November 19th, 2009
by Tim Cull
I had the privilege of helping out with the CA CleanTech Open on Tuesday. This year, the $250,000 winner was EcoFactor–a company that makes smart thermostats that dynamically adjust your thermostat based on the weather and other factors. According to the company, an average household can shave as much as 20% off their home heating load without feeling any difference in comfort. Earth2Tech covered the Awards Gala in more detail than I could have (hey, I was busy being one of the event photographers, ok!).
The energy in this organization is impressive and the momentum the whole green tech sector has gained in the last three years is overwhelming. Each of the three years I’ve been going to the awards gala, the production has doubled in size. That’s even more impressive when you know that the whole thing is put on by volunteers.
Each day when I read a new article in the press about climate change and the drastic adjustments we’ll all have to make just to stay alive, I find myself getting down. But being in that room Tuesday was a real boost. The whole place was packed with the nation’s best and brightest and everyone was swimming in the right direction. The pitches from this year’s companies were the best yet and show a maturing and a focus that might just pull us through this thing
Posted in Green, Technology | 1 Comment »
November 10th, 2009
by Tim Cull
I’m excited to announce that I’m helping out with a new project, Sourcemap.org. Sourcemap is an effort by MIT’s Media Lab to help consumers understand where their goods came from and what the environmental consequences of sourcing them from around the world are. Check it out, you might just learn something!
Posted in Green, Technology | 1 Comment »
November 7th, 2008
by Tim Cull
I spent most of yesterday evening helping out at the California Clean Tech Open. Each of the six category winners got a “Start-up in a box”, which is $25k plus another $25k worth of pro-bono legal, marketing, and accounting services. The room at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco was packed wall-to-wall with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and hangers-on like me. If there’s anywhere else to be in the clean tech scene I’d sure love to see it; the whole thing felt like ground zero of the New New Economy.
The entire world at any given moment consumes 14TW of power (yes, trillionwatts every second). By 2050, the world will be consuming twice that much. Even with conventional energy sources that demand is nearly impossible to meet. Without terrible wars, rampant poverty and complete environmental meltdown, meeting that demand cleanly is an outright fantasy unless we have something like a Clean Industrial Revolution. Seeing the brainpower in that room last night gave me new hope that revolution might actually happen.
Posted in Green | 1 Comment »
October 10th, 2008
by Tim Cull
I saw this on my home page “quote of the day” widget and thought it was worth sharing:
“There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
– Richard Feynman”
Our debt was already a big monster in the closet; what will it turn into now with the events of the last 10 days?
Posted in Green, Technology | 1 Comment »
August 21st, 2008
by Tim Cull
I just went to a volunteer event for the California Cleantech Open last night and I’ve got to say, I’m impressed. Often these kinds of things are filled with about 30% people who are sharp and will make a difference and 70% hangers-on who just want to be a part of the action. But this organization is different.
In 3 years, they’ve managed to match startups with $200 million in funding. Every person I talked to last night seemed sharp and impressive and really knew their stuff. They just signed on a half-dozen national labs to partner with their startups. If we’re really going to make a difference attacking climate change, I’m sure the solution(s) will pass through their doors in one way or another. I just hope in such an impressive crowd I can find a way to help out.
Posted in Green, Technology | 1 Comment »
March 27th, 2008
by Tim Cull
I saw today on the Triple Bottom Line blog an interesting excerpt where a utility simply started showing customers on their utility bills how they compared to their neighbors and that alone lead to a decrease in energy usage. How awesome is that?
At work, our senior management team has been eager to get “metrics” lately. When pressed, it’s sometimes difficult to get from them exactly what kind of metrics, but we have developed a pretty awesome build package based on a bunch of open source products like CheckStyle, Emma, PMD, and others. We also had a case a year or so ago when one particular user in Japan was responsible for 50% or more of the group’s support calls. Once we had the hard data we were able to go to the manager of the group and say, “look, this guys is costing you x dollars more than anyone else. Maybe you should have a conversation with him…”
So, metrics. They’re easy to dismiss as simply a management fad, but they can have a real positive impact if used well. And a real negative impact if used poorly.
Posted in Green, Interesting Links, Technology | 1 Comment »
February 9th, 2008
by Tim Cull
Chris Jordan gave the keynote speech at the Greener Gadgets Conference this year. He specializes in depicting what really only pictures can say, specifically, illustrating just exactly how much we Americans waste every year.
Makes me feel better that I managed to hold on to my last cell phone for 6 years.
Posted in Green | 2 Comments »