600 Million Points of Light—Thinking Outside the Grid

I just returned from two weeks in India, one week with a start-up company providing a low-cost lighting solution for the 600 million individuals with homes and shops that are off-grid. The other week involved a variety of meetings, mostly concerning NGOs in India, a visit to the Salt Pans in Gujarat and three interesting days in the Bandhavgarh National Park looking for tigers and learning more about the role the Parks play in India’s future. While we were in India, the last votes were being cast for members of Parliament, which in turn would determine the nature of leadership in a very critical period for India and the world.  For the first time in many years the voters, 400 million of them, kept the incumbent party, the Congress party, in power with a larger mandate than it had before. The Indian stock market had the biggest percentage gain, ever, of any major stock market in the world the first day of trading after the results were announced.

Many observations came out of this trip, some of which relate directly to the supposed focus of this blog and others less so.

Let’s start with one that does relate, Distributed World Power (DWP), the start-up company. Full disclosure: I am on the board of DWP, which is a portfolio company of Idealab. We recently relocated the headquarters from Pasadena to Ahmedabad where the first product is being manufactured.  It is a solar-charged power pack, with three LED lights and a cell phone charger. It sells for around $100 (~5000 Rupees).  It is currently being sold through a variety of distribution systems and financing schemes to a mixture of demographics in various parts of rural India. In India, the immaturity of distribution, financing and marketing to low-income rural customers presents a problem and an opportunity.  The problem is there is no standard model in which to slot a product.  The opportunity is if one can figure out the right model(s) for the right demographics—whatever they may be—the market is huge. The need is certainly huge: 600 million off-grid with the rest on unreliable grid. This was brought home traveling through different villages, on-grid and off, in Uttar Pradesh, one of the most densely populated and least developed states of India.

At night, in an off-grid neighborhood of 70 homes, it is dark, with 4 points of light visible as one looks over the setting. Three are compact fluorescents  (cfl) hooked to small automobile batteries.  At each cfl house the light is hanging in a sheltered dirt floor area, outside the home, which one could call a “patio.” There are 9 to 11 women seated around a table doing embroidery to be sold in the local markets. The houses themselves are dark. An occasional kerosene lamp provides a small glow in an alcove inside a home. Every two days someone must carry each of these batteries 4 kilometers to be charged by a diesel generator at a cost of 11 or 12 rupees. In some villages the walk is to a point connected to the grid for recharging, although there is no guarantee that the grid will be carrying electricity at the time one arrives. In either case there is the walk to, the wait while charging and the walk back with the battery.  The fourth point of light in this village is a  “Duron,” the brand name of the DWP system.  A LED light is mounted at the entrance, lighting up the patio. Another is mounted in the main room, and a third in a bedroom or, more accurately, a dormitory.  A six to eight hour solar charge provides 4 hours of bright illumination from the three lights or 8 hours of partial illumination, or some combination thereof. Bright illumination from these three LED lights is about 570 lumens, equivalent to a 50 watt bulb, but with greater lux or intensity.

As we traipsed around the village, asking questions of the various light owners, a crowd gathered, followed us and carried on a community discussion including questions to our distributor in that area. He closed another sale that night. The system was delivered and installed the next day. I suspect there will be other sales there until about 20% of the neighborhood has lights. If the right financing scheme can be found, maybe all the homes will have light. And then, maybe all the 30 neighborhoods in the village. And then, maybe all the 70,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh.

There are calculations that justify purchases, but little value is put on time, labor or periodic outlays. The shopkeepers can make an easy calculation: more light, more people, more hours open, more sales. For a homeowner, it is not yet easy. There is a value put on education. In another village we talked with the younger brother of the owner of a Duron about how his life had changed since the purchase. He said he now studied two to three times as long as before, three hours in the pre-dawn morning and three in the late evening under one of the LEDs. Previously, he had studied under a kerosene lamp until the wind blew it out or his eyes were burning—usually about two hours.  We know there was some truth to what he told us as he had called the distributor the morning before at 6 am saying he was having trouble charging his cell phone, something he did every few days while studying. It turns out he simply hadn’t pushed the plug in far enough this time. He said he was doing better in school and now liked school–an ambitious young man with a better chance to achieve his ambitions.

These stories and others as we traveled around were quite heartening.  The quality of life improvement, the educational element, the individual economic gains made one feel good about being in the business. Maybe, as importantly, the potential to build economic value at DWP, or other companies like it, was so apparent. Not an easy task, but very likely achievable.

There was also the reinforcement and exposition of an observation made by a young friend as we were walking around the streets of Mumbai, picking our way past torn-up pavement and demolished front yards. He said, “India must skip the classic infrastructure build expected of them. They have to find another way.  Otherwise they will never bring all the country up to developed world standards and achieve true participation in the 21^st century. They did it with cellular phones. Why not with other basic systems?” At the time, I felt it was a nice thought but one without an implementable set of solutions. In retrospect, having spent time in various parts of the country, I thought maybe it could be done—at least in power.  The capital and operating expenses of most alternative energy systems, ex nuclear, are approaching the point where scale is less necessary to achieve cost-of-power parity with fossil fuels. Why not skip the build-out of the grid and the behemoth power plants and install specific-point power facilities.  This can range from a Duron to a solar, wind or hydro facility, or some combination thereof, for a single home, a plant, a village or a town. Power storage is still an issue, but being solved.  Think about the emissions improvement from such an approach. Think about the shortened time frames if private enterprise provides the solutions into a local bureaucracy as opposed to a state or national one.

I haven’t spelled out a complete answer here.  That may best be left to the entrepreneurs.

Unintended Consequences

So Chrysler has filed. Suppliers and dealers are scrambling for financing. Dealerships and plants are shutting down. This is all just a mini-preview of what would happen if GM had to file. In a shaky economy where there is some evidence the downtrends are decelerating, this would be an almost certain way to print a negative GDP in the third and fourth quarters and to raise the risk of a much more extended recession. At that point it will be difficult for this administration to say, “don’t blame us.”

Other news: Toyota loses $7.74 Billion in its latest fiscal quarter, more than the $6 Billion loss GM incurred for the same period. As we said, no one can make money at the current auto sales rate. Now, in addition to the GM debt holders being obstinate, the politicians are concerned that GM might add manufacturing capacity outside the US over the next five years, possibly taking the percentage of cars made elsewhere and sold in the US from 15% to 23%. Therefore, maybe we shouldn’t lend GM money if it is going to invest a portion of that for factories and jobs outside the US. As Robert Reich puts it (no longer a politician but an academic), “…it raises fundamental questions about the purpose of bailing out these big companies. If GM is going to do more of its production overseas, then why exactly are we saving GM?” Well, maybe it has something to do with the 77% that will be manufactured and sold domestically as well as the dealer networks that will be involved in 100% of the sales. It may have something to do with the efficiency of production that is sold not just in the US, but in local and growing markets elsewhere. It might have to do with the possibility that if GM isn’t making those cars to satisfy a segment of the US car buyers, someone else–probably not a US company–will.

Maybe it has something to do with having a large enough company with the design and engineering capability to be a leader in the next generations of electric and other non-fossil-fuel vehicles. This will be one of the first decisions in which this administration is involved where it has to take full responsibility for the consequences—intended or unintended.

China and Electric Cars: The Stakes Have Been Raised

Warren Buffett was ahead of the curve when Berkshire bought 10% of BYD, one of the leading Chinese battery companies, last September. Ironically, that was at the same time his Colbert-titled op-ed piece, “Buy American. I Am.,” appeared in the New York Times. Today, the Times had a front page article on China’s plan to become one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and very quickly becoming the world leader in electric cars and buses soon thereafter. The article states the case very well, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html?hp.

I don’t need to repeat it here.

 

China has the advantage of not having to replace a fleet—there are maybe 30 million vehicles on the road there—but selling into a first-time car-buyer market as its per capita income rises.  If China follows the rest of the world in automobile penetration vs. GDP per capita, that 30 million, or 21 cars per 1000 people, becomes 80 cars per 1000, or 123 million by 2020 and possibly 250 million by 2030.  At that point the penetration is still only about 150 cars per 1000.  The US is about 860 cars per 1000 today.  As I have been saying for a number of years, heaven help us if most of those vehicles are powered by internal combustion engines. It will be bad enough that the electricity to charge these cars still will come primarily from coal-fired plants. But my guess is that China will be ahead of us, as well, when it comes to clean coal production and alternative energy sources.

 

This raises the stakes on what will be the structure of the US auto industry after we come out of this economic downturn. In my view, a bankruptcy of GM, in particular, would 1) extend the economic downturn and 2) set back the US auto industry’s participation in the new world of non-fossil-fueled vehicles. It may come to that if the UAW and the bondholders don’t blink.  A blink by the UAW is likely even though it will be painful for real people.  I am not so sure about the bondholders, many of whom are traders who have bought these positions on a speculation that there won’t be a bankruptcy, probably hedged against the possibility of one, and won’t blink until the very last minute, if at all. The real bond investors would likely go along with any agreement that avoids bankruptcy since they are running other portfolios that would suffer dramatically from an extension of the downturn and the re-pricing of corporate fixed income paper reflecting the willingness of the administration to use bankruptcy as a part of its bag of tricks.

 

China’s plan is a wake-up call, but not just on the urgency of an aggressive plan for the auto industry. It is a loud alarm bell, showing China’s recognition that both energy independence and reduced emissions are important to political stability and economic growth. In addition, developing and owning the technology that goes along with a ContraCarbon world will enhance its economic and geopolitical future.

The Auto Loans: Will Obama’s Threat and Wagoner’s Departure Bring the Other Stakeholders to the Table?

Rick Wagoner has announced that he is stepping down from GM, and President Obama has announced that the industry has not taken sufficient steps to get “there,” wherever that is. He is putting the onus on GM and Chrysler to cut deals with the suppliers, employees and bondholders to put the companies in a position to come out the other side of this economic downturn in a position to thrive.  The alternative would be to let these companies file for bankruptcy. My guess is that Wagoner has taken this as far as he can and he is stepping away to allow another person to go back the stakeholders and move to the next level. The President has to leave the possibility of bankruptcy on the table to get the stakeholders to move.  Is this a question of who blinks first or are the stakeholders simply negotiating to get the best deal they can before they blink? I think it is the latter. Unfortunately, everyone knows that bankruptcy can have severe consequences for the overall economy and should be out of the question for this administration.  On the other hand, sometimes the President has to be unpredictable.  Would he really allow bankruptcy to take place? I don’t think so, but the stakeholders may not be so sure.

 

I don’t know about Chrysler, but GM is getting into a position to come out the other side of this as a successful player, possibly leading the industry to the next level. I will say again, there is no reason for anyone to buy a car today unless a car has to be scrapped. No one will make money at today’s sales levels, which are likely to continue until 1) the economy recovers and 2) autos provide a better value proposition. It does mean a bigger check will have to be written to get through this.

 

It is too bad that Wagoner won’t be leading the effort at GM.  Maybe some day he will get the credit he deserves for repositioning the behemoth that could lead the industry to the next level.  Unfortunately, at today’s sales levels, the cash is disappearing quickly. There isn’t much time. I give the President credit for the way this has been positioned.  This is really up to the bondholders and the employees now. I think this is the most critical part of the economy on the table at the moment. How this plays out will determine how quickly we come out of the economic mess we are in, and the role US transportation will play in the lower carbon world of the next several decades.  

 

The Day of Reckoning for the Auto Industry is Nigh

March 31 is supposed to be the deadline on decisions regarding loans to the auto industry.  Unfortunately, the industry is setting itself up for failure by using a forecast for sales this year of 11.2mm.  That number is problematic given that the current sales rate is closer to 9mm.  While that is below the normal scrappage rate, cars are being repaired not scrapped. This ripples through the food chain resulting in good results for the Autozones of the world, but lousy results for the major auto companies. No one, not even Toyota, can make money at 9mm cars per year. The federal government needs to be prepared to lend sufficient funds to keep the industry alive until sales approach 12 or 13mm cars annually. GM, for example, assuming they sell 25% of the new cars, would fall 500,000 cars short of its forecast if sales stay at 9 vs. 11mm.  500,000 times a wholesale selling price of, say, $25,000, would be a revenue shortfall of $12.5 Billion and missed contribution to overhead of maybe a third of that. At some point, sales will return to a normal scrappage level at least, but probably not until mileage improves substantially on new cars and the consumer’s balance sheet looks better.

 

Don’t blame the auto industry for today’s sales rate. If you need to have someone to blame focus on the financial services industry.  However, do realize that at this critical juncture it is particularly important that the US auto industry continue to operate without having to fight through the intended and unintended consequences of bankruptcy and the ripple effects of that on an already struggling US economy. A disruption of the improvements wrought by the design and engineering efforts surrounding the Camaro, the eVolt, and Ford’s work on hybrids would set the whole global auto industry back in its contribution to reduced CO2 emissions.  I know that sounds like a stretch, but the Camaro at 29mpg, winning kudos for design and engineering and the eVolt following next year as a real game changer in power trains, can start making a difference. The Camaro is not the best car for today’s environment.  Lutz did a great job shaking up the design and engineering efforts at GM but his vision of where the world was going with fuel consumption fell short. Nobody’s perfect, but the direction is right. We don’t need the risk to the momentum of the US position in the industry and to the overall economy of a bankruptcy right now. And don’t believe that Ford will be unaffected just because it doesn’t file immediately.

 

Don’t let the anger with AIG and the financial services industry affect the political will to preserve an important manufacturing and consumer industry in this country. The unintended consequences on CO2 emissions will be severe.

Auto Bailouts Revisited and a Change of Heart

On January 2, William Holstein had an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled “GM’s Secret Success.” The piece made the argument that Rick Wagoner had overseen a major transformation at General Motors, and that the company was poised to reestablish itself. Holstein made the point that Wagoner should not be the scapegoat for 50 years of mismanagement. It was a terse but well-written argument to take a closer look at what had been accomplished and not react precipitously. It prompted me to pick up Holstein’s book, “Why GM Matters: Inside the race to transform an American icon.”

I have to say that, in spelling out the history of GM with a concentration on Wagoner’s roles in the more recent history, Holstein makes a very cogent case for why the “small” sum of $37 Billion compared to what has gone and will continue to go to the financial institutions, would be a very good investment on the part of the US government. He does see Chrysler ultimately being absorbed by another auto company, but makes a very strong case for GM. The case is based on a fairly detailed analysis of the changes that have been wrought at GM in terms of cost, design and new technologies. I was impressed. While Holstein wasn’t explicit on this point, one could imply from what he wrote, that the technological changes of which GM is in the midst, could be the foundation for a big piece of the type of innovation and growth that came out of the auto industry after WWII.

This is a bit of a stretch, but one could envision the manufacturing changes, on-board information systems driven by OnStar and the move toward electric and other drive trains as being a significant element in job creation, clean energy and energy independence, with ripple effects on other manufacturing efforts in the US and elsewhere. This could be a significant part of the revitalization of American industry based on technology and a willingness to change.

If Wagoner and his team actually can make it through this financial crisis, complete the restructuring of this behemoth of a company and become an example of what can be done in American industry, it would be a great success story in what will be a difficult period. No doubt, the equity value of the company could go lower or disappear in the near term, but this strikes me as a better bet than what one sees going on thus far with the stimulus package and the financial industry bail-outs

We all have a tendency to look for instant success. Listen to the pundits talk about the markets’ negative reactions to the various efforts thus far to right this ship, as if a different specific action on the part of Congress, the Fed and the Administration would have produced a different response in the markets. Changing a company of the size of GM takes enormous effort and time. I accept what Holstein has written, and I take back my view that a bankruptcy before money goes in would be a better course. I would urge all to at least read Holstein’s op-ed piece. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/opinion/03holstein.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=op%20ed%20General%20motors&st=cse might get you there. The book is also worth reading, and I hope that Congressional and Administration staff members are reading it and informing their bosses. Chapter 11, alone, about the development and promise of the OnStar system could actually make one want to go out and buy a General Motors car. I think I will wait until the mileage gets better as well—but that’s coming.

I was going to have this entry in the blog be about the sad story of the US electric transit systems and GM’ and Standard Oil’s sad roles in their demise. I still may write that at some point, but Holstein’s writings make a strong case for not punishing the GM and the UAW of today for past sins. There seems to be a strong element of that at work, maybe combined with a number of Southern congressmen who see the demise of Detroit benefiting the non-US auto manufacturers in their specific states. They may not recall the subsidies provided to those entities to locate their plants in their territories, as they decry the loan requests of two of the Big Three.

Our Mileage Standards Are a Joke

So how do all the issues below regarding the quid pro quo for a bailout relate to Contracarbon?

If the CAFÉ standards were high enough, and the economics worked, the need for oil from other countries (except maybe Canada) would ultimately go away. The 2008 CAFÉ standard for combined light trucks and passenger cars was 22.5 miles per gallon, up from 17.5 mpg in 1982 (!). For passenger cars only, we have gone from 24 mpg in 1982 to 27.5 in 2008. We have said we are going to 35 mpg by 2020. The California rules would push that to 37. Of course Europe, Japan and China are at 44, 46 and 36 already with objectives in the 50’s in the time frames we are discussing below. If we instituted serious standards and supported the new car companies that already can get us to 100 mpg or better, we could get to 55 or 60 mpg for the whole fleet by 2030. And the cost per mile could be significantly less than it is today. I can take you through the calculations, but, trust me; at least half the 10 million barrels of oil we currently import every day could be eliminated. That would happen through a combination of conventional fuel efficiency and alternative power trains.

The sooner we get to higher mpg the sooner this will happen. The US auto fleet of about 240 million vehicles takes about 20 years to turn over at the historical rate of scrappage—about 4.5% of the car fleet goes to the scrap pile each year. Currently, that is about the level of new car sales. That level is logical. In this economic environment and with some belief that fuel economies may improve significantly in the next few years, why would anyone buy a car unless her current car fell apart or was just uneconomical to operate? That doesn’t mean the person scrapping the 20+ year-old car would buy a new one. But as he traded up, ultimately, at the end of the food chain, someone would buy a new car.

The modest improvement in efficiency from older to newer cars does, by itself, reduce emissions. If we could quickly get to higher CAFÉ levels and keep the new car purchases at the scrappage level for a few years (and keep miles traveled flat), we could become significantly less oil dependent in 20 years and reduce CO2 emissions by close to 1 Gigaton per year. 20 years seems like a long time, and the goal of 60 miles per gallon for the fleet seems problematic—at least in the States. But, in the scheme of things, both objectives are reachable. However, they aren’t reachable unless we set them as objectives. In 40 years, if we can’t get to double those objectives, shame on us. The truth is, if we don’t develop the technology to do it, someone else will. That would be a big loss for the US economy. I take full responsibility for these calculations and conclusions, but the early work on this was done by Saurin Shah when he was at Sanford Bernstein and which he continued at Neuberger Berman. He has a chapter coming out in a book on transportation electrification very soon.

Trains and Planes, or more generically, public mass transportation becomes important as well. Reducing or stabilizing VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) by substituting mass transit can be a significant factor. Up until recently we were car-traveling about 3 trillion miles a year in the US. Currently, the average vehicle produces about 1.1 pounds of CO2 (or equivalent) per mile. (SUVs are at 1.6. A Prius is at .55.) In the last 12 months, for the first time in a long time, we dropped 30 billion miles. That’s 33 billion pounds or 16.5 million tons of CO2. I hope it doesn’t take a depression to keep those mileage numbers dropping. It does take a commitment to mass transit. More on that later.

Trains, Planes and Automobiles–but mostly Automobiles since that’s where the bailouts are going

I have to start out with a bit of a rant. Trust me, this will relate to ContraCarbon at some point.

 

I have a problem with money going to the US auto manufacturers before they go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  We know that under Chapter 11, the auto companies will keep operating, but they will restructure their finances and their operations. Creditors and equity holders will suffer. The US government will likely provide the funds to keep the companies running as Debtor-in-Possession. Some say that consumers won’t buy a car built by a company in bankruptcy. That may be, although the airlines go in and out of bankruptcy often and still carry passengers.

 

A few facts: In 2007, the US auto manufacturers directly employed about 240,000 (less now) workers in this country —a little more than half on the line. By the way, 240,000 is also less than half the number of jobs lost here each of the last several months.  The non-US auto manufacturers employed 113,000 workers in this country with a higher proportion working on the line. The auto parts manufacturers, employing about 640,000 workers, service both the US and non-US manufacturers, although the US parts content of a US manufacturer is higher. The retail segment, dealers and parts sellers, employs over 1,700,000 workers.  If you want more facts on auto employment and its projected future try these URLs:  http://www.bls.gov/bls/auto.htm; http://www.cargroup.org/documents/Apale_book8a_001.pdf. If you do check these out, you will notice that the reported numbers differ between the two reports. Just a reminder to take all “facts” with a grain of salt — even mine.

 

I have a view that car sales are pretty fungible, particularly in this economic environment. If GM sells a car, Honda probably doesn’t. Net job losses ultimately relate to overall car sales. So, how would you feel as an auto worker in Tennessee employed by Honda, or a Honda car dealer, watching GM and Chrysler (and maybe Ford) getting money from the US government to keep their workers employed while your job is being put at risk? How would you feel as an employee (or investor) in a start-up high-mileage/low-emission car company trying to raise a few bucks, watching all this money going to companies that are dealing with the mileage and emission issues incrementally at best?  [Full disclosure: I am a director of Idealab which has an investment in a clean-tech vehicle company, Aptera. I am also an advisor to that company. We are always trying to raise a few bucks. http://www.aptera.com].

 

Let us hope that, if the new administration proceeds with the auto industry bail-out, it will consider directing some of this capital to bail us out of our CO2 problem in the transportation sector.  That would require instituting some significantly higher CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards on new cars as a quid pro quo, providing incentives or funding with some of the bail-out allocation going to the clean-tech transportation companies, truly dealing with alternative power sources in an intelligent way and supporting mass transit.  Stay tuned for what might work

Why ContraCarbon?

I am not against Carbon per se. Let’s understand that Carbon is important to survival on this planet. It is the fourth most present element in the universe exceeded by hydrogen, helium and oxygen. It is present in all Earth life forms and constitutes about 19% of the human body only surpassed by oxygen.  There is essentially a fixed amount of it on Earth, and it is being converted from one form to another continually as part of what is known as the Carbon Cycle. If you really want to know more about Carbon, Wikipedia currently has 16 pages on the topic of which two are References for those nuts who don’t get enough out of the first 14.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon

My primary problem is with the incremental change in the Carbon cycle that has been caused by man in one way or another. The poster-child for this change is the increasing amount of CO2 that is being put into the atmosphere.  The primary source of this incremental CO2 is the combination of Carbon, in various chemical forms, with oxygen–typically as a fuel source for transportation, power or chemical transformation.   A secondary problem is the lack of self-sufficiency, nation by nation, of the Carbon,  primarily in a liquid or gaseous form, that will be our main fuel and chemical source for some time .  We ultimately have to become less reliant on Carbon or figure out some way to restore the Carbon cycle to the point where we aren’t putting excess CO2 into the atmosphere.

I don’t plan on spending a lot of time on whether we are experiencing global warming.  In fact, I much prefer to view the problem as one of anthropogenic (man-made) Climate Change. I will comment on the impact and pace of Climate Change on our lives and what we can do about it. I will also try to point readers to other sources for those who want more detail on a particular point made. I came at this topic as critically important to the planet via investing.  While Chief Investment Officer at Neuberger Berman–a role from which I retired in 2008–I created a small unit to do research on paradigmatic issues–paradigm shifts that, if one got them right, could change the risk profile of investments related to the shifts.  The truth is, the traditional role of CIO at Neuberger didn’t really exist. Neuberger consists of several very experienced and successful investment management teams, doing extensive bottoms-up research on specific investment ideas . The last thing they need is someone else telling them what to do.  My primary job was not to screw things up.  What I discovered, though, is that the bottoms-up work actually led to concentrated investing around specific macro themes. I felt that if I could verify or support those themes–those paradigmatic ideas–it would point out and possibly reduce the risks of the investments that were being made.  Thus, the small paradigmatic unit was created.  The work started with Energy demand and supply. That quickly morphed into research on China and India, the major new incremental users of energy as they became part of the global economy.  The work on all three topics naturally morphed into the issue of Climate Change. 

While the initial reason for all this research related to investment opportunities, it was apparent that Climate Change had significantly broader implications for the planet, and, more specifically, for my grandchildren.  Over the last four years I have devoted significant energy (if you will pardon the term) to the topic, on the investment  and the policy front. I have spoken to many groups on Climate Change. I have also been involved with a small group at the UN (UNEP)  focusing on Private Capital and Climate Change.  I don’t believe that the technological solutions to restoring a balanced Carbon cycle have all been determined nor have certain potential solutions been implemented. I believe it is true that conservation could go a long way to solving the problem, but, unless the price of Carbon rises significantly and becomes much less volatile, conservation will be a marginal contributor to the solution.

I am interested in all ideas that can contribute to solutions. I am not interested in a shouting match on whether there is a Climate Change problem.  There is definitely a problem of too much CO2 going into our atmosphere.  Facts and data go a long way to having a healthy and useful dialogue on the issue of Climate Change and the solutions to the CO2 (and equivalent pollutants) problems.  This first posting is pretty basic.  We can get more esoteric as time passes. We can also have some fun as well discussing this serious problem and related problems. And, maybe, we can add something to the debates and the solutions that are useful and profitable.  Let the games begin.