Tony Seba is currently a lecturer in clean energy, entrepreneurship, finance and technology strategy at Stanford University. He is also an internationally known keynote speaker on the future of energy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and cleantech and high-tech market opportunities.

I recently sat down with Tony Seba to discuss his latest book, “Solar Trillions,” which is  about market and investment opportunities in the emerging clean-energy economy.

CleanTechies: What is the premise of your book?

Seba: The clean energy economy will provide the largest wealth-building opportunities in history. The world will spend $382 trillion in energy over the next 40 years and every aspect of this industry is up for grabs: from generation and transportation to storage and use. The race for dominance has already started and the entrepreneurs, investors, and countries who win will dominate the 21st century. The problem is that the whole conversation about energy is wrong. In researching my book I looked at two aspects of energy starting from 2050 and backtracking to the present. I looked at the science of energy (where is it going to come from? What are the primary sources of energy? ) and the technology aspects (how are we going to transform that into usable energy? How are we going to store it and use it?) My conclusions are as fascinating as they are devastating.

1. No other primary source of energy can scale like solar can. Not even close. Therefore the 21st century will be powered mainly by solar energy.
2. The architecture of energy will change radically. The way we generate, transmit, store, and use energy in 30 years will be totally different from the way we do it today.

Then I put together these two premises and realized that the market opportunities are going to be gigantic. In Solar Trillions I focused on seven market and investment opportunities worth tens of trillions of dollars. I know that the boggles the mind but if anything I think I was conservative in the book. By the way, many of these opportunities are wide open today. In the fall I taught a course at Stanford based on Solar Trillions and at least a half a dozen of my students have already started cleantech companies based on the ideas in the book.

CleanTechies: In your book you speak about the creation of a new energy economy, what does it mean to you?

Seba: That’s a great question since there seems to be no clear definition. In principle the clean energy economy encompasses all economic activities from sourcing energy to generation, distribution, storage, and use of energy. Since basically all aspects of our economy consume energy different people have chosen to focus narrowly or broadly depending on their interests. In the book I focus on seven opportunities including generation, the smart grid, water, energy storage and use. The clean energy economy will transform many industries not just the traditional energy industries.

Let me step back in history and then come back to this. Think about the information economy. The transition from the mainframe model thirty years ago to the personal computer, Internet, and cell phone model of today totally transformed computing and created new trillion-dollar industries and powerhouses like Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco. The information economy also transformed many industries including telephony, publishing, tourism, aviation, television, transportation, retail, even politics.

Similarly the clean energy economy will radically transform not just energy but many industries including construction, real estate management, automobile, and appliances. CEOs of companies in these industries who ignore this will find themselves in bankruptcy court or being swallowed up by the competitors who do get it. For instance, advances in solar technology like Building-Integrated-Photovoltaic mean that commercial buildings will become power plants themselves. Windows will not just sit there. They will generate power for the landlords!

CleanTechies: How did you decide to write a book on this topic?

Seba: I’m a tech entrepreneur and teach entrepreneurship at Stanford. A former student who had co-founded a solar technology company asked me to help them build the company. I did. I joined the executive team and helped them with fund raising, doing business development with plant developers around the world, partnerships, and so on.

That was an intense learning process that combined with my research and teaching as well as engineering and business mind helped me realize and catalyze many of the main points in the book.

CleanTechies: What are the steps that will lead us to the this new energy economy?

Seba: In Silicon Valley we’re used to developing new technologies that create new markets, new companies, and new industries. In the past Washington had a hand in seeding some of these industries (the Internet and biotech come to mind) and then we took it from there. Apple, Oracle, Cisco, and Google didn’t really need Washington to create technology powerhouses. Energy is different. Very different. At this point policy is probably the most important factor in energy industries. Governments around the world massively subsidize the coal, oil, and nuclear industries. According to the influential Stern Report, governments spend more than $250 billion every year subsidizing the incumbent energy industry. So the most profitable companies in the largest industry on earth are also the most heavily subsidized. But it’s not just cash, the fossil fuel and energy industries have also written rules and regulations including land use and tax policies that favor them. So solar and wind power and clean energy in general is at a huge disadvantage to start with.

Policy is what led Germany to build the world’s leading solar power and clean energy economy and policy is what’s building China into a clean energy world power (no pun intended here!) long term.

Many folks talk about finance being a problem. A web2.0 company may just need a few hundred thousand dollars and siz months to go to market and a software company might take a few million to prove the concept and maybe $20 million to be fully financed. Clean technologies may need an order of magnitude more time and money. They become part of multi-hundred million or multi-billion dollar infrastructure investment and will need more time to develop industrial quality technology. For this reason many silicon valley companies haven’t been able to raise money. However, once the policies, rules, and regulations to support clean energy are there the finance will follow.

We are building great technologies and great companies in clean energy in Silicon Valley but unless the government level the playing field with dirty power and help seed the clean energy economy like it did with biotech and the Internet and allow startup clean energy companies to grow it’s going to be very hard to maintain our technology edge.

CleanTechies: Will solar technology change the developing world/countries and how?

Seba: Absolutely. Two billion people around the world get their energy from kerosene or diesel and they pay up to $2 per kWh. Compare that with today’s cost of solar photovoltaics which is about 20 cents per kWh. It turns out that they’re paying for dirty energy rates that are up to 10 times what solar costs! Half a billion people in 500,000 villages in India alone are not connected to the grid. But solar power doesn’t need a power grid just like cell phones don’t need a telephone grid. So just like China went from a country with barely any phones to providing cell phones to more than 500 million people so will solar be able to gain market penetration around the world without the need for a grid. By the way, China has announced the two largest solar power plant developments (2 GW solar PV an 2GW solar CSP) in history so solar is being built up from both the bottom and the top of the pyramids.

CleanTechies: What can we do to be part of this movement?

Seba: First of all we need to educate ourselves about clean energy. Energy is too important to leave to the energy industry. For instance, you should know that food biofuels are not clean. If you take into account the whole production lifecycle they produce almost twice the CO2 as gasoline. You should know that clean coal will never be broadly adopted, that nuclear has never been financially viable and it’s getting even more expensive as we speak. You should know that water is tightly linked with energy and that our energy policies are contributing to drying up our most important aquifers. Once you know that Hawaii pays for electricity twice as much as the cost of solar power today. Once you know that solar is already cheaper than fossil fuels for 2 billion people around the world. Once you know that by 2020 unsubsidized solar will be cheaper than subsidized coal in most areas around the world then you become an educated energy consumer.

Secondly we need to be active participants in this conversation. There are lots of myths, half-truths, and plain lies in the political and media conversation. For instance, one of the things that you hear is that clean energy has a storage problem. The fact is that there is a solar plant in Spain that has 7 hours of storage. This technology, called molten salts, is cheap and environmentally safe. For instance, energy is being narrowly defined in many places as the pursuit of lowest cost of electricity, grid-parity, and so on. The truth about the clean energy economy is so much larger than that. For instance, we believe that by 2020 solar will be produced at the equivalent of $20 per barrel of oil (maybe even $15 per barrel.) We also know that the cost of car batteries is going down 80-90 percent over the next decade thus making battery-electric vehicles a mainstream product.

Put these two points together and you come to the conclusion that in 10 years millions of us will be driving battery-electric vehicles that take less than $1 to fill up (yes, less than $1). So it doesn’t make sense for us to invest in offshore drilling not only because it’s dirty but also because that oil is very expensive – more than $70 per barrel. Same thing (and more) can be said about nuclear power which many are pushing as the answer to climate change.

Third we need to vote for candidates who will support and invest in the clean energy economy. As I said, right now policy is probably the most important driver in clean energy. The battle for clean energy dominance has already started and the next few years will determine what the epicenter of the clean energy world will be. That epicenter in turn will determine where the clean energy Googles, Cisco Systems, Apples, Intels, and Oracles will be headquartered.

CleanTechies: Tell me about one or two clean energy market opportunities.

Seba: Sure. Clean water is a multitrillion dollar opportunity. We will hit “peak water” before we hit peak oil. Many regions around the world have stressed their aquifers beyond the point of no return and are turning to desalination to supply their populations, agriculture, and industry with the water they need. This industry is growing exponential.

However, water desalination is very energy intensive. So the first, short term, set of opportunities is for companies to reduce the energy intensity of cleaning water. More importantly the only way in which cleaning water makes sense is to do it with solar energy. There’s a high degree of correlation between areas with water problems and areas with high solar radiation. Saudia Arabia and other Red Sea and Gulf countries burn about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day to desalinate water.  At current market rates of about $80 per barrel this means that Gulf countries spend $120 million per day to desalinate water.

Clearly burning fossil fuels to power these desalination plants is not financially (or environmentally) viable –- even for oil producers. Solar energy on one square kilometer (less than half a square mile) of desert land is sufficient to desalinate 165,000 cubic meters of water a day, with zero carbon pollution. It only makes sense to use that huge solar power to desalinate water.

Another multitrillion dollar market opportunity is solar air conditioning. Many people will do a double take before continuing. They will not put solar and cold in the same conversation (unless they think about a cold beer.) The truth is that it takes energy to drive a chiller. This energy can be in the form of electricity or in the form of heat (hot water.) The best way to generate hot water is with the sun. Use that hot water to drive a chiller and presto, you have solar air conditioning. Again I don’t need to tell you that there is a high correlation between lots of sun and high air conditioning usage!

Here’s a video by Michael Killen of Tony Seba talking about his book:

The book is available on Amazon: Solar Trillions: 7 Market and Investment Opportunities in the Emerging Clean-Energy Economy

Related posts:

• Who Is the eBay of Electricity 2.0?
• Power to the People: Can Egypt Create Sustainable Wealth?
• Study Ranks Nations Based on Environmental Impacts
• Baseload (24/7) Solar is here!
• The Most Important Energy Projects in the World

The reason international negotiations to tackle climate change are not working is because they have been premised on long-established norms of state sovereignty and states’ rights.

Consequently they are characterised by “diplomatic delay, minimal action -– especially relative to the scale of the problem – and mutual blame between rich and poor countries, resulting in a ‘you-go-first’ mentality that has prevailed even as global greenhouse gas emissions have exploded.”

This is Paul Harris’s perception in his book World Ethics and Climate Change: From International to Global Justice . He argues that the communitarian principle which underlies the concept of the sovereign state is too limiting to be able to deal adequately with environmental issues which extend beyond state borders. It’s not that states have completely ignored the problem of dangerous climate change.

They have recognised that collective action is required, and have agreed that climate change is a common but differentiated responsibility, with developed states obligated to act first before developing countries are expected to limit emissions.

Some governments have already started to act on their obligations. But national responsibility remains the focus and although international justice is enunciated it is not implemented. It’s almost as if it can’t be because it is easily at odds with perceived national interests – as we’ve seen all too clearly in New Zealand’s highly cautious approach to participating in the global effort.

Harris makes the case for the cosmopolitan ethic to be brought into play as a supplement or corollary to the communitarianism which governs inter-state relations.  As its name suggests cosmopolitanism emphasises the sense of global community.  It draws attention to human obligations beyond state boundaries. It sees the world as one domain in which there are some universal duties and global responsibilities.

Unless such a perspective can find a place in climate change negotiations Harris thinks we are likely to remain locked in the limitations of national interest which so easily block effective action.

Harris values the cosmopolitan principle not least because it focuses on people. He lives in Hong Kong and observes that the emerging affluent groups in the large developing states are engaging in similar behaviours to the affluent in the developed states and becoming responsible for increased greenhouse gas emissions. The focus on states means that this now very substantial group may escape accountability for their contribution to climate change, simply because they belong to a developing country.

He lays climate change responsibility at the feet of affluent people wherever they live. They are the people who actually cause the most pollution and are the most capable of reducing it. The consequences of climate change, on the other hand, are suffered most by the poor, wherever they are to be found. They are disproportionately in poor countries, but even in developed countries the poor suffer first, as was apparent in the effects of hurricane Katrina. Climate change shows the world’s affluent benefiting at the expense of the world’s poor in a relationship that can be plausibly described as exploitation.

Questions of justice are involved. But what is fair and just from the perspective of international justice is not necessarily fair and just from other perspectives. He agrees it would not be fair if China and other less-developed countries were required to take on the same obligations to combat climate as the US and other affluent countries.

“But it is also not fair, nor is it environmentally sound, for the many affluent people in developing countries, and especially the rich elites there, to be absolved of duties regarding climate change.”

Cosmopolitanism demands more than international justice; it requires global justice. The discourse about justice needs to shift to some degree from a focus on rich and poor countries to one on rich and poor people.

Sounds good, but how does cosmopolitanism get a look in in a world where states’ rights and interests predominate? Harris doesn’t seek more than a supplementary role, but he describes the cosmopolitan corollary as principled, practical (because it reflects climate change realities) and politically viable.

Indeed it is likely to become politically essential if the climate change regime is to move towards more robust outcomes. Implementation will be through changes in international agreements which will recognise and enable global citizenship, at least in the context of climate change, alongside national citizenship.

New funding mechanisms are suggested as one example of how the cosmopolitan corollary might be implemented among states. Specific measures might include a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions collected directly from the users or polluters, and other earmarked taxes on non-essential activities related to climate change, such as international airline flights and luxury goods.

The international funds collected could pay for things like disaster relief, poverty alleviation, sustainable development, mitigation and adaptation measures, and technology transfers.

In a section on the implementation of the corollary within states he urges the establishment of a climate change curriculum in all countries with effective and sufficiently funded educational systems. This would attune people, especially the young, to the need for action and to precisely what they can do.

The book is intended for academic use, and Edinburgh University Press provides a freely downloadable learning guide to assist lecturers and students who will be reading it as part of courses and seminars. But although the author has done plenty of scholarly research he emphasises that he does not intend the book as a work of abstract philosophy.

He sees it as about practical world ethics –- what we ought to do as well as why we ought to do it. I think he succeeds in this aim. I was prepared to plough stolidly through an academic treatise if need be, because I wanted to know what an academic might be saying about the subject. But the book has an edge which made reading it much more engaging than I expected. Harris cares deeply about what climate change is doing to the world and advances his cosmopolitan ethic as necessary to effective action.

It is in keeping with his commitment that he has arranged for all the royalties on his book to be paid directly to Oxfam, in support of their work among the world’s poor, including those people most harmed by climate change –- an act not of  altruism, charity, or generosity, he insists, but of straightforward cosmopolitan obligation.

Cynics may scoff at the notion that ethics can play much of a part in international negotiations, but cynics don’t have a monopoly on wisdom.  I liked Harris’s quote from Brian Barry: “unless the moral case is made, we can be sure nothing good will happen. The more the case is made, the better the chance.”  Some of the generation of students that engages with books like Harris’s may well carry the cosmopolitan perspective into spheres where it can be employed to good effect.

Article by Bryan Walker, appearing courtesy of Celsias; via Hot Topic

Related posts:

• Exploring Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture
• New CleanTechies Bookstore: find books, read reviews & order online
• Climate Change Skeptic Changes Stance and Calls for Action
• A Perfect Moral Storm- The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change
• Pentagon Says Warming May Affect Global Security and U.S. Missions

“This is a story of betrayal, a story of selfishness, greed, and irresponsibility on an epic scale.” That’s how James Hoggan opens his newly published book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.

Hoggan initially thought there was a fierce  scientific controversy about climate change. Sensibly he did a lot of reading, only to find to his surprise that there was no such controversy. How did the public confusion arise?  There was nothing accidental about it. As a public relations specialist, Hoggan observed with gathering horror a campaign at work.

“To a trained eye the unsavoury public relations tactics and techniques and the strategic media manipulation became obvious. The more I thought about it, the more deeply offended I became.”

DeSmogBlog was born to research the misinformation campaigns and share the information widely. This book pulls together some of that research in an organised narrative. Richard Littlemore has assisted Hoggan in the writing.

Climate scientists are sometimes blamed for not communicating their message clearly enough to the public. If they tried to match the efforts of the denial campaigners as detailed by Hoggan they wouldn’t have any time to do their science. Those who vociferously claim that anthropogenic global warming is still uncertain and doubtful certainly don’t spend time and money on any science.

That is not what they are interested in. As far back as 1991 a group of coal-related organisations set out, in their own words, “to reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)” and “supply alternative facts to support the suggestion that global warming will be good.” This was the pattern of the work done in succeeding years by a variety of corporations and industry associations who devoted considerable financial resources to influence the public conversation.

They used slogans and messages they had tested for effectiveness but not accuracy.  They hired scientists prepared to say in public things they could not get printed in the peer-reviewed scientific press.

They took advantage of mainstream journalists’ interest in featuring contrarian and controversial science stories. They planned “grassroots” groups to give the  impression that they were not an industry-driven lobby. New Zealand’s Climate “Science” Coalition and the International Coalition it helped to found fit this purpose nicely.

Hoggan describes the work of many individuals and organisations who are available for spreading the doctrine of doubt. Conservative think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) have played a major part in the task in the new millenium. Their donors are well disguised, but in the case of CEI have certainly in the past included ExxonMobil and probably GM and Ford. Their advocacy, such as the infamous TV commercials portraying the benefits of carbon dioxide, obviously involves heavy expenditure.

Lists of scientists reportedly expressing dissent over anthropogenic global warming have become a staple of the denial crusade. Hoggan discusses some of these lists and comments:

“The beauty of this tactic as a method of keeping the debate alive is that none of these ‘scientists’ ever have to conduct any actual research or put their views forward to be tested in the scientific peer-review process. They don’t even have to be experts in a related field. And they certainly don’t have to win the argument. As long as groups of scientists are seen to be disagreeing, the public continues to assume that the science is uncertain.”

Apparent throughout Hoggan’s book is the lack of substance to the denial campaign. According to them, the Mann hockey stick is a “notorious intellectual swindle”. The impression is sedulously fostered that statistical investigation has shown the graph to be false.

But Hoggan points out that the ideologists are uncurious about whether Mann’s work has been tested by other scientists or confirmed or falsified by the use of other methods or other proxy data sources. He dryly comments that the reason is that the other climate-reconstruction graphs published since Mann produce enough hockey sticks to outfit a whole team and then some.

A significant movement in the campaign in more recent times has been a change of emphasis from denial that anthropogenic warming is occurring to claims that there is no need to rush into measures to mitigate it.

Bjorn Lomborg argues with apparent passion that he also cares about climate change, but that careful economic analysis shows that more pressing problems like AIDS, malnutrition, and the provision of fresh water to people in the developing world are more important matters and unfortunately don’t at this stage leave enough money for climate change mitigation. Frank Maisano specialises in media communication.

He supplies thousands of reporters and important people in industry and politics with useful material on energy issues.  Underlying it though is a consistent argument that climate change, though real, is either impossible or too expensive to fix.

In his chapter on the manipulated media Hoggan acknowledges the complexity issue in relation to global warming. Indeed he extends a lot of understanding to reporters and editors.  They are under pressure and the science takes some understanding. The temptation to fall back on balance has been strong. However he notices that increasingly the balance model is being abandoned, and is insistent that it’s past time for people in the media to check their facts and start sharing them ethically and responsibly with the public.

Hoggan’s book is a thoughtful and sustained exposure of  a movement which has done great harm. I read it with close interest and shared his dismay. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how denial has had such a charmed run. His presentation is painstaking and reasonable. There’s nothing shrill about it, and his justifiable anger is relatively muted.

He urges his readers not to take him at face value but to do some checking of his material and satisfy themselves that it is reliable. Nevertheless the activity he describes is rightly characterised as betrayal, selfishness, greed and irresponsibility. The people who have launched the highly successful campaign of denial and delay are not attending to the work of a body of outstanding scientists although that work is of utmost import for human life.

They have turned what should have been a public policy dialogue driven by science into a theatre for a cynical public relations exercise of the most dishonest kind. Instead of looking at the seriousness of the warnings they have sensed a threat to their business profitability and made that their motivating factor. They have spread a false complacency and the result has been a twenty year delay in addressing an issue of high urgency.

Hoggan thought at first that David Suzuki was a bit over the top when he wondered out loud whether there was a legal way of throwing Canada’s so-called leaders into jail for criminal action (or inaction) in relation to climate change. But then he recognised Suzuki was right, in the sense that it will indeed be a crime if we do not demand of our leaders that they start fixing this problem, beginning today.

“And the punishment will be visited on our children and on their children through a world that is unrecognisable, perhaps uninhabitable.”

Article by Bryan Walker appearing courtesy of Celsias; originally posted on Hot Topic

Related posts:

• Climate Change Skeptic Changes Stance and Calls for Action
• Book Review: Factor Five
• Pentagon Says Warming May Affect Global Security and U.S. Missions
• New CleanTechies Bookstore: find books, read reviews & order online
• New Global Warming Survey is First to Include Tea Party Members

Looking for a green technology job in the Solar industry is something more and more job seekers are focusing on these days. The reasons are easily explained if you turn to Frank Marquardt, author of Green Careers, coauthor of How Green Is Your City, and writer on the CleanTechies Blog: “Solar represents an attractive industry to many looking for an industry with a positive long-term outlook, and one where they can make a difference. Those who do find a job will have the opportunity to work alongside passionate people who realize their work will have a very real effect on some of the most significant geopolitical issues of the age, including energy independence and climate change.”

At the same time, that’s exactly why breaking into Solar is not an easy thing to accomplish. There is a lot of competition for a limited number of jobs, and companies have specific requirements to their jobs that many applicants do not necessarily meet.

“Those who want to break into the Solar industry will need to be persistent and focused, have the right mix of skills, and take a strategic approach. To find a job in solar, you’ll need to get clear on what sector of the industry you want to work in, what type of company you want to work at, and what skills you bring to the table,” says Marquardt.

In his latest book, The Solar Job Guide, Marquardt tells job seekers how to enter the Solar industry. Not only does he provide a detailed overview of the industry, he also offers real-world examples of successful careers in this booming industry. Marquardt knows what he is talking about. He has a strong background in green career issues and regularly writes for triplepundit, teaches workshops and teleseminars, and gives presentations.

With The Solar Job Guide, Marquardt has written a practical book on an industry with tremendous potential: According to estimates by Clean Energy Trends, the solar photovoltaic industry will grow more than 270% by 2018. And the Solar Energy Industries Association predicts that the stimulus package could create 110,000 jobs.

Job seekers looking to enter the Solar space will find Marquardt’s book useful as he elaborates on proven job search techniques and gathers advice from professionals who have successfully transitioned into a Solar career. The author explains in an easy-to-understand language what the different technologies are all about and what kind of potential they have. He also gives helpful interview tips, shows typical salaries for various positions, and provides a great overview of resources that can be helpful in finding a job. Particularly well done is a section on informational interviews he did with professionals in different roles, including Project Development Coordinator, Principal, Energy Procurement, Design Consultant, and Vice President of Product Development & Design. The interviews give the reader an idea of the range of opportunities, everyday issues and topics these professionals deal with in their respective Solar roles.

For any job seekers who want to learn more about the industry or need advice on how to best structure their job search, Frank Marquardt’s The Solar Job Guide will probably prove to be a valuable resource.

Special discount for CleanTechies readers: Frank Marquardt was kind enough to provide CleanTechies readers with a special limited time discount. Buy The Solar Job Guide by June 15, 2009, and get 20% off the book’s original price when using discount code “sunbathe”. Original price: $23.95 Special CleanTechies price: $19.16 Buy the book now.

Related posts:

• How to Work with a Clean Tech Recruiter
• Green Technology Job Hunt: Succeed With Clear Goals
• Interested in Solar But Don’t Know Where to Start?
• Green Tech Job Hunt: Track the Trends
• Green Tech Job Hunt: Build Your Brand