Posted 03.05.2008
Go green ... get rich
Post-carbon economy ripe for business investment
By Rebecca ColeSustainability is big business.
In a “post-carbon economy” farsighted companies able to capitalize on sustainable opportunities will attract investment, new technologies and skilled employees, former Sen. Gary Hart says.
Hart, now the University of Colorado Wirth Chair, opened the 2008 Sustainable Opportunities Summit last week by stressing the urgency of government, business and citizenship working together to solve the global warming challenge.
Hosted by CORE and the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at CU’s Leeds School of Business, the two-day conference offered the nearly 450 attendees ways to reduce their carbon footprint, use renewable energy sources and address climate change in their business.
“If people see change as a threat, usually they resist it,” Hart said. “But the great thing about America, and what makes us different, is that as a country and as individuals we have the ability to transform threats into opportunities.”
Joette Bailey-Keown, director of environmental health and safety packaging operations for Ball Corp., said she wanted to hear how others are identifying and achieving their corporate environmental goals.
“One of the things we’re challenged with is how to set realistic and, more importantly, meaningful goals,” Bailey-Keown said. “For example, right now carbon is just not on our radar. I think that’s a place we need to get to, but we’re not doing anything in the short-term future.”
But developing ways to reduce reliance on carbon is exactly what companies (and everyone) should be doing, said keynote speaker Jeff Kiehl, a senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Unfortunately, Kiehl said, just 37 percent of people in countries with high GDP are optimistic that technology can solve environmental problems, according to a 2005 Environics International study.
With the U.S. accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population but for 25 percent of its carbon emissions, Kiehl said the country needs to use its collective imagination and lead the way to developing sustainable technologies.
“We should show the world how to do it,” he said. “Then we should sell those technologies to countries like India and China and make profits. Hopefully, we’ll do that.”
One company seeing big gains in growth is Invenergy LLC, a developer, owner and operator of large-scale electricity generation with a focus on clean energy, primarily wind. Headquartered in Chicago, but with a regional office in Denver, Invenergy is the largest privately-owned renewable energy company in the U.S.
Doug Carter, senior vice president of business development, said the company is buying wind turbines at a rate of about 450 per year and spending over a billion dollars a year in capital allocation.
Invenergy sells wind power across the country, Carter said, but the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, or WECC, of which Colorado is a part, is one of the worst. Calling it “fragmented and dysfunctional,” Carter said Invenergy’s market liquidity is compromised when having to deal with a monopoly like Xcel Energy.
“A functioning market is extremely important,” Carter said. “I think Gov. Ritter’s done a great job of bringing renewable energy to Colorado. But one of the unintended consequences of last year’s legislation to make renewable energy a 20 percent standard is that major utilities have a right to 50 percent of the market. We look at that and say maybe we should move our turbines someplace else where we have more flexibility.”
Carter said that policy issues are in the hands of voters. With electricity’s old infrastructure, it will take major investing and new legislation to build it up.
“We need statesmen, not politicians, to come forward and say, ‘Our energy is going to cost more, and here’s why.’”
PureVision Technology is taking a different tack, focusing on bio-refining: converting cellulosic biomass — corn stalks, trees, grasses — into cellulosic ethanol to replace petroleum-based products like gasoline.
CEO Ed Lehrburger said that cellulosic biomass is a better option than corn- or sugar-based ethanol.
“Cellulosic is the new crude oil of tomorrow,” Lehrburger said. “Cellulosic grows in all 50 states, but corn primarily grows in only five. Cellulosic isn’t made from food, so we’re not competing with food sources. And it requires little to no fertilizers, unlike corn-based ethanol.”
Lehrburger said right now the company is scaling up their small continuous reactor and looking to raise money — $36 million — so PureVision can build global bio-refineries by 2012.
As a small company with large fundraising needs, Lehrburger said he hopes the new renewable energy campus that ConocoPhillips plans to build on the old StorageTek site in Louisville can act as a partner.
“We welcome the investment they’ve made and hope that we can have a dialogue,” he said. “Let’s hope its going to be a promotion of renewable energies and not just a PR stunt to appear green.”
Rebecca Cole is the online editor at Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit "think-and-do" tank that drives the efficient use of energy and resources. Learn more about RMI's latest initiative, Reinventing Fire, to move the U.S. off fossil fuels by 2050.
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