy industry will be short-lived as ET knowledge workers will come in to town for the building of the new refinery and nuclear station but they will leave in 5- 10 years with no real transfer of skill or new enterprises.