Upgrade your existing High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting system with a Digital HID (DHID) ballast retrofit solution today; the initial buying cost is low, the energy savings are instant, and you can re-use your existing high bay fixture or outdoor luminaire.

The GloGreen DHID retrofit ballast solution and accompanying fixture and lamp products help you realize your project’s optimal Return On Investment (ROI) time, and with very little impact had on the environment.

Below is an example of the typical economic and environmental ROI on the upgrade of an existing 400W magnetic (core and coil) based fixture with the GloGreen 250W DHID solution. The installation is simple, you only need purchase and install a GloGreen 250W DHID ballast and matching 250W Pulse Start MH or 250W HPS lamp. Your existing fixture is upgraded and performs much better in terms of lighting output, energy efficiency, lamp life performance and sustained lumens, which means lamps stay bright over their entire life (eliminating 2-3 or more lamp changes for years and years of low cost operation).

Downloadable file:
Accendo-ROI--DHID-Retrofit-Solution--Old-400W-HID-retrofitted-to-GloGreen-250W-Digital-HID

In this example, the Net Total Payback is only 1.08 years. That is a RETURN ON INVESTMENT of 970.8%! Economically the customer is able to realize a PROFIT; environmentally the Elimination of Harmful Emissions as a result is invaluable.

The DHID ballast retrofit solution offers your project the perfect balance of buying cost, energy efficiency, lamp performance, and environmental regard. Re-use, revive and reduce the energy consumption of your HID lighting system today, please download the following one page DHID Retrofit Benefit sheets for more details:

• Accendo-DHID-Lighting-Simply-RE-USE-Your-Existing-High-Bay-HID-Fixture-Benefits-Sheet
• Accendo-DHID-Lighting-Simply-RE-USE-Your-Existing-Outdoor-Street-Light-HID-Fixture-Benefits-Sheet

Please do not hesitate to contact us today to discuss your solution, or please submit the Risk Free Trial Unit Form for more information.

Best regards,

Anthony Borges
Accendo Electronics Ltd.
www.AccendoElectronics.com
www.AccendoElectronics.WordPress.com
aborges@accendoelectronics.com

“Many companies are too focused on securing as many property leases as possible, as fast as possible, without putting enough emphasis on the projects themselves.  A lot of work needs to go into making sure that the FIT contracts you get are the ones you want. The contracts are very specific and can’t be altered. Basically you have to get all your ducks in a row before you can get your panels in a row.” stated Mr. Martin Baldwin, a former international banker and Chief Financial Officer for Atlantic Wind & Solar - A leading publicly traded, renewable energy company headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

The “ducks in a row” that Baldwin refers to is preplanning, design, and engineering plus the addressing of key issues such as equipment bankability, proven operating and maintenance platforms, and project rates of return. Although these issues vary from region to region they are the key fundamentals of the industry. “You have to find the right blend of cost, compensation for the property, return for the company, return for external investors, and other components specific to the Ontario market before you can even start a finance discussion. Financing is a key component to these projects, even for companies that plan to fund the equity portions internally” Baldwin further explained, following with “Ontario has an enormous appetite for power and the Ontario Power Authority has a strong commitment to renewables. There is a vast amount of commercial sized rooftops and even more farmer’s fields on which to produce power. We believed from the beginning that the race would not be for FIT contracts and leases but for financing. This focus has served us well”.

The seeming lack of project funding in the province is not necessarily being viewed as a bad thing by some of the larger, better funded companies. In fact, Atlantic believes this is simply a case of Darwinism at it’s finest, where only the strong survive, while the smaller companies either drop off, or simply get acquired. The company confided that through consolidation, their Ontario project pipeline has grown by almost 15% in the last few weeks alone.

In response, the company recently announced that it has launched a Wind and Solar Project Financing Division, designed to assist other solar integrators and developers in bringing their projects into full construction by providing the necessary guidance and possible funding where others would not.

While waddling to the finish line – It appears that slow and steady may be a key factor in winning the renewable energy race in Ontario.

The Ontario Government’s decision to promote clean renewable energy is now proving to be a catalyst for creating thousands of new green collar jobs in the province.

The controversial procurement program, launched last fall by the Ontario Power Authority, which is commonly referred to as the Feed In Tariff (FIT) program, offers to pay private energy producers generous rates for electricity generated by renewable sources (i.e. solar, wind, hydroelectric, etc.) for contracted periods of twenty years. In order for renewable energy power producers to qualify for these long term – high premiums, over half of the materials they use to build their clean energy power plants must be made in Ontario. This local content requirement rule has created a gold rush-like mentality for international manufactures who are now flocking to the province to qualify. One year after the program was initially introduced, the number of new green collar jobs being created in the region is substantial.

  Canadian Solar, one of the world’s largest solar panel manufacturers, with operations in China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, and the United States, has started to build a solar module manufacturing plant in Guelph, Ontario. The multi-million dollar complex will supply 500 new jobs as early as next year.

  The Town of Oakville has been chosen by Solar Semiconductor to host its first North American solar module manufacturing facility. The company has expanded into Ontario from India, with expectations of opening the doors to its new plant within the next two years. The facility will train and employ 200 new employees.

  Italian-based solar panel manufacturer, Silfab, is making its move into the province. Its new facility will be operational as early as mid-2011 and is also expected to employ 200 new employees.

  German appliance giant, Bosh, leading Canadian electronics manufacturer, Celestica, and several others are also in the process of opening new solar manufacturing facilities and creating many, many more jobs.

  Before making a leap from the uninterrupted power supply (UPS) industry where it specialized in building back-up power main-frames for computer systems, Aim Global Energy of Richmond Hill developed a new inverter technology which increases the output of solar energy by up to 30%. After partnering with publicly traded Atlantic Wind & Solar, a Toronto-based renewable energy company with over 100 large-scale rooftop solar energy projects in the GTA, Aim has begun to expand its manufacturing operations into Toronto’s Scarborough area. The region’s unemployment rate was significantly impacted after a recycling plant in neighboring Whitby announced it would be closing its doors, affecting 151 employees. The timing of FIT could not have been better for many Ontario residents.

  In addition to new jobs being created, the FIT program is creating many new opportunities for trained professionals who are now reapplying their job skills and work experience.

  Solar Clean was originally formed by firefighters who recognized that solar maintenance presented a unique opportunity to reapply many of their skill sets. The attributes of being rigorously trained in electrical hazard awareness, how to work safely with water around high voltage systems, the use of safety equipment such as fall arrest systems, operating elevated devices, and ladder safety techniques, are proving to be beneficial in this new sector. The company predicts it will increase in size by four to six times in the next 12- 18 months.

  A number of opportunistic real estate sales agents in the province who may have been feeling the effects of a softening real estate market are now supplementing their incomes by helping local clean power producers find suitable vacant farm lands and commercial rooftops to lease for the deployment of new wind and solar energy parks.

  A Toronto-based company named CommSite Works Inc., who is best known for securing commercial rooftops used to host cellular phone antenna towers, has been actively closing rooftop lease agreements to facilitate utility-scale solar energy parks. The progressive company, which has an exclusive arrangement with a leading Toronto-based solar company, reported that it is also in the process of significantly increasing its staff in order to facilitate the new niche market.

  Some lawyers who specialize in real estate law are adding renewable energy development to their practices. Ms. Cherie Brant of Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP specializes in the planning, structuring, and implementing of renewable energy projects and related transactions with special emphasis on First Nations related projects. Ms. Brant also works with rooftop solar developers, and through her established connections, she finds solutions to financing and other installation challenges that new industries such as this often face. She credits her background in telecommunications leasing and involvement in the legal and policy issues of this growing industry with giving her a competitive edge when delivering added value to her clients.

  Roofers are now becoming solar panel installers. Commercial shelving manufacturers are now converting their steel fabricating shops over to building racking systems used for solar panels. Logistics companies specializing in the transporting of various freights are now focusing on gaining new contracts to ship solar panels and wind turbines. Construction crane operators are now booking rooftop solar construction projects and are also being asked to use their equipment to erect wind turbines. Even once abandoned automotive manufacturing plants are now being converted over to build wind turbines while hiring back many of the same personnel who once worked at these very factories on automotive assembly lines, before being laid off.

  Thousands of green sector stakeholders are now officially beginning to feel the positive effects that the Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act was designed to bestow. It is reassuring to know that as these new green collar jobs and the new opportunities the sector brings with it increase, so too will other new ways of doing business.

Ontario took a bold step in developing a private procurement program. Not only has it successfully begun to wean the province off of its dependency on electricity generated by harmful CO2 emitting sources, but Ontario has also successfully implemented a job creation program that is set to leave the rest of North America green with envy.

According to pick your favorite cleantech and carbon media outlet, California is at war. 

AB 32 is California’s carbon cap and trade law.   The law is most the way ready to implement, with the rulemaking in process now.  It’s aimed squarely at two goals, one, reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions, and two, since such a reduction is largely symbolic without the rest of the world participating as well (CO2 is the only environmental pollutant that really doesn’t care where in the world it goes in or comes out, so is a truly global pollutant requiring a global response) continue California’s trend of environmental policy leadership, and be the beacon on the hill.

As it currently stands, AB 32 rules (as with most of these things the devil’s in the details, and the 2008 law takes a long time to work out the details) are supposed to be ready to go at the end of this year, and implemented in 2012.

Proposition 23 is an initiative on the ballot designed to indefinitely delay implementation of AB 32.  And for the record, if you don’t click that link at least read the Legislative Analyst’s analysis, I suggest you skip the vote.

The actual impact according to the California voter information guide would be to suspend part of the measures in the Scoping Plan (California’s overall GHG Plan), targeting about half of the emissions in the Scoping Plan:

“Various Climate Change Regulatory Activities Would Be Suspended. This proposition would result in the suspension of a number of measures in the Scoping Plan for which regulations either have been adopted or are proposed for adoption. Specifically, this proposition would likely suspend:

• The proposed cap–and–trade regulation discussed above.
• The “low carbon fuel standard” regulation that requires providers of transportation fuel in California (such as refiners and importers) to change the mix of fuels to lower GHG emissions.
• The proposed ARB regulation that is intended to require privately and publicly owned utilities and others who sell electricity to obtain at least 33 percent of their supply from “renewable” sources, such as solar or wind power, by 2020. (The current requirement that 20 percent of the electricity obtained by privately owned utilities come from renewable sources by 2010 would not be suspended by this proposition.)
• The fee to recover state agency costs of administering AB 32.

Much Regulation in the Scoping Plan Would Likely Continue. Many current activities related to addressing climate change and reducing GHG emissions would probably not be suspended by this proposition. That is because certain Scoping Plan regulations implement laws other than AB 32. The regulations that would likely move forward, for example, include:

• New vehicle emission standards for cars and smaller trucks.
• A program to encourage homeowners to install solar panels on their roofs.
• Land–use policies to promote less reliance on vehicle use.
• Building and appliance energy efficiency requirements.”

Because it is expected to scrap CARB’s proposed expansion of the California RPS to 33% of power from renewable sources up from the current goals of 20% (we’re not there yet), and the removal of the planned Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the entire cleantech sector is up in arms. 

Contrary to popular opinion, a Yes on Prop 23 probably won’t gut the cleantech sector – since cleantech is global and California’s cleantech companies are driven by programs well beyond its borders, since all the major programs Prop 23 affects haven’t actually been enacted yet and several key programs would be untouched (as well that the LCFS probably gets served by things other than cleantech biofuels anyway at least in the first years).  But it would cut into the future growth of renewables in the state a few years down the road, esp wind and large scale solar.

What it would definitely do is kill the nascent push in the US towards real cap and trade just a month ahead of the next round of international climate change negotiations in Cancun.  Quite frankly if California can’t deliver on its own cap and trade law, who else can?

And it would send a signal to the world that California voters are not quite as ready to be the beacon on the hill for environmental issues as they once were.

Will it hurt the economy and kill jobs if we don’t pass it and AB 32 continues?  Unfortunately it depends, with the pain more certain and likely nearer term, and the huge economic benefits more uncertain and likely longer term – though quite substantial in possibilities.  Yes, in the short term and medium term LCFS and 33% RPS and cap and trade will push up power prices and fuel prices in California, hurting consumers, and pushing some production out of the state (if other states and countries don’t continue to match the increased regulation).  That’s why it’s called alternative energy – it’s still more expensive.  But yes, it will probably simultaneously catalyze more venture capital investment (VC services is a big export for us), carbon markets investment (I know about two dozen companies that moved into California specifically because of AB 32 and its first mover advantage in US cap and trade and I helped bring 2 of them in myself), and certainly add some manufacturing and construction jobs in the cleantech sector. 

Net net, higher energy and manufacturing costs in California and an effective renewable and carbon quota mean economic losses in comparative advantage and to consumers in California.  But how much depends on exactly how good a job it does of catalyzing jobs in California for export or replacing business that we currently import to offset that.  And it is very, very hard to underestimate how good California’s environmental leadership has been at catalyzing US and global change.  Meaning the that comparative advantage loss may be short-lived (higher power prices from more low carbon renewables don’t cost California many jobs if its competitors adopt effective carbon prices as well), and if a new export industry and venture capital emerges to be a world leader (which basically pulls dollars from all around the world into Silicon Valley) it means more new California jobs gained than those lost from the comparative advantage shift, then all is good.

Unfortunately, some of that depends on how well CARB actually designs the final rules, and my big fear for California on AB 32 stems from how badly the state screwed up its last major energy deal – power deregulation.  Keep in mind Texas got that one right, and California’s was a fiasco (then as now blamed on the Texans – but I can buy 100% wind power for 11.4 cents a Kwh flat rate in Texas).

So, vote yes, and kill AB 32, and carbon leadership, and ding the rest of the cleantech sector, and you’ll probably never feel the impact in you pocket book (or realize it if you do).  But if you vote yes, you lose all moral right to claim cleantech and environmental leadership for the state.

Or vote no, and keep the state headed in the direction its going – leadership in renewables and carbon, and signal to the world that you care.  More than that, you tell yourself you believe that policy enabled innovation can change your fortune for the better, and outweigh the investment.  That’s technology and venture capital, and that’s what California does best. 

But please, vote for what *you* believe – not because the cleantech sector is screaming that you’re taking away their subsidy or because a couple of independent Texas oil companies are funding the no vote (they are, but to be fair, they provide a lot jobs and taxes to the state, California has not exactly gone out of its way play fair for them in the implementation of AB 32).  And don’t vote one way or the other just because you think it create or kill jobs – because which way the net outcome sways lies on our shoulders, too, from policy makers and CARB staff to the energy industry to the California consumer and business who will pay the final price and reap the final reward either way. 

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at cleantech merchant bank Jane Capital, has help found or has interests in businesses in carbon (as founding CEO of Carbonflow), solar, superconductors, and green products, and personally stands to lose a lot of money if Proposition 23 passes and AB 32 goes down.

The plants/ vegetation resources form the greatest volumes of Renewable Resources (RR) on earth, directly and naturally converting solar radiation into energy and materials. In fact the entire dynamics of living organisms depend on plants/ vegetation systems. Yet, we have not attempted to look at these 100% sustainable and GREEN resources as the FIRST answer to almost all our materials and energy needs.

Each Kg of Plant resources would have the following approximate (average) material systems:

1. Organic matter (cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, pentosans etc) .... 23.5%

2. Inorganic matter (oxides and other metallic and non metallic materials) … 0.5%

3. Water ... 76%

Thus, a ton of plant resources would have the following material systems:

1. Organic matter ... 235 Kg

2. Inorganic matter ... 5 Kg

3. Water ................ 760 Kg

Were we to convert 50% (117.5 Kg) of the organic matter into anaerobically reacted Bio-Gas, and the balance 117.5 Kg of organic matter + 5 Kg of inorganic matter into engineered materials, the following end results are possible:

1. Methane gas ..... 32.5 Kg

2. CO2 .................. 56.5 Kg

3. H2S + Amines .... 0.85 Kg

4. Biofertilizer ......... 27.65 Kg

5. Engineered products (using additional 86.5 Kg “external ingredients”) ... 204 Kg

6. Recoverable Water .. 509 Kg

Approximate Commercial values of all of these GREEN Products (obtained through the most optimum CLEAN-TECH processes) would be $400. It may also be noted that, by converting the 32.5 Kg Methane Gas into Energy, the net availability of heat + electricity would be the equivalent of 382 KWH

The CO2 and the H2S/ Amines could be further converted into various other chemicals/ products, resulting in more GREEN products (the CO2 being converted into special “Carbon Sink Engineered Products" – CSEP). Some of these products would also use various industrial wastes as “additives” or reactants, resulting in more environmental benefits.

Another process route would be to convert the entire organic matter into Biogas, and convert part of the Methane gas generated into Bio-Petrochemicals. At this level the various intermediate/end products would be (on the basis of converting each ton of vegetation systems):

1. Energy based on methane gas conversions ... 382 KWH

2. Bio-Petrochemicals (considering about 15% additive ingredients)... 135 Kg

3. Industrial CO2 ... 113 Kg

4. H2S + Amines …1.7 Kg

5. Biofertilizer ....... 55.13 Kg

6. Recoverable Bio-water .... 509 Kg

Now, were we to extrapolate and convert such resources available in any tropical country (such as Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines etc), the following could be noted for One country – Kenya:-

ESTIMATED RESOURCES CONVERSION POTENTIALS IN KENYA:

• Total Area of the nation .... 583, 000 sq km

• Approximate estimated non-forest vegetation (@ 25 T/ annum per ha) … 437, 250, 000 T

• Total Bio-Energy based Power potential (Heat + Electricity) ... 19, 330 MW

• Bio-Petrochemicals .... 59, 028, 750 T

• Industrial CO2 ..... 49, 409, 250 T

• H2S + Amines .... 743, 325 T

• Biofertilizer ... 24, 105, 592 T

• Recoverable water .... 222, 560, 250 Cu m

[NOTE: Average per annum per ha vegetation growth in Kenya would be greater than 25 T]

[Vegetation in Kiritiri Village in Kenya, where the annual rainfall is only 800 mm]

What are the consequences of such Clean-Tech sustainable Resources based developments for a country like Kenya?

1. The Total estimated Resources based “value-additions” are …........ $99, 182, 663, 600

2. Kenya which now produces less than 1200 MW of power is short in power to an extent of 3000 MW. The country, which is economically poor (but resources rich) is attempting to go in for Nuclear Power, in the name of “Clean technology” and Sustainability! Does Kenya have any materials ... whether the “Thorium/ Plutonium” or even the Construction materials needed for Nuclear Power plants? (forget about technology)

3. Utilizing merely 25% of the available Plants/ vegetation based (non-forest) Renewable Resources (RR), the Power potential of Kenya would be a whopping 4825 MW (in excess of 3700 MW over and above the current power generation!). This is the FULL NEED of Kenya's Power requirements

4. The entire 40 million Kenyan population (about 8 million families) would have Full time jobs, with average family incomes @ $12, 400. This is over and above any current Economic activities that are advocated by the Government

5. If Kenya develops and converts the available vegetation resources into energy and materials, a country which is relegated to be a “drought” region “poor nation” would spring up into a highly developed nation, competing with any of the “Developed” nations in Europe

There are many more unseen cascading impacts, such as Village developments; increased Sustainably driven Economic developments; Reversal of migration; total stoppage of ethnic and other related “local troubles” due to improvement in Living conditions; improved health due to improved purchasing power … and many more

Every Tropical Nation would be able to develop and showcase such unprecedented economic uplift through Locally available RR.

These would pave the way for REAL Sustainable CLEAN-TECH developments

It is opined that the “desperation for energy and materials” in the Developed world [almost 100% of those nations are in temperate zone, and are of European origin] is wrong inference. This “shortage” theory is borne out of a limited view of the world – that of viewing all human activities within the kaleidoscope of materials and resources based on temperate zone regions of the world. However, if we were to look at the world materials resources [mainly the Renewable Resources(RR) in the form of vegetation, plants and animals] in entirety, we should be able to have the satisfaction that the RR in the Tropics would be able to support almost the entire world population of nearly 7 billion, as well as the same capable of supporting much more populations!

Let us consider just one example of a RR specie – THE COCONUT Tree and its resources, in just one nation - INDIA.It would be observed that the entire coastal regions are the places where coconut grows in plenty. The estimated area would be approximately 210,000 sq km. It is further estimated that India would have not less than 1,500,000,000 coconut trees. An average coconut tree has a productive life of not less than 60 years. Thus, if we were to consider that each tree could be “felled” every sixty years, the number of coconut trees RR in India would be 25,000,000 trees. On the basis of “dry weight” of these basic Tree resources alone @ 500 Kg per tree, India's RR in the form of coconut trees would be a whopping 12,500,000 Tons! Here we have not considered the annually available RR in the form of Coconuts and other vegetation materials that each coconut tree offers. If these annual resources were also to be considered in entirety, the Total RR materials based on Coconut trees all over India would be 75,000,000 T + 12,500,000 T

1. We shall look at a scheme whereby 50% of the 75 million T annually recurring tree resources such as coconuts and other materials are converted into energy. When converted such that both Electricity and Heat are available through CHP methods, the estimated Power would be: 22,800 MW [The balance 50%, being 37.5 million T, are available for other consumer needs!]. NOTE: India's power, as on date, is short by about 30,000 MW. It is noted that conversion of 50% of the Coconut annual RR alone would solve almost all this deficit problem

Coconut tree and its resources form just One of the resource species in a country like India. A few of the other such RR species are: Areca palm, Palmyra palm, Jackfruit tree, Banana tree, Mango trees, Tamarind trees, Shrub trees, and many others (over 500 species); other plant/ vegetation based RR materials are grasses, water hyacinths, and various unused and unclassified weeds (over 5,000 species). It is to be recognized that all of these “original” species would grow without any fertilizers or any special tending!

We estimate that India would have, by way of various unused non-forest Plant/ Tree species alone, RR to an extent of 3,000,000,000 T. Such volumes of vegetation based RR materials have not been thought of as useful RR at all, although common sense should make us look at these as the cheapest and the most optimum resources.

Technically, we may conclude that all of these Resources are " solar energy" based resources and 100% Renewable (Sustainable)

There are 160 tropical nations, in which 135 nations are within the real tropics and the rest are on the tropics fringes. All these regions are as much resource rich as India is [a few may have greater volumes per ha than India (Indonesia, Philippines, Venezuela and Myanmar are examples of such higher resource nations)]. It is strange that almost all of these 160 tropical nations are extremely poor, and starve for Power, water and most other human needs! Stranger still is the fact that almost all of these regions are endowed with huge sunlight, rain/ water and both vegetation and animal species.

Are we really interested in Sustainable development? If the answer is YES! Our attempts should be to look at the huge Tropical Renewable Resources ... (see: http://zerowastezerocarbon.wordpress.com/ and also http://agrobiogenicscleantech.wordpress.com/ ) 

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins

Throughout history, until very recently, man has been a small actor in an overwhelmingly large world.  Most of the book explores how this has given rise to our ingrained cultural patterns of wasteful resource utilization, limited focus on capital efficiency, and drive for production volumes, while assuming unbounded access to subsidized natural resources and 'free' ecosystem services.  Shifting perspective to include natural capital on the business balance sheet, and to expand lean manufacturing principles beyond the factory walls is what's required to address the ecology/climate change nexus.  This change in perspective is embodied in a range of sustainable business concepts, including the 'triple bottom line' (profits, people, and planet), and the 'cradle-to-cradle' model for recycling products and integrating industries to eliminate 'waste'.

The basic principles of natural capitalism put forward can be summarized as: (1) focus on natural resource efficiency (2) using closed loop, biomemetic, nontoxic processes (3) to deliver more appropriate end-user services (4) while investing in restoring, sustaining, and expanding natural capital.  Following these principles leads not to constraints on business or lowered expectations, but an enormous range of new business opportunities to profit from improved efficiencies and environmentally beneficial activities.  One of the best expressions of this perspective comes in the discussion on climate change, providing a refreshing contrast to the recent spate of bad news on this front: "Together, the [available business] opportunities can turn climate change into an unnecessary artifact of [our] uneconomically wasteful use of resources."

While the authors deliver an awesome, deeply researched articulation of their vision, showing with many examples why it's important and how it can work within our current capitalistic economies, the book has two key flaws.  First, it falls prey to the syndrome first articulated by Paul Saffo, founder of the Institute for the Future, of confusing a clear vision of the future with a short path.  This combines with an  excessive reliance on sheer volume of examples to make their points, too many of them poorly explained, bristling with non-comparable numbers, and substituting hand-waving for real outcomes.  Deeper exploration of fewer examples might have illustrated the principles better, and have been much easier to read.  Also, 11 years after the original publication, many of the examples are seen to be hastily chosen and and used to support glib and overreaching conclusions that make the authors seem naive.  Examples include the advent hydrogen powered cars ("hypercars"), the potential for shutting down Ruhr Valley coal production in favor of direct social payments to coal workers, or the imminent triumph of the Kyoto Protocols for international carbon trading.  And, while much attention is paid to articulating the perverse incentives, misguided taxes and subsidies, and split responsibilities that impede more efficient system approaches, there's short shrift given to new technology adoption rates, the scale of existing infrastructure investments, or the political complexities of changing incentives and subsidies.

However, if you are interested in understanding the genesis and foundations of the modern sustainability movement, this is a fundamental text.  Despite its flaws, after 11 years the fundamental argument and principles hold up well and are still inspiring.

Houston, TX – July 30August 13, 2010 – marcus evans, a conference producing company, will host the 3^rd Annual Risk Management in Energy Trading Conference, October 21-22, 2010 in Houston, TX. More than 18 leading experts will provide insights on best practices for risk management in energy trading, including managing liquidity risk, optimizing stress testing programs and complying with new CFTC regulatory reforms.

“As energy and financial markets have become more efficient and interwoven, it has become increasingly important for everyone involved with managing the risks associated with energy transactions to learn as much about the topic as possible,” said Michael Carter, Director—Credit Risk, at EDF Trading. “Recent history is littered with stories of those who failed.”

Carter, who has 25 years of experience in the energy industry, will share his knowledge on practical aspects of risk management with this year’s conference attendees. 

With a one-track focus, the 3^rd Annual Risk Management in Energy Trading Conference is a highly intensive, content-driven event that includes case studies, presentations and panel discussions over two full days. This conference targets industry leaders in risk management roles in order to provide an intimate atmosphere for both the delegates and speakers.

Due to the historic passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, this event will provide a comprehensive look at impending regulatory reforms affecting the energy trading industry. Commissioner Jill E. Sommers from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will deliver the conference’s keynote address to provide a firsthand perspective on pressing regulatory issues. Other regulatory reform speakers include Jim Allison, Regional Risk Manager, Gas and Power NA, at ConocoPhillips, and Lisa Epifani from law firm Van Ness Feldman.

“The energy trading and risk management landscape is continuously evolving,” said Darilyn Jones, SVP Risk Control at Sequent Energy Management, and this year’s conference chairperson. “It is a dynamic landscape where the impact of key drivers is sometimes difficult to predict and constantly changing. Understanding the current market and regulatory environment is very important.”

marcus evans invites risk management professionals to join in this cutting-edge, peer-to-peer conference that examines best practices in the energy trading industry. In addition to two days of conference sessions, attendees will have extensive networking opportunities with their peers.

Says Carter, “I have been fortunate enough to experience a marcus evans conference as both an attendee and as a presenter.  Regardless of which side of the podium I was on, I was pleased with the knowledge I gained from the program and the interaction with other participants.”

For more information on this conference or to get a complete list of speakers, sessions or past attendees, visit http://www.marcusevansch.com/RMET or email Michele Westergaard, Michelew@marcusevansch.com

About marcus evans

marcus evans conferences annually produce over 2,000 high quality events designed to provide key strategic business information, best practice and networking opportunities for senior industry decision-makers. Our global reach is utilized to attract over 30,000 speakers annually, ensuring niche focused subject matter presented directly by practitioners and a diversity of information to assist our clients in adopting best practice in all business disciplines.

Contact

Michele Westergaard

312-540-3000 ext. 6625

Michelew@marcusevansch.com