Velib’s Bicycle Sharing Program

By Hai I think the program has a bright future because it addresses a mega trend in the world. Bicycle sharing is the solution for congestion, pollution, and high density transportation. In fact, bicycle sharing is one of the most important components in the entire transportation system. In the foreseeable future, the more cities we […]

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Is Zipcar really that good for the environment?

By Katie P. Many people hail the car sharing company Zipcar as a great environmental innovation. Zipcar themselves tout their own horn on their Green Benefits page. At first glance, this sounds intuitive: carsharing = less cars per person = less gas and energy used = good for the environment. Right? Not necessarily. Do people […]

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IB2E Current Events December 2, 2014

By John Macomber The slides from today’s discussion about current events are here: IBEE Current Events 2014.12.02 The post that underscored the meaning of lower oil prices is here. By the way, natural gas prices have not dropped along with oil prices (below).  It could be argued that natural gas is a better benchmark for […]

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Energy Storage: A Potential Disruptive Force in Residential Solar

By Anonymous Early in the semester the class discussed the rapidly growing residential solar industry in relation to the case Verengo Solar Plus! The case noted that the U.S. had a total of 1,370 MW of installed residential solar capacity in 2010, representing an increase of 615 MW since 2009. This growth has been driven […]

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Why I wouldn’t put my money in stocks in the clean tech space.

By Anonymous Upon reading the Dow and Nestle cases, I had the exact same response as Kayley – wondering if there is a link between investing in sustainability and financial outperformance. Her research points to the fact that investing in sustainable initiatives may be a proxy for other company practices that drive strong performance, but […]

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1366 Technologies: Slow and Steady Doesn’t Win

By Anonymous In our discussion of 1366 Technologies Inc., we analyzed some of the pros and cons of the company applying to receive Department of Energy loan guarantees. Many of us in the class were skeptical of the loan program and apprehensive about the terms and conditions required by the DOE. Additionally, with the application […]

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Brightsource: A Lesson for Regulatory Reform in our Permitting Process

By: Anonymous With the BrightSource case, our class was able to see a confluence of federal government incentives – from preferential land development to tax equity capital expenditure subsidies – at work. Our 80 minutes discussing the case highlighted the frustrations of any developer in the process of putting together a project, but especially so […]

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Renewable energy support systems: Causing more harm than good

By Daniel Financial incentives and subsidies are frequently provided to encourage investments in renewable energy sources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An assumption behind such support systems is that increasing generation from renewable energy sources will result in a decrease in demand from other more carbon-intensive sources such as oil, coal or gas. Forms […]

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Thoughts on the failure of Better Place

By Anonymous “Well, this car is automatic, systematic, hydromatic, Why, it could be greased lightning” —Greased Lightening, by Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs A spectacular bubble Some weeks ago, we examined the challenge of commercializing battery-powered electric cars. Several caselets explored three alternate business models for commercialization: the pay-as-you-go model, the subscription model, and the […]

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Brightsource and the search for a reduced carbon powered world

By Eleanor Supporting the development of the world community and subsequent growing energy needs, while at the same time attempting to minimize the impacts of global climate change caused by fossil fuel consumption is one of the most complex issues of the 21st century. How can emerging nations grow their economies while avoiding the legacy […]

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