The Business of Green!!

[Navy1960]

Green Mountain Power developed a wind energy project in
Searsburg, Vermont. The facility was placed in initial
service in August 1997. At one time it was the largest
wind-generating project in the eastern U. S. The facility
consists of eleven 550-kilowatt turbines, for a total facility
rating of 6 megawatts (nominal) and is designed to provide
electrical energy sufficient to meet the needs of 2,000
typical Vermont households. Each of the 11 towers is 39
meters (128 feet) in height, with a rotor diameter of 40
meters (131 feet). This results in a built structure that
extends 59 meters (195 feet) above the land. In addition,
the facility is comprised of approximately 1.5 miles of
transmission lines and 1.5 miles of service roads. About
35 acres of forestland was cleared for this facility.
http://www.vermontwindpolicy.org/workingpapers/acreage_assessment.pdf

Okay so we are chopping down tree's and clearing 35 acres to produce energy for 2000 homes here and one nuclear plant can on less acreage provide the power needs for my entire state. If you do the math here, how muhc land and how many trees would need to be cleared to power lets say 2 million homes. see what I mean, it's not about green. I'm sure though if your Vesta the spanish wind turbine maker your jumping for joy over this deal.

 

[Chris]

The Generation team of 36 people represents 16 countries and speaks 10 languages. Our investment team was founded by bringing together seasoned equity analysts and leaders from the sustainability research field. Today these skills are integrated into Generation's team of 16 investment professionals who have over 150 years of combined investment experience.

Full biographies of our team are available below:

Partners
The Honorable Al Gore, Chairman
David Blood, Senior Partner
Mark Ferguson, Managing Partner, Chief Investment Officer
Peter Harris, Managing Partner, Chief Operating Officer
Peter S. Knight, Managing Partner; President, US Business
Colin le Duc, Managing Partner, Senior PM Climate Solutions
Miguel Nogales, Managing Partner, Senior PM Global Equity
Hans Mehn, Partner
Mark Mills, Partner
Generation is an independent, private, owner-managed partnership with offices in London and New York. The firm was co-founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood.

Sustainable Investing for the Long Term
Generation's investment approach is based on the idea that sustainability factors—economic, environmental, social and governance criteria—will drive a company's returns over the long term. By integrating sustainability issues with traditional analysis, we aim to deliver superior investment returns
About Us | Generation Investment Management LLP

David Blood: Sustainability investing is the explicit recognition that social, economic, environmental, and ethical factors directly affect business strategy—for example, how companies attract and retain employees, how they manage the risks and create opportunities from climate change, a company’s culture, corporate-governance standards, stakeholder-engagement strategies, philanthropy, reputation, and brand management. These factors are particularly important today given the widening of societal expectations of corporate responsibility

A little food for thought here, while climate change is an issue that many debate here and elsewhere, the ones that are beating the drums the loudest are also the ones that seem to be the one's that will profit most from this so called change.

You got that right - and frankly, it is sickening.

You are right.

It is sickening how the oil and auto companies have made us dependent on foreign oil.

 

[Sinatra]

The Generation team of 36 people represents 16 countries and speaks 10 languages. Our investment team was founded by bringing together seasoned equity analysts and leaders from the sustainability research field. Today these skills are integrated into Generation's team of 16 investment professionals who have over 150 years of combined investment experience.

Full biographies of our team are available below:

Partners
The Honorable Al Gore, Chairman
David Blood, Senior Partner
Mark Ferguson, Managing Partner, Chief Investment Officer
Peter Harris, Managing Partner, Chief Operating Officer
Peter S. Knight, Managing Partner; President, US Business
Colin le Duc, Managing Partner, Senior PM Climate Solutions
Miguel Nogales, Managing Partner, Senior PM Global Equity
Hans Mehn, Partner
Mark Mills, Partner
Generation is an independent, private, owner-managed partnership with offices in London and New York. The firm was co-founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood.

Sustainable Investing for the Long Term
Generation's investment approach is based on the idea that sustainability factors—economic, environmental, social and governance criteria—will drive a company's returns over the long term. By integrating sustainability issues with traditional analysis, we aim to deliver superior investment returns
About Us | Generation Investment Management LLP

David Blood: Sustainability investing is the explicit recognition that social, economic, environmental, and ethical factors directly affect business strategy—for example, how companies attract and retain employees, how they manage the risks and create opportunities from climate change, a company’s culture, corporate-governance standards, stakeholder-engagement strategies, philanthropy, reputation, and brand management. These factors are particularly important today given the widening of societal expectations of corporate responsibility

A little food for thought here, while climate change is an issue that many debate here and elsewhere, the ones that are beating the drums the loudest are also the ones that seem to be the one's that will profit most from this so called change.

You got that right - and frankly, it is sickening.

You are right.

It is sickening how the oil and auto companies have made us dependent on foreign oil.[/QUOTE]

 

[opoll602]

What’s most important is that after comparing these homes to other homes in the
competitive DFW market that we operate in, the homebuyers and their Realtors
recognized a higher value in them.

 

[editec]

The Generation team of 36 people represents 16 countries and speaks 10 languages. Our investment team was founded by bringing together seasoned equity analysts and leaders from the sustainability research field. Today these skills are integrated into Generation's team of 16 investment professionals who have over 150 years of combined investment experience.

Full biographies of our team are available below:

Partners
The Honorable Al Gore, Chairman
David Blood, Senior Partner
Mark Ferguson, Managing Partner, Chief Investment Officer
Peter Harris, Managing Partner, Chief Operating Officer
Peter S. Knight, Managing Partner; President, US Business
Colin le Duc, Managing Partner, Senior PM Climate Solutions
Miguel Nogales, Managing Partner, Senior PM Global Equity
Hans Mehn, Partner
Mark Mills, Partner
Generation is an independent, private, owner-managed partnership with offices in London and New York. The firm was co-founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood.

Sustainable Investing for the Long Term
Generation's investment approach is based on the idea that sustainability factors—economic, environmental, social and governance criteria—will drive a company's returns over the long term. By integrating sustainability issues with traditional analysis, we aim to deliver superior investment returns
About Us | Generation Investment Management LLP

David Blood: Sustainability investing is the explicit recognition that social, economic, environmental, and ethical factors directly affect business strategy—for example, how companies attract and retain employees, how they manage the risks and create opportunities from climate change, a company’s culture, corporate-governance standards, stakeholder-engagement strategies, philanthropy, reputation, and brand management. These factors are particularly important today given the widening of societal expectations of corporate responsibility

A little food for thought here, while climate change is an issue that many debate here and elsewhere, the ones that are beating the drums the loudest are also the ones that seem to be the one's that will profit most from this so called change.

And so it has always been.

Business and government have worked hand in hand to advance changes in industry ever since this nation was founded.

We imposed tariffs to encourage industry in this nation, and it worked

We encouraged and invested in transportation systems with the help of government and private businesses, and it worked

We advanced scientific knowledge with the combined help of government and business, and it worked.

We basically created the electirc grids with the combined help of government and private businesses, and it worked.

We create TAX advantages to encourage some industries to thrive (most notably being able to write off the interest we pay for our real estate as one example)

Imagining that we won't or shouldn't use the same combined power of private capital, public capaital and public policy to continue advancing our economy really doesn't make much sense to me.

Of course the corruption that comes of this alliance has ALWAYS been a problem, I'll readily admit that.

But there are very few well heeled capitalists (or even plain old working lcass folks, either!) whose wealth isn't to some extent at least, thanks to the assistance of government to encourage and protect their industries.

 

[Navy1960]

edit, As I'm sure you get the overall direction of this thread, I think it's worth repreating as sometimes they tend to drift and I comepltely understand that. The point is that "green business" is just that and my contention is that "global warming" especially perpetuated by the likes of Al Gore is simply the marketing aspect of "green business" . In that is helps promote a standard that is no more healthy for the planet than the current standard, it just makes profit for the people that are promoting it. while I'm all for free markets, the more the better I say, I do believe that the overall result ov this so called "green business" will be a massiv influx of dollars for the companies that have a vested interest in it and thats it. Now I'm not one to say that regulation of industries is a bad thing, however, I also think that to regulate an industry for the purpose of promoting another for your own profit goes way beyond the bounds of what I would consider honorable. Then again, honorable these days is someone putting the office pencils back after they used them rather than take them home, so I'm frankly not very surprised.

 

[k2skier]

Sinatra do you know whats really interesting here, no one ever speaks of the massive amout of land usage a wind farm takes up or solar farm. However mention an oil pipline which takes up 1/100th of that amount of land and you have an environmental lobby freenzy. The fact is I know these people for the frauds they are, their purpose is not to save the planet at all, it's busniess. and nothing more. Nuclear power is safe , it's abundant and is homegrown and would employ many many people. Heres a little food for thought, how many nuclear plants could we have built with the last round of so called stimulus money? Still further how much direct impact would that have had on the economy in the form of jobs, etc etc. See what I mean? No its broken down like this, environmental lobbys exist to stop technologies that they deem unfriendly in order to fast track ones they do. The funny thing is the ones they do have literally nothing to do with saving the environment and more to do with whos business adventure it happens to support. As I stated above all the so called "green jobs" that was a campaign ploy to get suffering people in states like MI. and Ohio's vote. I wonder how many former auto workers a solar farm will employ?

I dare you to try and post some facts showing actual land use area of pipeline vs solar and wind farms. There's already massive amounts of pipeline out there. Wind farms do take a lot of space, but most of the space isn't developed, so wouldn't it make sense to make use of basically desert wasteland useful? (yes, I know a lot of desert is a very fragile ecosystem...)

Nuclear, LOL! We can't even find a safe place for the waste after 50 some years of creating the stuff! And no place is going to be safe enough to withstand the this dynamic changing planet over the course of 10,000 plus years...short sighted

Corps making money on environmentally sound business=BAD

Corps making money on wars, inefficient cars, corrupt bankers...=GOOD

 

[Navy1960]

Large industrial sized turbines which are installed together to form a wind farm will have a much larger footprint on the land. Depending on the local terrain, wind projects “occupy anywhere from 28 – 83 acres per megawatt, but only 2 – 5% of the project area is needed for turbine foundations, roads or other infrastructure”3. It is in relation to these larger industrial sized wind turbines and wind farms that land use issues become a significant factor in considering the development of wind projects to generate electricity.
Land Use Impact of Wind Turbines

Even some utility companies are now working to provide incentives for locallly-generated solar. Southern California Edison is developing a massive 250-megawatt project to put solar panels on 150 commercial buildings, totaling 65 million square feet of solar cells in southern California. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will put 400 megawatts worth of solar panels on city-owned rooftops, parking lots and reservoirs by 2014. "They're proposing photovoltaic projects on a scale that's as big or bigger than these big solar desert projects," says Bill Powers, a San Diego energy
BILBRAY COAUTHORS BILL TO EXEMPT SOLAR FARMS FROM ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW; FEINSTEIN SEEKS TO BLOCK DESERT SOLAR FARM DUE TO SEVERE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE | East County Magazine

The only consistently applied land use control over transmission pipelines is the management and use of the pipeline right-of-way itself. A right-of-way is “a piece of property in which a pipeline company and a landowner both have a legal interest. Each has a right to be there, although each has a different type of use for the land” (API 2004, 2). The right-of-way used during construction is generally 75 to 100 feet wide, although extra space is usually required at road or stream crossings or

Transmission Pipelines and Land Use: A Risk-Informed Approach -- Special Report 281

So you want to talk more about the land use issue? when it comes to these technologies? Fact Solar arrays and wind farms use massive amounts of land to generate small amounts of power. That power is not steady power and often times depending on the area requires deforrestation and the environment around it to be completely changed, especially here in the desert. So environmentally sound? for who? the people who wish to profit from it sure, because its a marketing tool. Of course you can slap a green logo on it and call it environmentally friendly if it suits your agenda and amkes a profit for the envirobusiness. Want some more facts? Nuclear as opposed to clean coal. facts are that clean coals by product liquid Co2 will be pumped back into the ground for storage and contaminating ground water. Clean Coal technology is is very experimental and at this point hardly even exists. As for spent nuclear fuel that can be reprocessed if money spent on digging massive holes in the ground or studying wetlands mice was spent on things like reprocessing facilites like the ones in Japan and France. Nuclear is a clean technology that exists today and can meet the demands of those who use the "global warming" hammer to further their agenda. As for those other technologies, don't misunderstand my posts, they are not intended to give the impression that I am not for them I am. However to meet the demands for energythis technologies although they can contribute they in and of themselves cannot meet the demands.

 

[Navy1960]

The PUREX process can be modified to make a UREX (URanium EXtraction) process which could be used to save space inside high level nuclear waste disposal sites, such as Yucca Mountain, by removing the uranium which makes up the vast majority of the mass and volume of used fuel and recycling it as reprocessed uranium.

The UREX process is a PUREX process which has been modified to prevent the plutonium from being extracted. This can be done by adding a plutonium reductant before the first metal extraction step. In the UREX process, ~99.9% of the Uranium and >95% of Technetium are separated from each other and the other fission products and actinides. The key is the addition of acetohydroxamic acid (AHA) to the extraction and scrub sections of the process. The addition of AHA greatly diminishes the extractability of Plutonium and Neptunium, providing greater proliferation resistance than with the plutonium extraction stage of the PUREX process.
Nuclear reprocessing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you look at that list of countries that have these facilites you will see the United States has exactly one. Of course there is a waste disposal issue with Nuclear however, if done correctly that too can be addressed. This issue though remains too much a bullet though on the envirobusiness sales chart in order for it to go anywhere, how then could they increase sales in solar and wind and all the other enviro bunsiness venture all these people like Al Gore and others stand to gain. This has no more to do with saving the planet than an episode of Star Trek.

 

[Chris]

I find it humorous that the right wing nuts complain about green energy when it is the oil, auto, and financial companies that have screwed America.

How stupid can you get?

 

[Meister]

I find it humorous that the right wing nuts complain about green energy when it is the oil, auto, and financial companies that have screwed America.

How stupid can you get?

Tell me Chris, what would you have if you didn't have an auto....oil, or financial institutions? Just stop and think about that. I know...get rid of them all and then we'll figure it out.

 

[Chris]

I find it humorous that the right wing nuts complain about green energy when it is the oil, auto, and financial companies that have screwed America.

How stupid can you get?

Tell me Chris, what would you have if you didn't have an auto....oil, or financial institutions? Just stop and think about that. I know...get rid of them all and then we'll figure it out.

Typical strawman argument. Lie about what your opponent says and then attack that.

I never said anything about "getting rid of the auto, oil, or financial institutions."

But the auto and oil companies have fought against energy conservation and the development of green energy for years.

And the people on Wall Street stole hundreds of billions of dollars from the life savings of working Americans.

 

[Navy1960]

Chris, you start from the position that these companies exist as if they owe the Americna workers something beyond what they are contracted to owe them. These companies exist to make a profit as bad as that sounds these days that is the primary goal of business to make a profit for it's shareholders. When the company is profitable Chris. the workers are in turn rewarded by more employment and in some cases more salary and benefits. The reverse is true as well when a company is not profitable the workers are not rewarded. Oil, Auto, Steele, and many other companies create products for the consumer as does the "green busniess". If these so called environmentally friendly technologies were in demand by the consumer then these companies would have been in the business of marketing them. Not all companies are evil Chris and making a profit is not an evil thing, in fact I hope ALL the so called "green businesses" are successful. It means that much more employment for people. However, I think this pie in the sky atmosphere that people are under the impression will happen will simply not happen because the technoligies that support this green business are already there and are already being manufactured and imported here. Our nation has become, an over regulated, over taxed, and unfriendly place for business and manufacturing, and you wonder why American manufacturing jobs are leaving this country by the thousands.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I find it humorous that the right wing nuts complain about green energy when it is the oil, auto, and financial companies that have screwed America.

How stupid can you get?

Tell me Chris, what would you have if you didn't have an auto....oil, or financial institutions? Just stop and think about that. I know...get rid of them all and then we'll figure it out.

Typical strawman argument. Lie about what your opponent says and then attack that.

I never said anything about "getting rid of the auto, oil, or financial institutions."

But the auto and oil companies have fought against energy conservation and the development of green energy for years.

And the people on Wall Street stole hundreds of billions of dollars from the life savings of working Americans.

 

[Navy1960]

Only 30 years ago, nuclear energy was an exotic, futuristic technology, the subject of experimentation and far fetched ideas. Today, nuclear energy is America's second largest source of electric power after coal. More than 110 nuclear energy plants supply more electricity than oil, natural gas or hydropower. Since 1973, they have saved American consumers approximately $44 billion, compared to the other fuels that would have been used to make electricity. Since our electricity system is interconnected, practically every American gets some electricity from nuclear energy. In addition to the economic benefits achieved through the use of nuclear energy, there are environmental benefits as well. There are, however, various drawbacks caused by the production of electricity through nuclear power. Although there are various risks involved when using nuclear energy as a source of power, we argue that the benefits greatly outweigh any potential problems that may arise.
Nuclear Energy

I thought this article was a fairly decent and shows a real viable alternative source to our energy needs. The fact that it has been taken off the table futher shows that "green business"has no profit in the carbon capture with this technology and therefor it holds no appeal.

 

[Chris]

Only 30 years ago, nuclear energy was an exotic, futuristic technology, the subject of experimentation and far fetched ideas. Today, nuclear energy is America's second largest source of electric power after coal. More than 110 nuclear energy plants supply more electricity than oil, natural gas or hydropower. Since 1973, they have saved American consumers approximately $44 billion, compared to the other fuels that would have been used to make electricity. Since our electricity system is interconnected, practically every American gets some electricity from nuclear energy. In addition to the economic benefits achieved through the use of nuclear energy, there are environmental benefits as well. There are, however, various drawbacks caused by the production of electricity through nuclear power. Although there are various risks involved when using nuclear energy as a source of power, we argue that the benefits greatly outweigh any potential problems that may arise.
Nuclear Energy

I thought this article was a fairly decent and shows a real viable alternative source to our energy needs. The fact that it has been taken off the table futher shows that "green business"has no profit in the carbon capture with this technology and therefor it holds no appeal.

Amazing post.

Green energy is clean, cheap, and made in America.

I just put some in my house....new windows.

Energy conservation is the cheapest energy there is.

 

[Navy1960]

Do you Chris, energy conservation would go a long way in reducing this nations thirst for foreign sources of energy. So in that respect I tend to agree with you when it comes to conserving energy in the home. What I don't agree with though is these busniess interests that hide behind high moral principles and condemn other businesses for doing the same thing they are just with a different product. I enjoyed the article by UofM a lot when it came to Nuclear Power and while some are very opposed to it, it still remains the best alternative to clean energy we have for the forseeable future. One other aspect of the nuclear power issue thats not being discussed is the economic issue, in that how may jobs are created in the construction of a power facility and then in the on going management. From y reading the average plant employs 1000 too 1100 people. so imagine if you will this nation builds 100 more nuclear plants. how many jobs in the tech sector, construction, steele, etc etc. would that mean, not mention it's a Co2 friendly technology.