Green Year

Let the blowback begin. After fits and starts and plenty of navel gazing, a simple dinner with friends in Redwood City allowed us to get outside our  mental culdesac and realize our instincts were right. As Patrick put it, when asked if having innovators at Burning Man would somehow diminish his experience, “no, sounds great, i’d love to learn about that stuff. and if people have a problem with it, fuck em, you know? because if we don’t do something about climate change, there won’t be an event to go to.”

Word. Burning Man is a globally unmatched collection of early adopters, innovators, and change agents. It’s among the most fertile mental soil on the planet, and if we’re going to make a difference in the fight against climate change, then it only makes sense to bring the best, newest, most promising ideas to the desert and share then ( albiet in a non-commercial, non-commodified, un-branded way ). Delay or sticking our head in the sand simply won’t do.
We’ve had huge response so far. Melody Haller of the Antenna Group has, not surprisingly, several of her company’s clients who’re interested in bringing their widgets out to the playa for people to see and kick the tires of. But not all are interested, as it’s an interesting value proposition, to be sure. One CEO, who’ll remain anonymous, replied to her invite  ” Melody, Have you been to this event before? As far as I know it is a drug induced orgy from what my friends have told me who have attended. Is this something corporations want to be associated with? “ 

The answer, for many, is a resounding yes.
AG and I have both had a pretty significant shift on this in recent days. Too much time on Tribe, ePlaya, and other digital echo chambers have caused us to, temporarily at least, loose site of the big picture.  Her latest missive on it is here.

So, let’s start talking about some cool stuff you’ll see on the playa this year. The folks from Chlorophyll Collective have some mind-bending ideas on how to make algae eat generator exhaust and create biodiesel, a sort of snake eating its tail tale that may not be so far out there; an outfit called LiveFuels is proposing to do just that on a commercial scale (and are also an Antenna client–small world, non?)
Today and tomorrow from 12-3 Chicken John will be showing off his gasifier truck outside Ritual, giving rides and raising cash to buy a pelitizer so Ritual can become the first coffee shop anywhere to run on its own garbage.  The truck is part of a fleet of vehicles that are the demon spawn of the Mechabolic.

And of course we’re building a massive, 60kW solar array to power the man base complex, as part of our planned solar work that will hopefully when it’s done included 210kW permanent solar in Gerlach, and 90kW in Lovelock, courtesy our partnership with MMA Renewable Ventures. 

Meanwhile, from the “it doesn’t have to be green to be green” file, check this thing out. The Swarm is autonomous. The Swarm demonstrates emergent behavior. The Swarm will know you are there. The Swarm runs on green electrons. Hella cool, yo.

More to come.

In the last two days, I’ve had two meetings with people where millions of dollars were discussed, and heard someone say with a straight face “well, 14 (million) is actually easier than 2 (million), so let’s see if we can scale this up.”

Scale this up. Hmm. Lessee: two months ago, someone asked me to find a home for a 30KW solar array that M. C. wanted to donate for use at the event this August. Yesterday, we were talking about scaling up from the 300KW they just agreed to the day before to a 2MW install ( half each in Gerlach and Lovelock). That’s almost two orders of magnitude in two days.

How this is coming together is a testament to the power of framing the discussion in big enough terms. Several weeks ago, I started repeating over and over “let’s make Gerlach the first town in the world to generate more energy than it uses, and let’s do it this year.” And there wasn’t anyone whose job or role it was to say no. So no one did.

Instead, people started seeing what they could do to help us get to yes. Which is why the Sierra Pacific energy company is sending teams into “greenlach” in April to do a conservation sweep of town. Net result: 18-40% energy reduction. In a weekend. Cost? Zero. PS-they’ll also sign up low income folks for energy rebates, which will end up covering about $850 per year for about 85% of the town.

Then, the solar guys got on board. How it will work is pretty elegant: Sierra Pacific rebates up to 30KW per meter at $5 per watt, or $150,000.  Cost per installed watt is normally $7. 20-30% of that, or $1.40 to $2.10 is labor. Sierra Pacific will provide the technical labor free, as a training exercise.  BWB will provide non-tech labor free, just ’cause. With rebates and labor, we’re now down to .60 to -.10$ per installed watt. Schools get free power. Funder works tax mojo to meet their needs.  If NV’s legistlature scales up net metering limits from 30k to 1m per meter this year and matches it with incentives, then we’re headed for 1MW in each town, this year. Kubota.

I know this is being repeated from earlier posts. and I feel like I should instead be writing about Jim Mason’s gasifier experiments and how they’re going to change power as we know it. But I want to pause just a moment and reflect. We went from can’t be done to may well be done in just a moment, it seems.

This thing in the desert is transformative. It can move mountains. I’m honored to be in the place I am. I hope I am up to meeting the opportunity for all it’s worth.

Had the meeting in Gerlach last night, which went well, and another meeting is set for early Monday to work out some details on the solar project, but this report leaves me feeling just a bit doomed, ya know?

And it reminds me of Bill McKibben, who wrote The End of Nature allll the way back in 1989. He’s KNOWN all this time, sat with the sure knowledge over almost 20 years, as people slowly, slowly begin to grok what he’s been talking about.

I take solace in his oft repeated refrain when he’s asked about our species’ chances : not optomistic, but hopeful.

Just learned from Ryan at Gaia Development that Bank of America is now folding 100% financing of solar into 2nd mortgages, so with the savings in power you’re cash positive day one. Wow.

Meanwhile, his company is willing to give us some RECs or rewewable energy credits to count against our carbon offset total. And will sell some cheap on the side. And may have VC money to bankroll the Gerlach project.

And Tom Clarke, our man in Reno, has another client who’s willing to kick in some comp wind turbines, to use at the event, and then in Gerlach.

And word is the legislature in NV may scale up the amount allowed to be net metered back into the grid ( that’s when they have to buy back your power if you generate more than you can use ) from 30 KW per meter to 1MW per meter.

1MW. That’s how much juice we need to save or generate to make Gerlach the first town in the world to generate more energy than it uses. By my count, we’ve got soft lock on somewhere between 25-55% of that total. And it’s February 1. Not bad.

Today, prepping the board members individually on the solar project for Gerlach and Lovelock, in advance of the board meeting tomorrow, at which time I hope to get formal sign off.

It’s pretty incredible and somewhat complex, so I should probably capture the players and parts:

1. Using rebates and tax incentives, a burner friendly CEO of the world’s only renewable energy VC firm (Renewable Ventures) will bankroll purchase/installation of 150+/-KW of solar power in Gerlach, and perhaps the same in Lovelock. The town will see the power bill on the school, fire station, senior center etc drop 90%+ percent.
2. BRAF could/will work as a fiscal part of the puzzle, delivering non-profit status to the project, and recouping perhaps a steady stream of revenue in return.

3. BWB provides low cost labor/social engineering, and gets a hella cool volunteer project.
4. Sierra Power’s Solar Generations project ( ably led by Scott Gerz ) does a big conservation/efficiency push in Gerlach on Earth Day, dropping the towns usage of energy 20-40% in a weekend. Cost to residents? Zero.  They’ll also do the tech specs for the racks, making them elevated for safety on the playa and easily converted to shaded parking in Gerlach. They’ll use the exercise as a training ground for their engineers, and hopefully help get a few DPW folks certified as installers. Waaay better than being a barrista in the off season.
5. Coolingman donors ( and all other participants ) will drive through town to the event and be able to see their dollars in action, perhaps enjoying a bit of shade from the panels–some will go in before the event, the rest after.

6. Burning Man gets to help gift Gerlach/Lovelock with low cost juice, and gets a very accessible story about taking our gifting values off the playa.

7. Renewable Ventures gets a story about large scale application of their work.

8. Sierra Power gets a wonderful showcase of renewable energy.

9. Gerlach ( fingers crossed ) gets to be, if we scale it enough, the first town in the world to generate more energy than they use.

10. We reduce or eliminate 2,000,000 watt hours of fossil fuel based global warming gasses from the atmosphere. By the end of the year. At no cash cost to anyone.

A gift, given, gives, and moves on to repeat itself. I really hope we can make this work. There must be a thousand snags; time to sharpen my machete.