Noted at GoingGreen

Count the ironies. GoingGreen is talking Amwerican energy independence on 9-11. And this very day crude oil prices set a record high. The previous record had been set back in July. It's starting to look like oil prices and global temperatures are rising in tandem? At over $78 a barrel for crude, various alternative energy products are looking better and better as marketable, competitive sources. --------- There was a lot of pro-solar talk. Solar thermal looks to be the next really hot (gotta watch those temperature puns) thing in energy. ---- Justin Adams, BP's Director of Long Term Technology; "If we don't deal with coal [and its greenhouse emissions], then we'll leave our children no chance of global temperature stabilization." ---- David Chacon, President and CEO, Waterlink Systems: "Water has often been called the next oil. Water needs grow gemometrically with population growth...as Mark Twain said, 'Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fightin' for"...polar snowmelt is happening earlier and more extremely than ever...because of pumping costs, saving water saves electricity, too." ----- The folks from ZENN have found some friends in Lincoln, California. There city laws make for a friendly environment for low-speed electric vehicles. ----- GoingGreen was not just start-ups, VCs and few of us lowly bloggers. Name tags revealed some serious interest from folks with REALLY big money: NASDAQ, KPMG, BP, IBM, SAP, Accenture, Dell, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, HP. Of course, there was nobody admitting they were from a major auto maker, nor any evidence of any rep from anywhere within the massive U.S. government. There were 3 names from the California Public Utilities Commission on the list. ------- The CEO of NanoH20 spoke of making high productivity mermbranes for desalination. Jeff Green's goal is to make desalination as inexpensive as the California Aqueduct and reduce the carbon footprint of the current desalination processes. Their VC investment came from Khosla Ventures. "Water is abundant on the planet but it is qjuestin of distribution...areas with water problems: Asutralia, China, areas of Africa, around the Mediterranean...right now there are 24 desalination proposals along the coast of California." ------ Tim Healy, CEO of EnerNOC, an energy grid management company; "Nearly 100% of American companies actively manage their telecoms plan, monitoring use and spending regularly. Perhaps 1% of American commercial organizations actively manage their energy use." ------ Anthony Cialone, Co-founder of Lehigh Technologies: Natural rubber is largely unrecycled or burned when it becomes waste in America. We are working on recycling it into valuable industrial quality materials. Lehigh's plant is near Atlanta, Georgia.