Green Leaf Report

Recently the Texas Public Utilities Commission gave initial approval to adding nearly $5B in transmission lines to the state, expected to help bring West Texas wind to the major Texas cities.  I asked my friend Vanessa, who has worked in the wind industry for years, if she thought the approved package is a good […]

T. Boone Pickens came out with the Pickens Plan  for reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil this week. It seemed to hit every newspaper, website and television station around.  I’ve written about him several times before- there are always parts of his plans that I agree with, and parts I’m concerned about.  But that’s […]

At the WindPower 2008 conference I spoke with a University student from North Carolina manning the North Carolina Renewable Energy booth.  He was part of a community outreach program for solar and wind; when I asked him how that was going for him, he said people in North Carolina tended to complain in the […]

One of the things that surprised me about the WindPower 2008 show was that so many of the exhibitors primarily serve the oil and gas industry, and are now moving into wind.  I expected to see a lot of pretty serious environmentalists- I’m not sure if I thought everyone would have long hair, beards, […]

We’re surrounded by big and small wind companies at the WindPower 2008 show, but many of the exhibitors at the show are also from the non-profit, educational and government realms.  This huge cross-section of the industry really inspires hope that a lot of very intelligent people together will help break some of the dependencies […]

Today, on the first full day of the WindPower 2008 conference, we attended press conferences and worked the exhibition floor some more.  The expiring federal production tax credit (PTC) is getting a lot of attention and a lot of press.  If this tax credit does not get extended this year, the wind energy industry […]

I arrived today at the WindPower 2008 conference in Houston - I’m so excited to attend!  So far we’ve only attended for one partial day, but I’ve already met some great new people and learned things about wind that I didn’t know I didn’t know.
After our registration, we headed over to the […]

At a time when traditional technology firms, mortgage companies, home builders and more are laying off employees, wind energy, solar energy, and various alternative fuel companies are actively recruiting.  I see articles repeatedly touting green jobs as a great growth area.  But how do we balance the green industry growth opportunities with the risk […]

HP scientists have just made my electrical engineering degree obsolete with their proof of the existence of Memristors.  Thank goodness I sold my college textbooks long ago- I’m happy to see any breakthrough related to huge reductions in power requirements, though.  In theory, this memristor component holds memory without requiring power:
Building computers with Memristors might […]

 A while back I went to a women’s networking event and at the beginning we were asked our names, businesses and pet peeves. I thought at the time that this was an awfully negative way to start an event, but now I clearly remember some of those women and the things that bother them, so […]

My Earth Day resolution this year was to continue to chip away at the personal and professional challenges to living right.   In honor of Earth Day, this past week I’ve:

Planted another tree in my yard. It’s an apricot tree- so hopefully it will have a dual role of absorbing CO2 and providing local fruit.
Updated […]

*The title is meant to be sung to the Barney tune of “If Raindrops were Gumdrops.”
Every night my son and I share a bowl of ice cream, and I’ve noticed a parallel between my household’s ice cream interaction and the global economic demand and supply of oil. In this story:

I will represent the American economy. […]

When are carbon emissions not carbon emissions?  Apparently when you pay some money to another vendor, then poof, they can suddenly become “offset.”  Over the past week I’ve been in an email discussion with a former coworker about whether there can be any value to carbon offsets.  He adamantly believes no, and I’ve been trying to argue […]

Yesterday I met with the work/life coordinator at my employer and continued to encourage telecommuting.  I’m building the call to action for our website; now the challenge is to work this through the required approvals.  It still feels like I keep hearing that telecommuting is a privilege for specific persons in specific roles, not an entitlement.  I don’t want to […]

About a year ago I spoke with a friend of a friend who works in renewable energy investments in Northern California.  He encouraged me to move to either US coast, because that’s where the innovations and investments were happening. I asked about all the start-ups in Austin, and he told me, no, nothing was really happening in […]

I recently attended a work/life seminar, and was surprised by the differing ideas of what it means to telecommute.  One of the guest speakers gave a long talk on the great flexibility of her job, because she has an hour-and-a-half commute (each way!!!), and telecommuting allows her to take conference calls while she’s driving to work.  I felt […]

The debate continues on whether the US is on the edge of a recession, if we’re already in one, or if everything is fine and business continues as usual.  I was interested to read Alan Greenspan’s views coming out of the Cambridge Energy Research Associate’s energy conference  in Houston.  The hook of his comments appears related to the […]

Last year I wrote about using solar panels on cell phones, and the great benefits of taking consumer devices off the grid.  Texas Instruments just issued a press release that even goes a step further than solar panels- a joint project between TI and MIT is developing chips for consumer and medical applications that require such low amounts of power the devices […]

My entire week has been brightened by this announcement from Morgan Stanley, Citi and JPMorgan- Leading Wall Street Banks Establish The Carbon Principles:
“Three of the world’s leading financial institutions today announced the formation of The Carbon Principles, climate change guidelines for advisors and lenders to power companies in the United States. These Principles are the […]

Money and clean technologies have two things in common here in the US- the color green.  In spite of the recession talk, the funding still continues, with Fat Spaniel closing $18M for their Series B round of funding today.  Fat Spaniel offers performance monitoring systems for renewable energy providers and users, with over 800 installed users and customers including […]