Conference Bites

Economist: The Ideas Economy Mar 23-24 Berkeley

"The leaders in China are engineers. The leaders in the US are lawyers. Draw your own conclusions."
~ Paul Saffo, Visiting Scholar of Stanford University Media X Research Network

"The social rate of return on innovation is greater than the private rate of return on innovation."
~ Christina Romer, Chair White House Council of Economic Advisors

"I'm a fan of people talking to each other regardless of how crazy they are"
~ John Perry Barlow, Founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation

"Three key themes on innovation are need, greed, and speed."
~ Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Global Correspondent for The Economist

"One of America's great assets as a culture of innovation is our tolerance for failure."
~ John Kao, Author of 'Innovation Nation'

"Innovation is serendipity applied to scale."
~ Tyler Cowen, Professor at George Mason University

"Ideas are cheap, ideas are easy... it's all of the hard work and commitment that happens after the idea that is rare."
~ Scott Berkun, Author of 'Myths of Innovation'


For more information on The Ideas Economy:

Executive Council's Value-Based Sustainability Conference Jan 26 in San Jose

"We…need to get value by extracting it out of information, rather than out of the ground."
~ Kathrin Winkler, VP of Sustainability, EMC

"Is focusing on the 2% of greenhouse gas impact caused by IT & COM navel gazing?"
~ Dunstan Hope, Managing Director of ICT Practice & Advisory Services, BSR

"The 2% is a big idea, first because its really 4%... you only need 25 of those solutions to solve the whole thing."
~ Sumir Karayi, CEO, 1E

"In 2008 we stepped back and realized our field and customers were asking for sustainability. We went from tactical to strategic in our approach."
~ Scott Bolick, VP of Sustainability, SAP

"Why have we been quiet? We didn’t want to say what we could do without having evidence."
~ Francois Ajenstat, Director of Environmental Sustainability, Microsoft

"Who are the next Ray Anderson's to speak for the Green Business community?"
~ William Brent, Head of Cleantech Practice, Weber Shandwick

"The greenest product is one that already exists. Reuse is an environmental boon."
~ Libby Reder, Head of Environmental Initiatives, eBay

"Metrics are still the holy grail in this (sustainability) space."
~ Libby Reder, Head of Environmental Initiatives, eBay

For more information on Value-Based Sustainability:

Al Gore's Keynote at GreenBeat's Smart Grid Conference Nov 19

"At some point I will fully depreciate that line—namely 'I used to be the next president of the US'."

"This roller coaster is heading towards a crash and we are in the front car."

"Each one meter of sea level rise means 100 Million climate refugees."

"We are locked in a way of thinking about the grid, as large centralized generation... the world is passing that model by."

"The economists have a word - externalities, which basically means 'forget about it' so no wonder its hard to price carbon."

"The smart gird is connected to all threads of the crisis. The Smart Grid will empower an new set of devices, (many) not even invented yet."

"It requires a 1000mw power plant just to power the televisions that are turned off in the US."

"We will soon live in an era where the use of the internet by things (smart devices) will eclipse the use of the internet by people. For every man, woman and child on earth (there are  5.6B) there are, or soon will be 1B transistors."

"The single largest solution is energy efficiency… The transition to green tech clean tech is a jobs initiative. We can 2.5M new jobs just for retrofitting—jobs that can’t be outsourced."

"The odds of us encountering a leopard as we leave today are pretty small.  But the odds of encountering the climate crisis are 100%."

"The builders of the great cathedrals of Europe stayed on task across generations. We have that capacity..."
~ Al Gore, Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner

For more information on GreenBeat:

GreenBeat's The Conference on the Grid Nov 19, Part 3

"We need to understand what the Smart Grid consumer is looking for. While right now it is cost over carbon and ease of use, in the future it may be education and health."
~ Laura Ipsen, Cisco SVP/GM Smart Grid

"Electric utilities are the only industry in which everyone tries to be 3rd in class, rather than go 1st."
~ Robert Gee, Gee Strategies President, explaining utilities aversion to being early adopters

"There is a social justice aspect... the people who have the least to spend have the greatest need to save. (The Smart Grid) is not about dialing in to turn on your hot tub from your BMW.
~ Katherine Hamilton, GridWise Alliance President

"Meters are the cash register of the utility, the cornerstone, the touch point between them and the consumer."
~ Philip Mezey, Itron North America SVP & COO

"We are not in stealth mode—at least not intentionally."
~ Innovation Competition Panelist

"Consumer behavior is a difficult thing to change. I'm skeptical that we will see it."
~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"The direction of technology innovation is hard to predict. To see twitter or facebook or google before it happens. That is what is exciting about the smart grid. Be careful about the hype. Watch out for environmentalists. Look at the economic proposition."
~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"Great opportunity is followed by hype, followed by bubble, followed by crash. But if it is fundamentally valuable, like the internet, then the crash doesn’t matter. If you look at the internet through the dot com bubble burst, there is no blip in internet traffic. There was no bubble on the use of the internet."
~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"Bubbles also can be useful—like all the fire optic cables left over from the telecom bubble." ~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"We have not invented a cost effective way to Tivo electricity."
~ Andrew Tang, PG&E Senior Director Smart Energy Web

"We need a new economics—a gridonomics."
~ Laura Ipsen, Cisco SVP/GM Smart Grid

For more information on GreenBeat:

GreenBeat's The Conference on the Grid Nov 19th, Part 2

"3 Mile Island wasn’t a nuclear disaster, it was a public relations disaster—watch out PG&E regarding Bakersfield."
~ Eric Wesoff, GTM Senior Analyst

"Germany, with the solar resources of Alaska, produces 52% of solar energy worldwide."
~ Eric Wesoff, GTM Senior Analyst

"If it releases quickly it’s a bomb. It it releases slowly it’s a battery. Safety is critical."
~ Tom, Xtreme Power

"The smart grid is the soundbite. Lets not get hung up in the hype."
~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"If you have a way to reduce costs, or better storage, those are good opps, but they need to be based on reality."
~ Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures Partner

"If Obama is talking about this, aren’t we in the wrong place in the hype cycle?"
~ Sheeraz Haji, Cleantech Group

"When cars came out people said they would never work—they scared the horses. That ended up not being a problem."
~ Steve Westly, Westly Group Managing Partner

"Silicon Valley is about discovering the future and whoever finds it first wins. I am inpatient."
~ Steve Westly, Westly Group Managing Partner

"We are in a race about who is going to be the biggest (in cleantech) in the next century—is it us or China."
~ Steve Westly, Westly Group Managing Partner

"Thanks Steve (Westly) for saving us from the Death Star (Vinod Khosla)", after their optimistic and skeptical presentation."
~ Matt Marshall, VentureBeat Founder & CEO

For more information on GreenBeat:

GreenBeat Grid Conference November 18th

"3 things needed: put a price on carbon, put a price on carbon, put a price on carbon."
~ John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner

"Some say energy policy in the US equals the sum of all lobbyists."
~ John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner

"My teen daughter told me, 'I’m scared and I’m angry... your generation created this problem, you better fix it'."
~ John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner, speaking about what motivates him

"I am optimistic that (Obama’s) team is that good but I am also sobered by the reality."
~ John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner

"Half of the utilities we are working with are working with big box retailers to deliver new solutions."
~ Adrian Tuck, Tendril CEO

"Utility has a vital role to play because they can adjust price. Price is the key to the mass market."
~ Adrian Tuck, Tendril CEO

"The utility sales cycle is long, long, long... you have to be patient."
~ Frank Magnotti, Comverge & Clean Energy Solutions President

"No one understands what a kwh is. But everyone knows that 5 bars is better than 3 on your cellphone."
~ Adrian Tuck, Tendril CEO

"Consumer advocates rep groups who are afraid of variable pricing… we have to educate that group."
~ Frank Magnotti, Comverge Clean Energy Solutions President

"We need to become the most energy efficient economy in the world, regardless of carbon, due to scarce resources."
~ Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO

"I view us as a distributor of new technology... we can scale, deploy it faster and fund it."
~ Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO

"I look at the rooftop of my customer and I see, plant site."
~ Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO

For more information on GreenBeat:

CleanTech Open San Francisco, November 17th

"Can we raise the human condition of the two Billion at the bottom of the pyramid without raising our footprint?"
~ Gil Friend, Natural Logic CEO

"What are we really here to do... looking at our hearts as well as our balance sheets?"
~ Gil Friend, Natural Logic CEO

"Waste heat is so pervasive there is twice as much power that could come from it as from natural gas—twice as much as all the coal plants."
~ Matt Scullin, Alphabet Energy CEO

"Heart of clean tech is to take two problems and create a single solution. Micromidas’ plan: Sewage sludge + microbes = biodegradable plastic."
~ John Bissell, MicroMidas CEO

"Babies today are born pre-polluted with 200 industrial chemicals."
~ Rivertop Renewables

"25% of the smog in LA today comes from Asia."
~ Steve Westly, Westly Group Founder

"China is being more aggressive—planting enough trees to fill the state of Montana—150,000 trees."
~ Steve Westly, Westly Group Founder

"We can't afford to wait 10 years to see if policy levers will work. We need direct investment in tech."
~ Bill Weihl, Google Green Energy Czar

"We may run off a funding cliff next year after federal funding runs out."
~ Bill Weihl, Google Green Energy Czar

"Can we do for energy what has happened in tech with phones, cameras, etc... make it unrecognizable to Thomas Edison?"
~ Bill Weihl, Google Green Energy Czar

For information on CleanTech Open SF:

Green Build, November 11-13th

"We are not going to build our way out of this we have to conserve our way out."
~ Richard Poe, Author, as tweeted by Christine Costa and re-tweeted by Randy Richmond

"It's easy to build houses that capture more carbon than they create. We just have to step up and do it."
~ Kevin Stack, Northeast Natural Homes, as tweeted by Katy Tomasulo

"The Environmental movement must be emotional not technical."
~ Josh Bernstein, International Explorer, as tweeted by Rob Watson

"We must consider the living world and the physical or we will lose both."

~ Kevin Stack, Northeast Natural Homes, from the talk on Biomimicry,  as tweeted by Claire Conroy and re-tweeted by Imad Naffa

"Sustainability is about abundance not scarcity. Create & Enhance not minimize."
~ as tweeted by Mary Schnack and re-tweeted by Scott Jamieson

"We can't forget that this is all about the people inside the buildings."
~ Rick Fedrizzi, U.S. Green Building Council, as tweeted by Katy Tomasulo and re-tweeted by Nick Downes

"It's important to change the lights and the windows, but it's also important to change the laws and policies"
~ Al Gore

For more information on GreenBuild:

Opportunity Green, Los Angeles, November 7th

"How has social networking played a role? It's a great friend of the green movement because it forces transparency."
~ Starre Vartan, founder and editor-in-chief of Eco-Chick

"Tranparency is the new green"
~ Jason Carignan, Founder of Tonic & Vapur

"Advertising is a tax on unremarkable products."
~ Adam Lowry, co-founder of Method

"70% of companies had not developed business case for sustainability - that's a HUGE opportunity."
~ MITSloan findings as tweeted by TriplePundit.com

"Hopenhagen is far more important than Copenhagen."
~ As tweeted by Machiko

"Reducing unsustainability does not equate to Creating sustainability."
~ Joe Laur, Vice President of Content for Greenopolis

For more information on Opportunity Green:

Renewables Panel @ Green Tech Media’s Networked Grid Conf Nov 4, SF

Panel on Renewables

"The real gift of the smart grid is the decarbonization of our electricity grid."
~ Eric Wesoff, Senior Analyst, GTM Research

"I’ve come around. Nuclear has to be part of our mix."
~ Eric Wesoff, Senior Analyst, GTM Research

"If 20% of our power comes from solar, its going to blow up… grandma’s dialysis machine is going to fail when a cloud goes over Arizona."
~ Eric Wesoff, Senior Analyst, GTM Research

"Multi agent systems (MSAs)-- (drawn from SRI’s Artificial Intelligence work) may help address the complexity of smart grids."
~ Charlie Ortiz, Program Director, AI Center at SRI 

"23% of resources in 2030 wil be intermittment, which translates to out of control."
~ Hal LaFlash, Director of Emerging Clean Technologies, PG&E

"Natural gas takes up the slack at present—demand response and storage are needed to help reduce that load."
~ Hal LaFlash, Director of Emerging Clean Technologies, PG&E


For more information on The Networked Grid: