February 12, 2008 by Rob.

Richard Stuebi posted on C|Net News.com about Wall Street’s getting ahead of the curve on impending carbon legislation.  Apparently investment banks are worried power companies racing to get new coal plants built and grandfathered in before carbon management legislation make it impossible to build the plants.  They are effectively pre-imposing the laws by requiring that new deals comply with hypothetical future carbon restrictions.

It looks like “the market” has already figured out that carbon controls are inevitable.  I wonder how much longer we have to wait before Washington will step up?  My guess is sometime after Jan 20, 2009.

Posted in Green Tech | 1 Comment »

February 12, 2008 by Rob.

My friend and avid reader has been sending me link bait knowing that I can’t resist posting.  I hate to disappoint him…

I’ve been down on the Prius for quite a while, so it’s reassuring to see another blog confirm my opinions.  Chuck Squatriglia for Wired’s blog calls hybrids a “misinformed craze.“  His argument is that they are a short term solution that is too complex to be sustainable.  Like many current environmental clean-up initiatives (e.g.: ethanol), they are designed to make us feel better now without being sustainable long term.

I wonder if he would find models like the, now heavily advertised, Chevy Volt are a simpler and more viable option. 

At the same time Crave’s blog found a California entrepreneur is fully bought into the Prius solution.  OurPower.org is turbo charging green vanity play by selling plug-in Prius  conversion directly to Valley CEOs.  Their idea is that executives will try to out green each other like environmentally conscious lemmings.  Unfortunately, there is no obvious visual difference between a regular Prius and a plug-in version.  Maybe they should will dangle extension cords off the rear bumper in addition to lots of green butterfly stickers.

Posted in EV News | 2 Comments »