What do you need to be a powerhouse in the CleanTech Sector?
Well Vinod Khosla, thinks you need intellectual capital, industrial capital, trained technologists and the will. All of which India has in abundance. Vinod Khosla, Venture Capitalist from KPCB and co-founder of Sun Microsystems spoke recently at the CleanTech Conference in San Francisco about the future of Clean Technology in India. Here is an excerpt from his presentation and a short brief on the startup of Cleantech India, a fund headed by Jesswinder Kaur to encourage funding of green technology enterprises in India. India is working to create an industrial revolution in the CleanTech sector. To that end It has created the world's first Ministry of Renewable Energy which will work to concentrate investment in areas where there is predicted to be strong growth. Australasia in general is using Clean Tech Policy as a driver of innovation. Singapore with its Solar and Water, China working to build a sustainable or at least low impact city for 8 million from scratch and India all seek to capitalize on innovation in this sector as an economic motive force. Khosla points out that even though while the largest current focus is on the energy sector with about 85% of investments in the CleanTech sector going into alternative fuels and recently solar. There are many other markets for innovation from cement to glass. Cutting the cost and environmental footprint of cement and other common building materials in half would make a huge difference in worldwide carbon reduction.

San Francisco a Good Place for a Timely Conference.
Many implications of the post Bali, Kyoto 2 world were covered at the recent CFA Forum in San Francisco. One of the initial discussions was moderated by Henry Derwent current Director of the IETA, and former director of climate, energy and environmental risk at the UK's Department of the Environment. Who made some of the opening statements concerning the current state of world carbon offset markets as both an overview and in detail. There are several pieces of pending legislation including the Lieberman Warner Bill and the Bingman Spector Bill, either of which will provide the impetus for government mandates to institute a nationwide cap & trade system. Right now carbon offsets are grossly undervalued in the United States even though there has been a recent price spike on the Chicago Climate Exchange largely because the system is largely based on voluntary compliance.

Carbon Forums Worlwide.All three of the presidential candidates support some kind of cap and trade scheme. Barack Obama, for example, was one of the founding board members of the Chicago Climate Exchange. The full scale entry of the US into the carbon markets will increase the demand for offset credits by at least 810 million tonnes under current market conditions. That number merely sums up the numbers already being traded in California, the Northeast's RGGI and the Chicago Climate Exchange's closed system according to NASD verified accounting. The demand is likely to be substantially higher as the Lieberman Warner Bill (S2191) or another piece of legislation gets out of committee and heads for the floor. The Lieberman Warner Bill started life as the Lieberman McCain Bill but underwent some changes in both name and substance during this last year when the presidential race went into full swing. The various proposed bills mandate between 3.25 and 4.65 billion tonnes of CO2 offsets to be sold at market rates. The price of US carbon offsets will likely climb initially to at least parity with the European market rate of at least $30/tonne when these bills become pending legislation.
ADF the 500kg Gorilla for Legitimate Verifiable CreditsThe entry of the US into the international market will at least double the demand for carbon offsets on the international market. Expect further mandates and legislation with an economy wide GHG cap and concommittant trade legislation. There is currently a shortfall of deliverable and verifiable carbon offsets on the the world market. Existing contracts are often unable to deliver the full promised amount currently the system sees a shortfall in 15-25% of cases. Price projections also do not take account of full scale Chinese participation. Something which is likely to happen after 2010 as China seeks to turn itself from a greenhouse gas pariah into a CleanTechnology powerhouse and as the PRC begins to administratively implement already pending cap & trade regulations. These factors will increase the vastly increase the demand for legitimate offsets beginning in the US as voluntary customers make the shift to mandated caps and continuing on an upward trend as China begins to establish and implement its own government mandates. There is already movement to quality projects, and a focus on counter party risk which addresses delivery problems. Delivery of promised or contracted offsets being a major issue since at the present time between 15% & 25% of promised offsets are non-deliverable almost a quarter of the market. At the end of the day this is what matters. Can you actually deliver the promised tonnage in the contract and right now the answer is no in many cases. The supporting infrastructure to allow the rapid creation of large projects with auditable and verifiable offset potential does not currently exist nor is there sufficient personnel to support them. A tidal wave of involvement would overwhelm CDM as project surges slow down the CDM mechanism according to a Nature Conservancy report. Planning assistance for these kind of projects currently works best outside of highly regulated areas. A projected shortfall of credits caused by a lack of suitable carbon finance instruments which will extend into the foreseeable future could create the potential for unwarranted speculation and potentially spurious instruments in a burgeoning market. Something already seen in various european markets most notably London over the past decade.
Post Bali the Sun Shines on ADF Projects.ADF credits can take up some of the shortfall, they have been hard to package and monetize as they were really not addressed coherently in Kyoto One. Post Bali, or Kyoto Two, has leveled the playing field for Avoided Deforestation Offsets. They can now be securitized as a viable Carbon Finance Instrument (CFI) albeit in one-offs through specifically designed project aggregators. They are both visible and verifiable and now can be securitized and monetized through several different but international standards including VCS. At the current time Avoided Deforestation (ADF Offsets) are grossly undervalued and just beginning to make it to market as projects are created and audited then securitized and monetized. Much of the science is in place and the VCS (voluntary carbon standard) provides a framework that can be used and conforms to recognized international standards. VCS may help plug the gap in providing the framework for accelerated development of ADF projects. But to help ADF offsets to gain wider acceptance some questions first have to be addressed.

Questions:
-How do we get full value for non CDM projects?
-How to use REDD as a CDM type mechanism instead of the policy mechanism as it is now.
-how far out to lo create a viable credit (30,50,100) years?
-how long is the expected lifespan of a vintage. 2010 is the expiration of many.
-How to create a standard criteria for valuing assets

Also important given the potential for an impending demand there is a need to create a suitable standard CFI that has unequivocal international acceptance. Open source frameworks which allows for more standard guidelines in the creation of programs would speed up the process.ADF programs, especially tropical ones are a major untapped source of deliverable carbon credits. There is now the likelihood of getting specific programs off the ground that have languished through the CDM process.
More Work is Needed but the Future Looks Good. New programs that come on line will acquire accumulated vintages. Standing forests are also verifiable, securitizable and deliverable in almost all cases short of a major environmental disaster. Most projects will have 'buffers' built in to allow for shortfalls, unlike a lot of more conventionally generated carbon offset credits which should cover even unforeseen eventualities. Programs will hopefully incorporate financial underpinnings designed to support & maintain longterm sustainable forestry programs as well as providing the carbon offset credits to accommodate the surge in demand needed to fill the hole in carbon finance instruments likely to accompany the surge in demand caused by government mandates. With a big new mandated markets opening up internationally. its possible many carbons offset programs of dubious provenance might crop up, especially in the US given that countries tendency for derivative mischief making. Avoided Deforestation offsets can fill the gap with a real & verifiable credit that can actually be delivered.

News Checker this week comes from all corners of the globe.
Being independently mobile and flexible with our work environments is becoming even more necessary. The solar desk is another “bright” idea to create instant energy and power provided for working on the move.

Image of the Solar Workspace
Wired magazine has an interesting report on LA and its automobile industry. With the region's growing population, the city will not be able to support itself without future investments in transportation. Read more in their blogs.
More transport troubles in the USA, this time the focus is on New York's public transport system.
Full of solutions, the Dutch as usual have come up with a novel way to deal with rising water levels. Floating Homes. But unlike the usual Dutch house-boats, these homes are able to be both attached to the ground or float upwards of 16 feet. 37 houses along the Maas River in Holland have been designed by Dura Vermeer.
More info at Cleantechnica

Dutch Floating Homes

The Vulcan project is creating waves in the blogosphere. The video created by the team at the Purdue University is actually an interactive map of the United States and the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. The results are surprising.
Finally, Australia is about to build their biggest solar plant near the town of Mildura.
The plant – which is planned to begin generating power by 2010, and be completed 2013 – is looking to provide solar power to some 45,000 homes.

We do Cleantech Right. Countries that want to implement a comprehensive program to stimulate the developement of Clean technology and investment would do well to study the programs being implemented by the EDB (Economic Development Board) of Singapore.Singapore, a small city state has been at the head of the pack when it comes to innovation. I would like to point out also that Singapore implemented it first version of urban congestion pricing in 1975, decades before London. It implemented an updated fully functional version in 1998, which electronically priced the usage of roads, something that should be considered a future standard. New York City most notably is trying to still trying to muster the the political wherewithal to think about doing this 33 years later. I point this out because it is indicative of the way Singapore is able to fund, implement and refine longterm programs. Ramping up what can be considered emerging industries and technologies and using itself as a proving ground for development, implementation and testbedding. Singapore leads the curve so much that technology, economic models and administrative implementation that are 'done & done' there often have yet to be phrased in a coherent manner in other jurisdictions.
Another Center of InnovationRecently at the Clean Tech Investors conference in San Francisco, Kenneth Tang from from Singapore's EDB went into detail about what makes Singapore different. To begin with a little background about Singapore, it is a City State located off the Malacca Strait, one of the worlds busiest maritime passages transited by 70% of the world's shipping. Its population of about 4.5 million has one of the highest standards of living in the world. 3 billion people live within a 7 hr flight radius. There are over 30,000 companies located there. Its manufacturing capability is 35% of California, which is by itself the world's 6th largest economy. Taxes are low with a cap of 20% on personal income tax and 18% on corporate and Singapore is connected via its business relationships and sovereign wealth fund (Temasek) to 60% of the world's GDP.Singapore's EDB has for 45 years pursued a core development strategy of creating a high standard of living in a garden city environment with a strong emphasis on development that is both ecologically and economically friendly to its inhabitants. Certainly the lack of available fresh water was one of the earliest reasons for the consideration and implementation of conservation techniques in the 1960's. Water comes from either rainfall based cisterns, aqueducts or desalination. Singapore has innovated so consistently in water ways that it won the Stockholm prize for water managment and in some ways has succeeded in turning itself into a tropical version of Venice in SE Asia. This is part of a longterm strategy to become a world CleanTech Hydrohub.
Sunlight in the Tropics, 25% More. REC, the Norwegian Solar Energy firm is building the world's largest solar panel manufacturing plant there. The plant when finished will have an annual capacity 1.5 gigawatts, 75% of global capacity. Singapore's EDB is working to establish a solar value chain and industrial park capable of supplying the area's needs. Sensible I would say given that solar power in the tropics generates 25-30% more than in temperate zones and that there is also more need for clean electricity in this area. Thats just one project. The real secret to the approach is Singapore's policy of a having a CleanTech strategy for sustainable growth which is integrated into a holistic policy managed by the EDB. The rationale is simple: Cities are the new focus. Singapore will lead the way by building the infrastructure, passing the laws and training the people. Its infrastructure is open to testbedding projects and products. The R & D budget is $14 Billion over the next 4 years. To put this in perspective the the US is trying to get a 'Green Jobs' bill of $250 million passed for training and industry development over 2 years.Singapore looks to the future and intends to 'export social capital and solutions to the world' according to Ken Tang, with the city state itself acting as a CleanTech proving ground whose motto is almost 'Think, Try, Test & Trust.' One of the projects on the drawing board is building a sustainable city for 6 million inhabitants in the PRC from the ground up as a technology proving ground.
Really Big Green RoofsOne way to attract knowledge capital is to bring in the best and brightest. To that end Singapore is encouraging partnerships between the Public sector, Private industry and Universities. Overseas Universities and research institutes are being encouraged to setup satellite campuses in Singapore including Stanford, http://www.caltech.edu/ and Germany's Fraunhofer Institute.This includes providing the funds and facilities to get them setup and going. The EDB's policy is straightforward: to establish themselves as a 1 stop shop for any organization looking to setup shop in SG. One that is also in charge of policy & planning and one that can assist in:1-Setting up companies
2-Providing and training staff
3-Coninvesting and incubating new Clean Technologies
4-Providing office and manufacturing space
Xeriscaping at Changji AirportIn other words if you want to start a new business in the Cleantech sector or setup manufacturing Singapore is trying to be your one-stop solution.   It will also provide matching funds for CleanTech Ventures that meet its investment criteria including grants for hight school and college students to get a leg up early. All that in the environment of a Garden City, lets hope this model catches on worldwide.

When Pigs Can Fly! Some speeches you just have to love for their absurdist qualities.  What could have possibly been a mundane speech by an Assistant Secretary of Energy was turned into a 45 minute exercise in surrealism in front of an audience of 600 venture capitalists from Silicon Valley.  The Asst. Secretary went a long way towards livening up a post lunch doldrum in the schedule with his colorful description of the current state of the CleanTechnology industry.   Many listeners found it bizarre and amusing, others just walked out in bewilderment. Overall it did not make the second in command of a major government department who seemed to believe he was speaking to an audience of the converted, look very good.  After the first five minutes comments at our table ranged from 'this man is just smart enough to be dangerous' to 'whichever Administration takes office next should sack him immediately.'  There was a complete lack of stated policy in the the odd jumble of words, concepts and metaphors that came out.   As source material for a Terry Gilliam  movie it could not have been better.   For a roomful of relatively hard bitten Silicon Valley VC's, not the right audience for an evolved dark comedy play leaking out of the energy departments collective unconscious.
Something Smells FunnyAfter an introduction which eulogised  Lee Raymond, former Chairman of Exxon as 'a great apostle of the climate change discussion'  the Asst. Secretary  went on to explain that 'demand for oil will continue to outstrip supply'   leading to as the Dallas Fed Chairman had said the previous day to 'oil prices in excess of $300 a barrel by 2015.'    Scary stuff which was then described as 'a great opportunity for everyone in this room.'  That certainly could be construed as true, in a way.  But a  description of Bush administration policy which started out with the line 'when is a lame duck not a lame duck' and then jumped to  a reference that the National Governors Association had declared 'Red, White & Blue' the new Green began to provoke odd looks from the attendees.  The Asst. Secretary then made the jump to China where he spoke about his first trip to the Shenzhen special economic zone when it 'was a dirty little place' and his recent visit when it 'had blossomed into a dirty big place, showing the world that Chinese Capitalism is a new model for the future.'
Brave New ModelThis started to be a bit much, one of my neighbors leaned over and eloquently commented 'he either wields the subtle knife of caustic wit or suffers from a terrifyingly large disconnect from observable reality.'  Climate changed then metastasized 'into the war on terror that was before the war on terror' creating the need for 'Apollo like mandates to get back to the moon of energy.'  'We can,' as the Secretary then said, 'Drive this Science all the way back to Kansas because this is the time of good ideas whose time has come.''Disconnect?'  Another gentleman from San Jose commented.  'I would say schizophrenia is a better description.'  'Naw' someone else piped up, 'this is the Wizard of Oz meets  K-Street speech, wait'll he pulls a white rabbit out of his ass thats the finale.'Continuing on the Secretary  invoked the phrase 'phasing out Edison by getting rid of the light bulb and coming up with a new zero emission strategy for home appliances.'  I thought cars emitted more CO2 than dishwashers but they were never mentioned.  We were told that Bali had also 'nailed down the post 2012 world.'  I couldn't help wondering which world this guy was talking about as he looked forward to the next annual 'Big Bang Conference' in Copenhagen.   A place where in the US's  view 'Every Country gets to decide its own problem.'   One translation of that could be 'If we don't like it we won't do it' which was pretty much the pre Bali state of Kyoto.  The Energy Under Secretary also proposed a 'US sponsored CleanTech Fund to accelerate the commercialization of CleanTechnology.'  In theory this sounds good but no numbers were mentioned (e.g. Singapore's Cleantech development fund is allocating $14 Billion over 2 years to for education, incubators, matching funds and satellite university campuses) or details given.  
Cushy Job if You Can Get itWhat was interesting came next, and reveals much about this administration's view of capitalism: 'If you want to do well in the Government's new Manhattan-like program for Cleantech innovation you had better participate in ESCOPs.'  This was emphasized 3 times  to a crowd that probably got it the first time.   An ESCOP is an 'Energy Saving Contract Procurement'  it seems to be descended from a predecessor instrument called an ESCO.  It is bureaucrat-ese for being 'on board with the government' for 'future contracts' and apparently has something to do with being in the right place to take advantage of the huge windfalls that will be associated with the auction of carbon offsets after one of the pending pieces of cap & trade legislation passes and for letting of new 'energy efficient contracts' across the board.  Definitely something to look out for if you are at the governments feeding trough or have just been bailed out from a subprime debacle.  For closing I agree with the Asst. Secretary that we 'have never been up a mountain this big before'   and that the future is definitely too important ' to leave to bumper sticker diplomacy' and  'if we continue on this path we will lay a big fat federal goose egg.' 
A Bleak ViewAbout this time the remaining two people at our table decided it was time to leave, none of us could take it any longer. 'We've gone from 'When is a lame duck not a lame duck,' to big fat Federal goose eggs.' said one, the other said 'It all sounds like Tofurkey to me and time to get out of here.'  That pretty much sums up the reaction of the entrepreneurs and investors who are expected to create a new 'CleanTech' economy to the current U.S. Administration's energy policy Except for one last comment overheard in the lobby: 'not much we can use coming out of Washington these days is there.' Believe it or not? This could be the state of an energy policy somewhere in our World today!

The speech by Craig Venter about synthesizing life at this year’s TED conference was just one of more than seventy that will soon be uploaded onto the TED site.
Speaking about “fourth generation designer fuels” and the capacity to reboot organisms with different DNA structures, his talk provoked both visions of a Frankenstein future, and a realistic solution to the effects of peak fuels. Venter pushed the possibility of being able to create biofuels and most importantly, fuels that actually use C02 as a foodstock. Uses for his synthetic species include replacing the petro-chemical industry and becoming a major source of energy.
Watch Craig Venter TED talk here.
For an idea of who was there , a mini picture gallery is also now online.For other talks from TED, with real pioneers in many fields, keep checking the TED website.
Title image of TED curator Chris Anderson and Steve Venter from www.ted.com

Day 2 at the TED "meeting of the minds" started with a bang: Craig Venter gave a talk on "Future Uses of Synthetic and Engineered species“. In a nutshell, he is trying to do nothing less than replace the petro-chemical industry with synthetic bacteria to generate fuels. By designing organisms that chew up CO2 and produce energy, he suggests that biological refineries can be built and consequently solve the CO2 emissions problem and overcome peak oil at the same time. When asked by the audience about the potential risks of bio engineering, he replied that he was worried more about getting the technology out there in time, in order to solve climate issues, than about its potential misuse.
His statement was quite moving, especially when he confessed to being very disappointed with the debate in Davos on the climate crisis - where he had the feeling that world leaders there were not engaged enough when it came to finding real solutions. At TED, he felt the spirit was much more optimistic, that this issue is very important and solutions must be found.
Needless to say, this very bold and impressive concept from one of science's greatest minds stirred up a lot of debate in the coffee break amongst TEDsters.
Image from www.ted.com
Another great highlight was that the topic of sustainability was presented in the evening session. The TED community officially launched the amazing Encyclopedia of Life on www.eol.org . This project aims to become the first complete record of all species on our planet. It was E.O.Wilsons´s TED wish last year, after he won the TED prize 2007 for lifetime achievement. I find the project very inspiring and encourage every member of Club of Pioneers to check it out.The TED talks are going up online bit by bit, so check out www.ted.com to see what great ideas people are sharing here at Monterey.
Day 1

So we checked into the TED conference 2008 in Monterrey, California and it´s been a very exciting day 1 already.The sexiest thought leader conference worldwide, this year focuses on nothing less than „the big questions“. Thus, it kicked off by asking simply "Who are we?" followed by the more specific: "What is our place in the Universe?".The quest for human identity was answered in good TED style by an eclectic group consisting of an anthropologist, a musician, a neuroanatomist and an artist, shedding light on how we changed from animals into civilized humans in the first place – and left us with a fair warning, we might loose it all again, if we do not take care of our planet and ourselves a little more than we have done in the past 200 years.Overall, the message of sustainability has been an underlying topic at most talks so far. Peter D. Ward, a Paleontologist, gave an insight into how with rising CO2 emissions our oceans are about to collapse, and that in order to survive we might have to adapt to a more reptilian environment.The issue of the state of the oceans and the scarcity of water was specifically placed onto the agenda by many, including the Coca Cola company, which sponsored a talk on this topic and hopes to make it as relevant in the international debate as global warming is now.The morning had already started with Matthias Hollwich giving a talk on Econic Design at the TED University. We´ll post the talk in the next few days, but you can already check out some of this on our site.
Matthias Hollwich
But sustainability was discussed not just in an environmental sense. Anthropologist Wade Davis told us that today we still have 6000 native languages in the world. But only half of them will be taught to the children born today due to rapid globalization and „modernization“ of our societies. Thus we are also loosing half of our collective wisdom. The evening discussion about the truth in journalism was greatly enhanced by one of those surprise moment that can only happen at TED! When the audience had to wait for the technical difficulties to be solved, comedy superhero Robin Williams jumped on stage and gave a riveting stand up comedy improvisation. Amongst all these great minds assembled at TED, it seems he´s the one who´s also the wittiest...