Quest for the Holy Grail? Look no further

Global warming ‘tis merely a flesh wound 4

Monty Python's Holy GrailAs Pedro Moura Costa, founder of the carbon credit trading company EcoSecurities, explained:

If you pick a winner in the right technology in the search for a low carbon economy you are talking about potentially billions. It is really the holy grail.

The EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is giving investors in the carbon market a glimpse of the future, and it's a "green goldrush."

The flood of investments in carbon trading and green technology funds has quickly created a market worth billions, and projected to be as much as $40 billion by 2012. One businessman in New York guesses that "the next Bill Gates" will be an environmental entrepreneur, someone who taps into the emerging clean technology market and moves it into homes.

Henrik Hasselknippe, manager of the carbon market analyst group PointCarbon, observed that the carbon market "is increasingly a capitalist arena. The eco-warriors are being replaced by the eco-capitalists."

While this is serious business, can't you just envision the Monty Python skit? Eco-warriors morphing into eco-capitalists with swords that turn smoke and smog into gold revealing, at last, the Holy Grail ...

Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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  1. Zarkov Posted 2:11 pm
    12 Feb 2007

    Dross>> to be as much as $40 billion by 2012  >.
    Why would one try to save this lot ?
    Surely any saving technology should be free.
    Do you want inventors to shut up, and let the world go, because they need credibility for their inventions.
    I knew this site was suspect, you dig your own grave.
    LOL 2012 ?
    It all will end somewhat sooner than that.
    Good luck with your money, I hope you can eat it.
  2. Jianguoxu Posted 1:01 am
    13 Feb 2007

    carbon emission killersLet me take a stab:


    A safe, low cost battery (<$300/kWh) technology for PHEV with 60 miles of pure electric range that lasts more than 4000 cycles and 10 yrs,

    A PV technology that reduces the cost of solar cells to below $0.08/kWh on electrocity generation, installed

    A low cost, highly efficient heat driven heat pump that eliminates the need for the conventional heat pump



    4). A low cost system for using geothermal heat for residential heating and cooling.
    These four should be enough to reduce the amount of carbon emission by more than 90%, IMO
  3. sunflower's avatar

    sunflower Posted 1:43 am
    13 Feb 2007

    Its all push and no pull.There is no Holy Grail Quest, not yet
    There are thousands of would-be inventors and innovators pushing new technology.  However, most of the new technology is self financed (usually by a few new millionaires from silicon valley).
    I have a patent on new solar technology yet received absolutely no interest, no evaluation, no emails, no phone calls, nada, just silence.

    http://www.harbornet.com/sunflower/patent.doc
    Capital is going to old market-proven technologies with some minor improvements.  Nothing radically new there.  The same not-invented-here problem is discussed in nuclear, automotive, buildings, and so on.    Risk aversion for capital preservation.
  4. Easterbunny Posted 3:16 am
    13 Feb 2007

    ...and as Terry Gilliam would say:"It's only a (climate) model"

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