Green Collar Blog

Very cool new high speed electric "bus" from Holland.  I'd like to see more about how to get in and out of it, but I would like to take a ride on one of these at 150 mph!

Don't take my word for it, take the word of Exxon-Mobile, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled Exxon Struggles to Find New Oi l, states:

 

In its closely watched annual financial report released Tuesday, the company said that for every 100 barrels it has pumped out of the earth over the past decade, it has replaced only 95.

 

It's a conundrum shared by most of the other large Western oil-producing companies, which are finding most accessible oil fields were tapped long ago, while promising new regions are proving technologically and politically challenging. 

 
Peak Oil has come and gone, and still our vaunted congress is doing everything they can to keep their head in the sand and let the oil companies write our energy policy.  

In a related story, Japan just announced a plan to build the fastest high 

speed train in the world (310 mph).  Imagine a 310 mph train connecting Boston and Chicago.  You would be there in 3 hours - less time than getting to Logan, parking, getting frisked in security, waiting around for an hour, waiting for the weather to clear, the plane to be de-iced, waiting in line on the tarmac, waiting for our baggage, and renting a car - and ou would walk upstair in a train station in downtown Chicago, not 25 miles out in the suburbs.  According to Smart Planet :

The new line, which [will run between Tokyo and Nagoya] is estimated to cost about $64 billion, will extend for about 178 miles. The company expects trains running on it to reach speeds up to 310 miles per hour. The line will cut travel time between the two cities by 40 minutes. 

Meanwhile in America, we apparently want no part of this green wave of the future.

 On the flip side, Florida governor Rick Scott announced today that his state would be rejecting $2 billion in federal funds to build a proposed high-speed rail line linking Tampa to Orlando. Scott, a Republican elected in last November’s election, will be the third Republican governor to return funds allocated for high-speed rail.

John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin have also rejected high-speed rail funds, citing cost overruns.

 

 What is going on here?  Asia is cleaning our clock on the infrastructure and industries of the 21st .  Make no mistake, we are going to be installing high speed rail in this country...the difference is that we are going to be importing it all from overseas...same for wind turbines and solar solutions.  We'll probably even import the jobs to install all of our green infrastructure because Americans won't know how.

One of our favorite sayings at  Green Collar is "You can't improve what you can't measure".  That is why we were so excited for this interview with Amit Chaterjee, CEO of Hara.  Hara is the leading and fastest growing provider of environmental and energy management software. Their mission is to enable organizations to grow and profit while optimizing resource utilization and minimizing environmental impact.

Hara's software helps companies track their "organizational metabolism" and centralize data about their energy, water, carbon and waste in order to use that information to create opportunity.  Generally selling to Fortune 5000 companies, Hara has been proving itself to be a solution that creates "substantial cost savings" and "massive energy reductions".  These often come as a surprise to many of their customers, who may have never taken a hard (or holistic) look at this information before.  Amit tells us of one client who thought their enterprise energy expenditure was around $50 to $80 million per year, but with Hara they realized it was closer to $250 million.  After the shocked expressions wore off (which probably took a while), they got to work and started slashing those numbers.  Amit used a line which I loved..."it is better to lay off energy, than people."  Amen to that.

The insight they are providing and working with their clients on exploiting is rapidly becoming respected and considered vital.  As you will hear, Hara believes it is almost to the point where 'Sustainable" finance could be considered a critical discipline in a Fortune 5000 company.

Hara echoes the refrain we have heard Green Collar on many occasions, that the huge majority of businesses - even large businesses - do not have someone who is responsible for energy usage (not to mention carbon) across the enterprise.  Shocking but true.  My guess is that as Hara continues to accelerate and provide the data companies need to make good decisions, you are going to see a lot more companies who have someone responsible for ensuring the company makes smart decisions.

Listen to the Full Interview!