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Let’s Gate Crash the Energy Sector

Cold Fusion Cells, 1989

Photo Credit Ryan Somma

We received an email in GreenMonk today which really piqued my interest. It was from Katherine Hui and she talked about a project she is working on with Forum for the Future called Gate Crashing the Energy Sector.

Rather than trying to paraphrase, I’ll just let Katee tell it in her own words:

I’m Katee and Chris Adams suggested I get in touch with you about a project I’m working on with Forum for the Future.

It’s called Gate Crashing the Energy Sector and it’s basically getting people to come up with new ideas and ways of providing/distributing/producing/etc. energy.

Here’s more info:

Gatecrashing the energy sector is about creating a sustainable energy system and prevent the worst impacts of climate change. We need to urgently develop radically different ways of generating, distributing, storing and using energy.
History shows us that real disruption rarely comes from within a system and the energy sector in the UK is currently dominated by powerful incumbents, the majority of whom are wedded to the current system. So, we are embarking on an exciting new project to invite people to ?gatecrash? the energy sector and create disruption by bringing expertise and ideas from outside.

Over the next 5 months we will be bringing together people from a range of disciplines and organisations to generate new ideas and prototype alternatives to current systems. We are reaching out to anyone with an interest in creating disruption in the energy sector; from multinational ICT companies and home tinkerers to social entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Through a series of events and prototyping workshops we hope to generate and support alternatives. Our aim is to produce 3-4 projects that we can showcase in 2011 ? these might be working prototypes or detailed business plans but will be at a stage where they can been seen as genuine alternatives to current systems. The conversations have begun with people wanting to get involved and we will hold the first of a series of events in September.

Is this something you’d be interested in getting involved with or know people that may want to get invovled? More info is up here: http://katee.org/?p=641 and we’re @lightbulbmoment on twitter.

Thanks so much for your time!

Given that GreenMonk’s tagline is Green from the roots up and Sustainable from the top down and also given our close association with HomeCamp – you know this is right up our street.

We look forward to working with Katee and Forum for the Future on this – and if you are interested, why don’t you get involved too? Let’s Gate Crash the energy sector!

You should follow me on Twitter here.

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HP Labs Chris Preist discusses the Climate Futures report

London 2023

Photo credit Enigma Photos

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/redmonk/ChrisPreistPodcsat.mp3]

My guest on this podcast is Chris Preist. Chris is a principal scientist at HP Labs, based at HPL’s European research centre in Bristol, UK.

HP Labs and Forum for the Future, together published a report called Climate Futures(6.7MB pdf). This report goes through 5 possible scenarios for how the world will respond to the climate changes we are seeing, or as they say on the Forum for the Future page:

Climate Futures analyses the social, political, economic and psychological consequences of climate change and describes how different global responses to the problem could lead to five very different worlds by 2030.

Chris was one of the authors of the report so I asked him to come on the show to discuss it and what followed was a fascinating discussion.

Download the entire interview here
(20.2mb mp3)