The US electrical grid is a century-old “machine” built for a singular purpose: to power the development and industrialization of the nation’s economy.  It is designed to deliver electrons from centralized power producing plants through transmission wires to end consumers.  This archaic, unidirectional architecture is unreliable, inefficient, and unsafe.

Using many of the same technologies and assumptions first implemented in the 19th century, today, the grid must keep up with rising demand which outstrips available generating capacity and technological advancements designed to make the grid “smarter“.

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45 minutes of engaging discourse – last night Van Jones, president and founder of “Green For All”, had his audience, made up largely of members of the greater Berkeley community, enthralled. In an age of public relations, spin and hype we had before us one of the rare respites of integrity, in a man that gets the (positive) credit he deserves.  If you’ve not yet heard him speak, check out the clip below, you will hear a very compelling and articulate argument to invest in our capacity by developing our workforce.

As I looked around the room there were students, faculty, venture capitalists, social workers, community activists, environmentalists, non-profit organizers and reporters; Van can bring people together like no other, but being on a university campus brought an even more diverse group of people to the event. I thought back to the countless symposiums (symposia?) I have been to over the years – without fail it has been those organized by the universities have brought the most diverse audiences of participants together – and in that mix, the magic of cross pollination happens.

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