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GreenMonk Energy and Sustainability post for 22nd Feb

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greenmonktv on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

We had a great Energy and Sustainability show today – in case you were unable to make it, I recorded the video (above) and the chatstream (below):

Tom Raftery :
Kicking off the show in a sec

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100219123517.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

http://greenmonk.net/do-risk-and-compliance-have-a-part-to-play-in-reducing-pollution/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/17/amazon-hydrocarbon-boom

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L2ZT20100222

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/22/jonathan-safran-foer-cows-beef

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html?awesm=on.ted.com_886s

http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/seriously-where-does-our-food-come-from/

http://www.dukeorganic.co.uk/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7236011/UN-global-warming-data-skewed-by-heat-from-planes-and-buildings.html

http://www.smallbusinesseurope.org/en/news1610.html

http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/823-meters-and-more-looks-to-create-global-standards.html

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-19-all-electric-plug-in-project-seeks-to-make-the-family-car-a-cash/

http://www.greenenergyscheme.org/index.php?page=suppliers/tariffs

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100219/NEWS02/2190351/1006/NEWS

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/02/17/nike-starbucks-lead-push-in-oregon-for-clean-energy-economy/

http://www.fastcompany.com/1552709/a-facebook-petition-to-stop-facebook-from-powering-its-data-center-with-coal

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100222/sc_afp/uncitesspeciestunajapan

http://www.marcgunther.com/2010/02/21/nukes-why-small-is-beautiful/

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L1WB20100222

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/02/18/j-p-morgan-develops-guide-for-a-paperless-treasury-operation/

http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/government-aid-to-flow-into-great-lakes-helping-fight-asian-carp/

http://www.avaaz.org/en/robin_hood/

?17?:?10
cgarvey :
Cheers Tom .. I’m still stuck back at the smart meters link .. loads of links to digest. Ta!

?17?:?10
raphael :
thanks tom

?17?:?10
Tom Raftery :
Thanks everyone, as always, Tom

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Do risk and compliance have a part to play in reducing pollution?

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Do risk and compliance have a part to play in reducing pollution? EQ2 certainly thinks so.

Steve Burt, the founder and CEO of EQ2, is a former economist having worked at senior levels with Dun & Bradstreet and British Petroleum. His approach, which he calls Granular Resource Economics (GRE), enables companies to quickly see at a glance the entire spectrum of their emissions down to parts per million.

Why is this important?

Well, consider one of the verticals Steve is looking at – the aviation industry (see EQ2‘s excellent Sustainable Flying Report – PDF) . As Steve says, a single flight taking off from an airport, in pollution terms, is not a significant event. But when an airport handles hundreds of flights per day. What is the accumulated pollution from all the flights, incoming and outgoing, it has ever handled? Now project this forward for all the flights it is going to handle…

When you think of pollution from planes, you typically think in terms of CO2. EQ2 go well beyond that though and in the case of aviation, for example, you will also see the numbers for SOx, NOx, and other constituents emitted from jet fuel such as mercury, selenium, arsenic, particulates, etc. When you start to run those numbers for even moderately sized airports, the results can be quite sobering. For airports located near water this could be especially troubling.

And it is not just airports – all organisations need to find out what their liabilities are with respect to their accumulated emissions. A recent report for the UN has found that the world’s top firms caused US$2.2 trillion of environmental damage in 2008 alone. This is obviously unsustainable and is merely a preface to more restrictive pollution controls being enacted which:

is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage

Imagine for a sec if communities in the vicinity of Drax or Kingsnorth coal-fired power plants in the UK decided to sue for the environmental damage wrought on them by these power plants. The kind of information EQ2 can provide would be invaluable in helping these facilities reduce their emissions and minimise the increasing risks associated with being a polluter.

With that in mind, how many firms can afford to remain ignorant of the full spectrum of their emissions?

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Friday Morning Green Numbers round-up 02/19/2010

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Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

Here is this Friday’s Green Numbers round-up:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Smart Grid Heavy Hitter series – SAP’s Stefan Engelhardt

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In this, the second of my Smart Grid Heavy Hitters’ interviews, I talk to SAP’s Head of Industry Business Unit for Utilities, Stefan Engelhardt.

It was a great interview – in it we talked about:

  • Stefan’s definition of a Smart Grid
  • The benefits of Smart Grids to both the utilities and the customers of the utilities
  • The state of Smart Grid rollouts to-date
  • What an ideal Smart Grid would look like
  • What barriers are holding up Smart Grid rollouts
  • Which regions are further along in Smart Grid rollouts and which are lagging behind
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GreenMonk Energy and Sustainability show for Feb 15th

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Watch live streaming video from greenmonktv at livestream.com

We had a great Energy and Sustainability show today – in case you were unable to make it, I recorded the video (above) and the chatstream (below):

Tom Raftery :
Starting today’s show in 5 mins
Audio/video ok?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18520-greenlands-glaciers-disappearing-from-the-bottom-up.html

?12?:?03
MikeTheBee :
Yep A&V fine.
Hi Tom

?12?:?04
Tom Raftery :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100215/ap_on_re_as/as_antarctica_whaling
http://www.prweek.com/news/rss/983521/Top-environmental-PR-expert-adds-voice-concerns-climate-change-losing-PR-battle/

?12?:?07
MikeTheBee :
SeaShepherd has no support from the Australian government

?12?:?08
Tom Raftery :
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/10/polls-public-support-for-clean-energy-and-global-temperatures/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

?12?:?08
MikeTheBee :
Australian and Japan claim the rights to the waters though.

?12?:?10
Tom Raftery :
http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/hydrogen-is-not-the-fuel-of-the-future/

?12?:?12
MikeTheBee :
It does allow the storage of energy, but I understand is works out about 20% effct

?12?:?12
Tom Raftery :
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/29404.wss
http://blogs.msdn.com/see/archive/2010/02/11/microsoft-s-ireland-datacenter-receives-award.aspx

?12?:?15
cgarvey :
Impressive stuff

?12?:?15
MikeTheBee :
Funny IBM comes from arMonk NY

?12?:?15
Tom Raftery :
http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/commerce-secretary-organizes-climate-change-office/

?12?:?16
MikeTheBee :
Ah ha

?12?:?17
Tom Raftery :
http://www.climate.gov/about.html
http://www.climate.gov/
http://www.greenbang.com/car-bodies-mobile-phones-could-one-day-be-their-own-batteries_13611.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527461.300-unplugged-goodbye-cables-hello-energy-beams.html
http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/
http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Business_Planning_News/Blowback-Attack-The-Smart-Grid-s-Greatest-Danger-1875.html#blogcomments

?12?:?24
Shay :
A good idea designed to appeal to voters – actually manageable??

?12?:?25
MikeTheBee :
I understood that it is designed to reduce the number of transactions and make them longer term and thus more profitable for the country rather than the individual banker.

?12?:?27
Tom Raftery :
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-buys-e-cycle-billboard-makes-a-statement-with-old-tech/?news=123
http://earth911.com/news/2010/02/08/wow-you-can-recycle-that/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211141144.htm
http://greenmonk.net/this-is-a-very-opportune-time-to-be-investing-in-sustainability-management-software/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/hp-opens-worlds-first-100-air-cooled-data-center.php

?12?:?35
cgarvey :
All good, thanks again Tom!

?12?:?35
MikeTheBee :
You may be interested in data.gov site, loads of data
Not USA
No USA

?12?:?36
cgarvey :
lol!

?12?:?36
MikeTheBee :
Sorry

?12?:?37
Shay :
www.data.gov.uk

?12?:?38
cgarvey :
Great, thanks Tom

?12?:?38
Shay :
Very interesting. Thaks

?12?:?38
MikeTheBee :
I *did* mean www.data.gov Thx Tom and all.

?12?:?38
Tom Raftery :
Thanks Shay
Thanks everyone for your comments, interest, and contributions
Now gotta get ready for the flight!

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This is a very opportune time to be investing in sustainability management software!

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Greenhouse gas emissions

Photo credit James Jordan

I wrote about SAP’s launch of their Sustainability Performance Management software recently. This is a space which is of massively growing importance given the increasing regulations around greenhouse gas emissions, for example.

I was heartened then to hear in a recent discussion with SAS that their Sustainability Management software was launched in April 2008!

For background, SAS are a business analytics software company with with an enviable record of 34 years growth and profitability reporting global revenues of US$2.31 billion in 2009 up 2.2% over 2008. SAS invested 22% of 2008 in R&D (an unusually high figure in the industry) have over 11,000 employees, and 45,000 customer sites in 100 countries. This is a significant company with a serious track record in research and development.

No surprise then that their solution, like the SAP one, is also very comprehensive, encompassing industry templates (GRI, CDP, IPIECA, etc.), customisable pre-built KPI dashboards, reporting, forecasting, scenario modeling (using the AMEE universe of data for scenario analysis – [disclosure – AMEE are a GreenMonk client]).

And, according to Alyssa Farrell, Marketing Manager for SAS Sustainability Solutions, the software is extremely inter-operable:

SAS also recognises that organisations may have other technologies in-house, so our software can be adapted to whatever environment they may already have. SAS has read/write access to any ERP system, we work within the Microsoft Office environment, so you can even use Excel to pull down SAS Analytics. SAS recognises that there is not one solution for everybody and so all the different solutions from SAS recognise that we need to work within this very complex technology application environment.

SAS have had some big customer wins with their Sustainability software:

With Microsoft and CA also entering this space, I think it is fair to say, Sustainability software is here to stay. In fact, Groom Energy Research reported that climate venture capital investment in Enterprise Carbon Accounting (ECA) firms topped $46m last year, the number of companies offering carbon software solutions grew from 40 to 60 over the course of the year and they predicted that the emerging US market for carbon reporting software is set to grow seven fold over the next two years.

Obviously aware of these trends when we asked Alyssa about pricing, she responded:

The way that our solution is priced is scaled to the size of the organisation [or a division of an organisation] and recognising that it is an early market and we need to get out there and seed our customers, this is the time to buy SAS for Sustainability!

Now, it would seem, would be a very opportune time to be investing in sustainability management software!

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Friday Morning Green Numbers round-up 02/12/2010

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Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

Here is this Friday’s Green Numbers round-up:

  • Iberdrola Renovables Buys Spain?s Largest Wind Park (Update1) – BusinessWeek

    Iberdrola Renovables SA, the world?s largest operator of wind parks, agreed to buy Spain?s largest wind farm from Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica SA.

    Renovables, based in Valencia, paid Gamesa 320 million euros ($441 million) for 244 megawatts of power capacity in Andevalo, Spain

    tags: iberdrola, iberdrola renovables, gamesa, Wind farm, greennumbers

  • Ten board level energy saving and environmental issues CIOs must address – In-Depth – CIO UK Magazine

    IBM recently ran a ‘Jam’ – an online discussion – on environmental sustainability and why it is important for CIOs, CEOs and CFOs to address it. The Jam involved thousands of practitioners and subject matter experts from some 200 organisations. It focused primarily on business issues and practical actions.

    Take a look at the check list below and it becomes rapidly apparent, C-level management need to tackle the issue before it is foisted upon them.

    IBM’s Institute for Business Value will fully analyse the 2080 Jam contributions, but this is the essential CIO checklist derived from comments made during the Eco-Jam.

    tags: ibm, ecojam, eco jam, cio, greennumbers

  • HP Opens it’s First 100% Air-Cooled Data Center

    Data centers are, thankfully, getting a lot of attention when it comes to making them more efficient. Considering that roughly 60% of the electricity used at a data center goes to keeping the servers cool, focusing on smart cooling tactics is essential. HP has taken this to heart and has opened it’s first wind-cooled data center, and it’s the company’s most efficient data center to date.

    In this piece, HP claims that their data center is the world’s first wind-cooled data center – I’m not sure just how valid this is as I have heard BT only do wind-cooled data centers!

    tags: hp, bt, data center, datacenter, wind cooled, air cooled, greennumbers

  • Branson warns of oil crunch within five years | Business | The Guardian

    “Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years.

    The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the ?coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch.

    “The next five years will see us face another crunch ? the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well,” Branson will say.”

    tags: richard branson, oil crunch, peak oil, virgin, greennumbers

  • Topsoil could vanish in 60 years, says study – 04 Feb 2010 – BusinessGreen.com

    “Fertile soil is being lost faster than it can be replenished making it much harder to grow crops around the world, according to a study by the University of Sydney.

    The study, reported in The Daily Telegraph, claims bad soil mismanagement, climate change and rising populations are leading to a decline in suitable farming soil.

    An estimated 75 billion tonnes of soil is lost annually with more than 80 per cent of the world’s farming land “moderately or severely eroded”, the report found.

    Soil is being lost in China 57 times faster than it can be replaced through natural processes, in Europe 17 times faster and in America 10 times faster.

    The study said all suitable farming soil could vanish within 60 years if quick action was not taken, leading to a global food crisis.”

    tags: greennumbers, soil, topsoil, soil fertility

  • Chevron hires twelve public relations firms to discredit indigenous Indians in Ecuador

    In response to an environmental lawsuit filed against the oil giant, Chevron has fortified its defenses with at least twelve different public relations firms whose purpose is to debunk the claims made against the company by indigenous people living in the Amazon forests of Ecuador. According to them, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon between 1964 and 1990, causing damages assessed at more than $27 billion.

    tags: chevron, ecuador, greennumbers, amazon rainforest, amazon, toxic waste, pollution

  • Joint venture plans 13GW renewables project in India

    Indian mobile phone and commodity export firm Airvoice Group has formed a joint venture with public sector body Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam to build 13GW of solar and wind capacity in a sparsely populated part of Karnataka district in south west India.

    The joint venture is budgeting to invest $50 billion over a period of 10 years, claiming it to be the largest single renewable energy project in the world.

    tags: greennumbers, india, airvoice, solar, wind, renewables, karnataka, renewable energy

  • Each Ton of CO2 Worth $40 in Health Costs : CleanTechnica

    Using coal for electricity produces CO2, and climate policy aims to prevent greenhouse gases from hurting our habitat. But it also produces SOx and NOx and particulate matter that have immediate health dangers.

    A University of Wisconsin study was able to put an economic value on just the immediate health benefits of enacting climate policy. Implications of incorporating air-quality co-benefits into climate change policymaking found coal is really costing us about $40 per each ton of CO2.

    tags: greennumbers, coal, sox, nox, particulate matter, greenhouse gases, health

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Smart Grid Heavy Hitter series – Oracle’s Guerry Waters

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I decided to run a series of interviews with people deeply involved in the Smart Grid space. I’m calling it the Smart Grid Heavy Hitters series. I will publish a new interview every Thursday until I run out of interviewees (or out of energy – poor pun intended, sorry!).

In this, the first of my Smart Grid Heavy Hitters’ interviews, I talk to Oracle’s VP of Industry Strategy, Guerry Waters.

It was a great interview – in it we talked about:

  • Oracle’s vision of a successful Smart Grid
  • The benefits of Smart Grids
  • The requirements for a successful Smart Grid rollout
  • The impacts of regulations on Smart Grid rollouts
  • Examples of Smart Grids and
  • Oracle’s place in the Smart Grid ecosystem

I’d like to thanks Guerry and Oracle for being such willing participants in this project and Ludovic Leforestier for helping make this interview happen!.

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The rise of the energy manager role

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computer

Photo credit jurvetson

One of the topics which I responded to on the recent IBM Eco Jam was “IT’s Central Role In Managing Energy & Carbon”.

This topic was raised by another analyst (again IBM has asked me not to mention participants by name but if the analyst in question sees this and wants me to name him/her, I have no problem so doing) when s/he posted the following:

Forrester’s research on energy & carbon management systems predicts that IT organizations will take on a central role in choosing, owning, and operating these systems. The challenge of managing energy & carbon emissions will increasingly be information-related, and it’s enterprise IT organizations that have the expertise to install and operate software systems of record across the entire company. Just like systems for managing customers (CRM), money, materials (ERP), and employees, carbon & energy management systems will collect, integrate, analyze, and report on the newest set of assets/liabilities that will be used by internal and external stakeholders to judge corporate performance.

Now, I have no issues whatsoever with IT organisations having a role in choosing Energy Management systems. IT’s function would involve installing and supporting the software so naturally they’d have a say in its purchase. They’d also have a role in crafting requirements documents and reviewing responses but “owning and operating” these systems? I don’t think so.

I realise part of this has to do with empire building ambitions by IT but really, since when was energy management a core competence of IT?

I absolutely realise that sustainability is all about information and data, and certainly IT has a role in ensuring that this information is always available but asking IT to own and operate energy management systems is, frankly, ludicrous. You might as well ask IT to own and operate the financial management systems.

So if not IT, who then should run these systems? I foresee the rise of a new role – the Energy manager, in companies. The Energy manager will likely report to the CFO, the COO or the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer). The energy manager’s role will be to minimise the company’s energy (& probably water) footprint and to report savings in monetary, kWh and tons CO2.

With the increasing regulatory landscape around carbon emissions (i.e. the Carbon Reduction Commitment in the UK), carbon measurement and reporting will become mandatory for most companies. In that environment having someone specialised in energy management, responsible for this function will start to seem like a very good idea.