Image via CrunchBase
By David Whitford, editor-at-large
Bill Weihl, Google's (GOOG) energy czar, suggests two new ideas: Encourage new technology through investments in R&D; and "generate market pull" with consumer incentives plus government procurement mandates. Can we get to low emissions without nuclear? "Probably," says Weihl, "but I hate to take it off the table."
Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric (AEP), one of the largest electricity producers in the country, wants to build new high-capacity transmission lines to get alternative energy from where it's produced to where it's needed. Easier said than done. While the feds have broad authority over placement of gas pipelines, not so with transmission lines.
Morris says Harry Reid once asked him how much money he needed to modernize his grid. None, he said, just the authority to site them. For while Morris thinks transmission lines are "things of beauty," not a lot of people agree with him. American Electric has a transmission line in Virginia and West Virginia that took 16 years to gain approval, he says, and a year and a half to build.
And this from Phil Moeller, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: "If we can electrify the transportation sector, we can go a long way toward lowering carbon in the atmosphere." Especially in conjunction with new smart-grid technology, he says, that would allow drivers to charge their cars at night when demand (and cost) is low.
Yet, let's not give up on coal, says Morris, even if the goal is greenhouse gas reduction. Speaking of carbon sequestration, he says: "The capture works, the storage works, but it's not inexpensive."
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A Bloom Box in the process of being installed
It was an awesome spectacle as product launches go: Speeches by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Powell, a panel of top executives from Google, eBay, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Coca-Cola, and Cox Enterprises, video messages from Diane Feinstein and Michael Bloomberg, a heart-tugging slide show MORE
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Three critical questions Bloom Energy must answer to succeed.
By Paul Keegan, contributor
Now that Bloom Energy has come out of hiding on Fortune.com last Friday and on a recent episode of CBS's "60 Minutes," you'd think we'd all be able to start celebrating the invention of K.R. Sridhar's magic black fuel-cell box. The CEO claims it can provide abundant, cheap, clean electricity that will finally rid us of our dependence on MORE
Feb 23, 2010 10:50 AM ET
Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar holding the ceramic plates that are stacked up into modules to create the company's "Bloom Box" fuel cells.
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Intel Corp | 26.73 | -0.43 | -1.58% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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