| By Press to Digitate - Jul 21, 2008 9:34:12 PM ET |
| Also listed in: H2earth Institute - WEvolts! |
Success of the WE Campaign and the Gore Climate Challenge will depend upon the rapid uptake of a wide variety of new technologies for the production of clean energy, and their proliferation throughout the economy. Hundreds of breakthroughs in clean energy have taken place over the past 30 years, many just since the turn of the Century. The real problem is not one of research or invention but of awareness and deployment.
Below we outline a way that the WE Campaign can mobilize its existing allies and resources to help connect clean energy technology ventures with individual and institutional customers who might otherwise never have considered alternatives to traditional fossil fuels.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
A New Media project should be launched specifically to document and network environmental energy alternatives, in order to establish consensual proof that real solutions actually exist, and can be economically deployed, at all scales (utility, municipal, institutional, industrial factory/commercial building, small business or individual home).
Among the public policy makers, utility executives, building developers, and homeowners who must actually implement the Gore Climate Challenge, the real battle remaining is to convince them that appropriate technology solutions already exist now, and that they can be brought to the table in a practical manner.
A new generation of digital camcorder has just been introduced (6/08) by Silicon Valley Peripherals, which provides a substantially higher performance/cost ratio than anything previously available. The capacity to enable indie producers to flexibly document clean energy tech in high definition, with only around $100 (street price) in hardware enables a dramatic transparency to be brought to the new energy revolution, immediately. Reciprocally, this new camera itself needs a high profile initiative to launch it into the national consciousness as a radically transformative product.
Proposed is a Joint Venture (between The Alliance for Climate Protection/WeCanSolveIt, The Climate Project, CurrenTV, Generation Investment Management, UstreamTV, Silicon Valley Peripherals, and other organizations), to empower 100 new presenters, focused not on the global warming problem (which must continue to be taught, undistracted), but on the proximate solutions instead. These digital evangelists would engage in producing “documentary pods” each covering a new alternative renewable energy technology invention, device, product, plan, or project, for web/cable broadcasting and incorporation into a comprehensive multimedial Solutions Database, linked to other preexisting such repositories, to help convey the immediacy of technical alternatives to the default fossil fuel technologies traditionally used for power generation.
It is proposed that 100 indie video producers be recruited through the Climate Project and CurrenTV, to focus on this initiative to the exclusion of all else for 12 months; that each be given the camera and accessories, certain travel considerations, and specific high profile recognition for their efforts on a competitive basis (and, ideally, participation in an Equity Fund which represents a broad base of investment in all of the solutions presented), .with the goal of ferreting out every emerging new energy technology presently (or likely to be) coming available in the United States during the course of the 10 year Challenge Period.
This initiative would be branded “The Gaian Renaissance Organization” (“GRO”), to emphasize the critical point that the switch to green energy promotes economic growth, and would not be the drag on the economy that its critics will loudly fear. It should be based in Washington, D.C. to optimize information exchange to policy makers through specific events (i.e. Solar Decathlon), and would ideally couple to both the environmental sensitivity of AOL Founder Steve Case’s Revolution organization and LIME Television operations, and such international initiatives as the Global Environment Facility, Clean Technology Fund, Clean Development Mechanism, etc. through their presence in D.C., as well as the entire U.S. community of environmentally oriented NGOs.
A loan of $250,000 from ACP/Generation would likely be requied to accomplish this, to be repaid from both advertising proceeds and the sale of a two-hour documentary film to be produced from the individual pods and coverage of their own production, for presentation on Discovery, TLC, SciFi, PBS, BBC, and other traditional larger television outlets with mass market coverage.
The exclusive focus of the video pods would be new energy sources, not conservation. There are an unlimited variety of resources devoted to promoting energy conservation and sacrifice, but for decades they have failed to effect meaningful change. The Gore Challenge cannot be met by merely turning thermostats up (or down), inflating tires to the correct pressure, or replacing one kind of light bulb with another. It’s the energy source factor that must be dealt with. The new clean sources already exist. This project is about bringing them out of the fringe and the shadows and into the public consciousness. Awareness of the problem generally already exists where needed; its awareness of the solution technologies that must be brought up to par, immediately, if not sooner.
A Field Coordinator would perform the following:
- To spend 12 months traveling the U.S. for all expenses plus a nominal stipend ($1,000/mo.) to recruit, manage, and interface with the indie producer base.
- To oversee the creation of a “Techknowledge e-Base” of multimedial representations of new energy solutions, targeted at the utility executive, property developer and homeowner, providing radical ecommerce pathways to support entrepreneurial technology deployment efforts.
- To produce from among the generated documentary pods a comprehensive high quality two hour documentary presentation of the aggregate solutions base, and to pitch it to networks able to pay the $250,000 recovery fee for such a program.
- To file from the road regular vlog installments with CurrenTV of the quest to bring the new energy solutions onto the world stage.
There have been several television series devoted to green technology highlights which have previously produced segments on new energy solutions. It is proposed that the few dozen or so existing video segments along these lines be licensed to “prime the pump”, and provide fodder for the indie producers to search further and dig deeper. A portion of this initiative would contact every college and university in North America, and hundreds of development stage and emerging growth companies, to solicit candidate technologies for inclusion.
Basically, this is a proposal to unleash [constructive] chaos in the energy arena, by leaving traditional solutions, from coal-fired steam turbines to ordinary PV arrays and Windmills at the mercy of competition from perhaps 500 emerging technology alternatives. This will help the most advanced solar, wind, and biomass innovations to rise to the surface, where they may most effectively compete with fossil power, but will also highlight novel alternatives far beyond them.
The 100 sought indie producers would each be facilitated with:
- A HDDV-3001 Digital Video Camera, empressed with the “We Can Solve It” logo, together with multiple SD Memory Cards, spare Batteries, portable lighting, and a distinctive equipment Bag, Visor, and Badge.
- A 30 day Greyhound “Discovery Pass”, allowing unlimited travel within the U.S. and Canada, and/or Amtrak North American Railpass.
- Access to a ‘bank’ of Frequent Flyer Miles contributed by supporters (and airlines) for specific filming and interview opportunities.
- Prepaid Cards for minimal Food and Lodging (most lodging to be networked among supporters, i.e. “On couches”), and Cellular telecommunications services by a sponsoring brand provider (i.e. Virgin Mobile).
- Vlog highlights from all 100 producers would be edited for presentation in a nightly 60 minute digest, suitable for CurrenTv (and Lime, etc.) network presentation.
The objective to this coverage is to help engender the sense of urgency conveyed by the original Gore Challenge, and to maintain that sense of urgency over the 10 year life of the campaign. It is proposed that a portion of the advertising and investment results of the initiative be reinvested to perpetuate this project for at least the first three of the ten years of the Challenge, as technology will continue to advance during the decade. Each such advance, and every new technology which is entrepreneured during the term, make achieving the goal all that much more likely.
The new SVP 3001 Camera, with high resolution, digital image stabilization and low light capabilities for less than $100 (street price) is what makes possible a distributed network of indie producers having an aggregate creative power greater than has ever been known before. By marshaling this on behalf of ACP, we can dramatically accelerate the transfer of technology from the entrepreneurs who originate it, to the utilities and developers that must adopt it. Should we fail to do so, opponents will defeat the Challenge by propagating the “Its Impossible” or “It Costs Too Much” meme and mindset; which are untenable to those who know the technology.
The complete project entails the following
- Selection of the 100 best indie producers, each tasked to find five (5) “Solutions”..
- Direction of their talents to the best identified technology sources, and help to them in finding others. Each producer would be given one of his five targets as a “lead”, with the responsibility to find four more.
- Creating a viral, “time sensitive” zen to the project in which a growing public viewer base becomes actively involved in the search and in rooting for specific solutions, in an interactive ideas market, and, indeed, in the stocks of the companies bringing such solutions to the forefront.
This project will inevitably become the focal nexus for the investment of angel and institutional venture capital into energy related technology ventures. This is necessary and to be expected; it will be how ACP retains ownership of the issue over the tumultuous decade over which environmental energy issues ensue.
It is probable that the new camera, in the wake of YouTube (and its video aggregation imitators) and UStream and ConnecTV is a milestone in changing the game in information distribution. Previously,’ low- end’ (Previously,’ low- end’ (<$100) consumer video cameras were limited to resolution under 640x480, and/or frame speeds of under 30 fps. Breaking through this barrier in price/performance brings a whole new dimension to indie (and user-sourced) video production. The “Wecansolveit” campaign can harness this technological advance to further its purposes.
In summary, the project would borrow $250,000 to deploy a national network of video sources, aggressively aggregating energy solutions to a central database. This database will facilitate B2B ecommerce in advanced energy solutions, tied in with existing vehicles like pathnet.org and toolbase.org. With the stakes as they are, it is difficult to see how any campaign based on “turn down the thermostat” conservation logic can succeed to meet the Gore Climate Challenge. On the other hand, exotic, speculative research is not needed either. This all boils down to making the [now] existing technologies more broadly available and acceptable.
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