Daily Archives: March 16, 2007

India’s Photovoltaics

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Ecoworld on Moser Bear’s foray into photovoltaics.

It should come as no surprise that India, a nation of over a billion people with one of the most advanced high technology sectors on earth, would be jumping big-time into the photovoltaic game. After all, photovoltaic energy, right now, is probably the most viable clean renewable energy technology candidate in the world to replace conventional energy sources.

Just last Monday, March 5th, one of the largest companies in India, Moser Baer, announced a partnership with one of the blue chip giants of California’s Silicon Valley, Applied Materials, to build the “world’s largest thin film fab.” The only thing we take issue with is the claim that it will be the largest – who is to say how long that claim will hold, when everywhere these days, from South Africa to Silicon Valley to Europe to China, thin film technologies of various vintages are sprouting, unstoppable, like the new grasses of spring.

The Marketing of Sustainability and Climate Change

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Jeff McIntire-Strasburg at Green Options provides some fodder for discussion around the issue of “marketing” the concept of global warming.

Please be aware this is a long post.

Now marketing can mean many different things to different people but basically it is all about communication and creating an environment of change hopefully leading to action. This could mean changing customer’s behaviour to buy a particular product or changing a employee’s habit to conserve energy.

This discussion can be about ‘global warming’ or sustainability or any of the issues facing in the greening area.

In my current job, our goal is to increase the awareness of the issue of global warming and sustainability and through that the idea of energy efficiency, decreasing consumption, saving water, recycling, green procurement etc.

It is not a easy job to do, especially for two people for an organization with 6,500 people and 300 office buildings all over the state of South Australia. However, lets look at some ideas in implementing this in a large organization.

Tom Peter’s asked the critical question of branding.

Why is an issue that is so grave and so real so poorly understood? Why has the issue of global warming been so poorly marketed? Why is the brand called “The Global Warming Catastrophe” such a weak brand? What can—and should—be done?

In Google searches for these issues I came across a challenge issued by Asi Sharabi on his blog.

He asks:

How to change hearts, minds & behaviours? How to communicate urgency? How to move people from positive attitude to positive behaviour? How to make people care enough and change their lifestyle? How to contribute to the formation of a much needed critical mass, or tipping point that will alter the potentially catastrophic course we’re heading to? How to best exploit the emerging opportunities of the social web to ring a warning bell that its echoes will reverberate throughout the UK or even the world?

These are important questions to answer but the challenge is that the communication needs to be simple for it be effective.

Continue reading →

GM and the Electric Car

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Whoever saw the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car? will have a tough time understanding why GM “killed” the car.

However, Jeff McIntire-Strasburg on Sustainblog was one of the bloggers who were invited to GM recently to check out the Volt, the new electric car from GM. I specifically want to quote from what GM CEO Rick Waggoner said about E-Flex.

What exactly do we mean by E-Flex? Well, the “E” is no surprise – it stands for “electric,” because no matter how an E-Flex vehicle is configured, it will always be driven exclusively by electricity.

This is the major difference between E-Flex and hybrids. Hybrids can be driven by an internal combustion engine, or an electric drive, or both systems simultaneously. E-Flex vehicles will always be driven by electricity.

What about the second half of the name? Well, that’s the really interesting part of all this. E-Flex is “flexible” because the electricity it uses to drive the vehicle can come from a wide range of fuel sources. It can come from a hydrogen fuel cell; it can be generated by a small motor running on ethanol or bio-diesel or synthetic fuel; or it can come from the power grid, and be stored in a battery. And, when the electricity comes from the grid, it can be generated by natural gas, coal, nuclear power, wind, hydroelectric, and so on.

In short, E-Flex vehicles will enjoy one of the really outstanding benefits of electricity: the opportunity to diversify fuel sources for the vehicle.

E-Flex is also flexible because it offers flexibility around the globe. Europeans rely more on diesel fuel than North Americans, Brazil has gravitated to E-100 ethanol, and we see tremendous opportunities with bio-fuels here in the U.S. China, meanwhile, may well be the first country to develop a broad-based fuel cell infrastructure.

By setting up a propulsion system that allows us to power vehicles with any of these fuels, E-Flex provides us with a single elegant solution.

In short, E-Flex creates options. It’ll allow GM to leverage a range of electrically driven propulsion systems, as well as benefit from the inevitability and the promise of energy diversity.

I think this is an important strategic move by GM. Powering automobiles by electric technology is far more suitable than even a hybrid. In the end, diversity of electricity sources will make this a greener option.