Following Mulally (that’s fun to say ... following Mulally following Mulally whee!) last night was Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Good lord what a contrast!
Most of what Schmidt had to say was about Clean Energy 2030, Google’s big renewable energy plan. I won’t go over that again. Suffice to say it’s great.
WSJ’s Alan Murray started off by asking Schmidt what he would say to a shareholder who didn’t approve of Schmidt’s focus on renewable energy and do-goody environmental stuff. Said Schmidt:
Money we save on energy goes straight to the bottom line. Lower costs mean higher earnings. Green energy done right is more profitable than old energy. Is that a crisp enough answer for you?
Yes. (More on Schmidt’s remarks on the WSJ energy blog.)
One of my favorite things about Schmidt is that he clearly understands, as so few people in the climate/energy discussion do, that one of the central barriers to renewables and efficiency is dumbass utility regulations. People tend to recoil from the subject—so boring! so technical!—but nonetheless, it’s the elephant in the room.
And it prompted one of the more interesting exchanges in the audience Q&A.
First, Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric Power (a Southeastern utility), stood up and and showed that fossils can walk and talk. In so many words, he said building retrofits are a myth, renewables are far away, and decoupling (so utilities can make money from efficiency) is bogus. Specifically, “I’m not a decoupler. If my revenues go down, they go down.” (Yes, I’m sure AEP and the utility regulators it’s in bed with will stand by idly and watch its revenue go down.)
Then Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E (a California utility) stood up and showed what it looks like to live in the 21st century. He said he’s made tons of money off decoupling. He said PG&E’s found it easier to reach their renewable targets than anyone thought. He said ambitious targets always sound “impossible” when they’re first proposed and American innovation always hits them.
Schmidt and Darbee come out of the forward-looking, ambitious, innovative culture of California tech. They both seem frankly astonished at the lack of ambition, the fear, the smallness of thinking—not only of some of the business folk, but of the media too. Eventually Schmidt burst out: “This is America! We can do this!”
I hope.
Comments
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lgcarey Posted 4:59 am
05 Mar 2009
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:51 am
05 Mar 2009
Schmidt has a message about reduction.
Under his leadership, GOOG stock peaked at 800 and remains at 300...thus reducing the 401k's of millions by more than 50 percent!
Since Eric is a master at reduction, he is well suited to apply his financial skills in the atmosphere of global gases.
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JohnMashey Posted 3:36 pm
05 Mar 2009
The education of Peter Darbee is a nice article on the way he approached learning about climate issues.
He gives passionate talks on efficiency, as at the UN.
I've heard him speak; if you get a chance to hear him, he's well worth hearing. He said it's never easy changing a conservative culture like a utility, although in his case, replacing 28 of 35 senior executives helped.
-John Mashey
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amazingdrx Posted 12:18 am
06 Mar 2009
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/kennett-mo/T537US608CBNNA ...
The "Dear Leader" reference in the WSJ blog, refers to a video of children singing to Obama during the election. I wondered what it meant so I googled.
Are the obstructionist power company executives any farther advanced than the limboobs with the "Dear Leader" rant? Ignoring the drudgery and the bouncing boss limboob may be good for our sanity, but an ocasional sarirical excursion examining their state of hysteria is a good heads up.
Meanwhile, back in the real world: I'm wondering what the state of smart grid software research is at google? Remember their big innovation at their start? They substituted distributed computing for main frame super computing.
This is exactly the move that is needed now with our power grid. Go from central control, usually done with phone calls between human operators (what could be slower, carrier pidgeons?), to distributed computing.
Google ought to be all over this, and yet we hear nithing? Why the news vacuum? Is google dropping the ball on the smart grid, the biggest opportunity they may ever see for growing their business? Or are they guarding their research?
Enquiring, investment oriented minds need to know, please get someone on this story Grist! Investigative reporting is called for here, and guess what? No other news org is doing it. If Schmidt won't talk go to friends inside google.
The flatfooted wing nut limboobs deserve to lose by backing 18nth century pre-revolutionary corporate feudalism, new economy investors will eat all their lunch if we can get the information we need. We are depending on new wave journalism to do that. Luckily Grist is right on that cutting edge.
DOW 6000 is coming, where will your "gambling" money be when that happens? Will you be buying into the new energy economy companies at bargain basement prices? Or will you look back and wonder why you couldn't see the opportunity of your lifetime?
Better sell your GOOG jab! Take your losses like a man, hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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