San Jose: Hub for a green-tech gold rush?
q&a SAN JOSE, Calif.--Could the self-proclaimed "capital of Silicon Valley" become the world's center for clean-tech innovation?
Mayor Chuck Reed unveiled a 15-year plan in October to "green" San Jose. Of the city-greening road maps from mayors around the nation, his is among the most ambitious. Reed wants the city's 974,000 souls to get all electricity from renewable sources by 2022 (affording five more years than former Vice President Al Gore's similar yet scoffed-at challenge for the nation). And Reed aims to add 25,000 green jobs, keep all waste out of landfills, and renovate 50 million square feet of office space to green standards.
Scroll down for a short video of the interview.
CNET sat down with Reed last week at his office, which towers 18 stories above city hall, to learn about early progress toward greening the 10th-largest U.S. city, which sits in a state with the world's 10th-largest economy.
Mayor Chuck Reed hopes the world will look to San Jose first for innovation in clean tech.
(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)Q: What progress has been made so far with your Green Vision goals?
Reed: We have 15 years. They're going very well, as we have a lot of private sector interest and buy-in from the public, and in terms of the clean-tech jobs that have already been generated.
We're already starting to see the fruits of that as solar companies are expanding in San Jose, moving to San Jose. I've been meeting with Silicon Valley CEOs to make sure that if they're expanding, that it's in San Jose.
We want to make sure that, as with NanoSolar, SoloPower, Stion, SVTC, and Underwriters Laboratories, that we're getting those opportunities. This stuff happens rapidly and if you're not paying attention, people will pick up and move around the world. We're talking to other solar companies now.
That part is going very well. The industry is still doing well, notwithstanding the uncertainty of the solar tax credit that Congress is not yet able to pass...
The job creation side of it, I think, will be one of the easier goals. If you do the math, with less than 1 percent of the world energy market growing at 30 percent per year. You can grow at 30 percent for many, many years, in a market that is measured in trillions. That's pretty exciting. If we can just capture the market opportunity here, we'll have 25,000 tech jobs relatively early.
What are some benefits you're able to offer to companies to keep them here, especially given the uncertainty of the renewable energy tax credits?
Reed: First of all, they want to be here. This is Silicon Valley, innovation capital of the world. It comes with a built-in bias. What we can do as a city is to assure (companies) that when they decide to grow, move, or expand, that we can do it in a time frame that works with whatever they need, that our permit processing, our approvement permits, our industrial tools inspection program, all those things will happen on their time frame, quickly, with limited bureaucratic hassle.
We also have available millions of empty square feet left over from the (dot-com) boom and bust. Because we have a lot of real estate available, we're still competitive in a world market on real estate in ways that we are not very competitive, say, in labor costs.
Aren't real estate costs relatively high here?
Reed: Actually, in a world market, we're substantially cheaper than other places in the world, in Europe and Asia. The places we're competing with for innovation centers, real estate isn't cheap but it's modestly priced. That's a plus. Companies have to deal with headaches of doing business in California. It's not cheap to manufacture anything here. We're probably at a 40 percent disadvantage to some of the competing states on the costs of manufacturing and who knows what it is to other places in the world.
But we're talking about companies where the labor cost is a relatively small part of their manufacturing process. So our thin-film solar printing solar guys, NanoSolar and SoloPower, for example, are actually creating manufacturing jobs here. We want to be close in that distance from innovation to production to be short. They want to be here, and their labor costs are not so much a part of their total costs.
(Due to the soft dollar), exporting has been good for companies that are in the export business.
If you look at Germany, for instance, being the world's solar capital, how can San Jose and the United States overall work to beat them and other regions that may already be ahead of the game?
Reed: They're certainly ahead of us on market size and what they've done, but where we are the best in the world is in innovation. There are tremendous opportunities on conservation and innovation in the production of energy to bring the costs down.
Unfortunately, we've given them a head start, so we have to make up some ground. This problem with the solar tax credit in Congress is not helpful. We're counting on the magic of Silicon Valley. Venture capital people are doing the same thing, pouring money into it.
What do you think will happen with the tax credits?
Reed: I believe they will be extended. Both houses of Congress have voted to pass them, in different forms, unfortunately. It's just not gonna happen soon enough. We already have companies laying people off because you just can't guarantee at least on the larger commercial installations that they'll be installed and operational by the end of the year.
Worst-case scenario if it doesn't happen?
Reed: If it doesn't happen, our installation companies, and the market, will stall, especially on the residential. There's no doubt about that. The manufacturers will discontinue charging ahead because they're selling to Japan, Germany, and Spain as well as the U.S. market.
I don't know how long it'll stall the market...In part, it depends on the innovation and how we bring the costs down.
What do you anticipate will happen with the coming administration in Washington and how do you hope the new president will help to support your goals in
green tech?
Reed: The campaigns of both the candidates sort of look like they're in the same place in clean tech. Both of them understand the power that clean tech can feed to the U.S. economy. Whichever person wins, we're going to have some of the same kinds of policy changes made from the current administration. I think you'll see it in a cap-and-trade system.
It's all very general and far out there in the future. It's hard to sort out where it might go, when you get down having to make budgetary decisions on things like renewable energy tax credits and how do you pay for them, and what do you do with oil? That's part of the fight. The solar industry and wind industry have had to take on big oil and the entrenched way of doing things.
That hasn't always been the case with Silicon Valley. A lot of the innovation here has been created with new products, new markets that weren't having to take on an industry to move ahead. Did the Internet have to take on television and radio? Not really.
There's this incredible infrastructure built up around petroleum, and we've got to rebuild a completely different infrastructure and spend a lot of money to implement wind and solar. When it gets down to the tough decisions about where do you spend the money and use the tax credits, there may be differences between (John) McCain and (Barack) Obama. So far, both of them look very promising.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called you the "green mayor." What kind of support do you see from his administration if clean tech is to continue charging ahead in California?
Reed: The governor has been a leader on this. A.B. 32 greenhouse gas legislation and his million solar roofs program are leading the way. We've said we're going to do 100,000 of his million solar roofs here. We're tagging onto that and state tax credits.
We're working together with his staff on economic development--and on things like, can we get (electric sports car maker) Tesla (Motors) to locate here in San Jose?
Are other companies on your wish list to be located here?
Reed: All solar companies. There are several others we're talking to, but I can't disclose who they are. Any solar company that needs to expand is a solar company we want to talk to.
Many regional leaders and business leaders say that in the past decade or so, they've filled a gap that has been left by Washington in terms of leadership in renewable energy and the clean-tech sector in general. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has played a visible role. How do you see your role and the role of other mayors changing, perhaps, again with a new administration? Will your work be easier, harder?
Reed: I think our role in San Jose is to do research and development work necessary to demonstrate to the world that you can do these green things when you don't have money. Almost all cities are in some sort of budget difficulty, it seems, on a permanent basis.
While we have these big, bold goals, we don't have a big pot of money. We're figuring out how to do it on other people's money. As we figure that out to make it easier for all these companies, that's what we're going to share and demonstrate to other mayors and cities. As they say in Silicon Valley, invent what you have to and copy the rest.
We've had good support from the current administration, from the Department of Energy. We're a Solar America city. We have a small project, the Electronic Transportation Development Center, a small grant from the Department of Commerce.
With this new industry, clean tech, with solar and wind, there are a lot of bureaucratic and legal hurdles, so we have bills going through state legislature that make it possible for us to try these things, like our plug-in hybrid stations that we want put on our light poles, the development agreement we have with Coulomb, there are some bureaucratic hurdles we have to go through.
What are some hurdles?
Reed: Every light is not metered, so we pay a per-unit to PG&E. If we change the nature of the streetlights, we have to negotiate a new per-unit price.
There are restrictions on what we can do with electricity in terms of reselling it. Are we selling it to Coulomb, to the end user? Can we do either of those? Who pays for it and how does it get built? That's what we'll do in this two-year contract.
Once we've got the package solved, we can give it to every other city and say, "You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Here's the wheel," just as they've done in Berkeley with their program trying to make it possible for financing districts for solar.
What do you think about Project Better Place--now called Better Place--which is trying to establish infrastructure for electric cars, plug-ins, in a different way, with battery-charging and swapping stations? Mayor Gavin Newsom has expressed a wish for San Francisco to be the first to try out that infrastructure model.
Reed: One of the things I've learned is that government needs to be technology neutral and facilitate this. Exactly how we'll do with electric cars, I don't have an opinion. If it means swapping batteries is the most cost-effective way, let's do it. It really depends on where battery technology goes. What does it cost? That solves one of the problems when you run out of juice, but a hybrid also solves that problem.
What kind of car do you drive?
Reed: I have a Prius. I got it April 1. It drives like a car. Nothing amazing about it other than it gets 44 miles per gallon. It's a car, folks, you'll like it. More head room and leg room.
As for potentially having cleaner cars for government employees, how do you see that working out?
Reed: One of our goals is to convert our entire fleet. About a third of our fleet includes everything from CNG (compressed natural gas) to biodiesel to hybrids. As we roll over old vehicles into new vehicles, we're moving in that direction so that all of them will be converted. We do operate a CNG station at the airport. We're working on our taxi fleet to get them converted to CNG. We're getting hybrids. I don't know if we have anybody running on french fry grease.
Do you foresee electricity becoming the next dominant "fuel?"
Reed: We hope so. You could make a compelling case that is the best way to get off of petroleum, to convert these vehicles to electricity. We're gonna have this hybrid bridge for quite a while. There's certainly a large market for people who drive less than 40 miles per day.
What do you think for the potential of bike rental stations or electric bike rentals? A company called Intrago is testing this. It's kind of like in Paris where you can rent a manual bicycle, only these are electric. Do you see something like that working in San Jose?
Reed: I can see how that would work on a corporate campus or a campus where people can pick up a bike. If you can ride the train and then have a bike available, it certainly makes it a lot more feasible for people to ride the train or bus.
One area of the clean-tech sector is in toxic clean-up and bioremediation. Is that something you'd like the region to focus on, given that there's been pollution over the years from semiconductor manufacturing?
Reed: That's not one of our big goals. Most of the remediation and clean-up work here in the Valley is behind us. The real money that drives that kind of thing has already been spent. Lots of places are still under remediation, but it's all very passive and systems are in place.
We certainly have nanotechnology companies and biotech companies that might be doing something in those areas but as a growing market, I just don't think it's there. Thankfully, I think that era is behind us, I hope. Nationally the money that's being spent on clean-up has shrunk.
Solar is a big focus but how might wind and other renewables play a part?
Reed: We have companies in our incubator spaces that are into wind.
The other thing that's interesting is that, OK, people think it's about solar and wind. But it's also about energy conservation, and efficiency is by far the most fruitful area in the short run.
One of my favorite examples is a controller. Fairchild Semiconductor, one of the oldest companies in the Valley, is in the energy conservation business. This controller will save 40 percent of the electricity for an electric motor...Everybody's in the energy conservation business, it seems. It's another whole other opportunity for technology.
And, of course, we have the world's most efficient solar cell from SunPower, and then Bloom Energy with a fuel cell. Now the interesting thing about both of these products? These are both Mars project spin-offs from NASA, which is very handy to have here locally.
Whether fuel cells will win, or solar will win--or will it be a combination of fuel cells and solar? Because you know, you can run the fuel cell backwards. With solar, you can change the direction of the flow into the fuel cell. Does that solve the storage problem when solar doesn't work in the middle of the night? Maybe. Smarter people than me will figure it out.
Do you anticipate big deals with utilities for big solar plants?
Reed: Probably not. We don't have the territory here. We also don't have as much heat and sun as in the desert. Transmission is a difficult problem. We are working on some transactions here for a demonstration project for large-scale solar. Whether or not we'll be able to put it together, I don't know.
The economy is still growing in clean tech. We're not shrinking...Companies are making money and the market is really good.
Even with a recession?
Reed: Even with a recession. They're hiring. There are jobs.
And in terms of green jobs and environmental justice, what kinds of jobs do you foresee expanding? At what levels? How do you create a lasting base of jobs that aren't just one-time deals, like installing solar panels? What do you do once all the solar panels are up?
Reed: One of the things that has us excited are the opportunity for green-collar jobs...We're gonna have many, many, many, many years for just solar installation alone...Our manufacturing jobs, like the thin-film printing places, are putting in real manufacturing jobs, green collar jobs. They're not just hiring scientists and engineers; they're manufacturing jobs.
And anything having to do with our solar industry here means those installations have to happen here. You can't outsource them. So there are a lot of opportunities for the kind of jobs that we lost when the boom went bust, getting some of those back.
What lessons might the clean-tech sector and leaders like yourself learn from the dot-com bust? Some see a green-tech bubble.
Reed: Well, these are real companies with real products. That's a big difference.
http://www.ledcity.org/
There is one thing to get off the grid, another thing to be more efficient with resources. It's like an overwieght person who is only dieting. It is also important to exercise and proper rest.
Riding the Solar buzz is great. I applaud it, however, when it comes to solar, we forget the more cost-effect methods, such as solar-heating for water.
San Jose also has great wind as the marine layer moves in and out of the bay. It would be great to change the city lights first (reduce the city's electricity bill), then add solar and wid to government buildings.
With all the money we would save, we could provide city workers with a much needed raise to compensate for the rising price of food and fuel. :-D
and virtually uselesss - wind and PV solar, for exampe, cannot meet and peak demand periods, despite their exorbitant costs.
As long as they are allowed to infect the grid, San Jose will never have 100% carbon free power. We really could care less whether the power is "renewable" (a mostly meaningless , and always irrelevant term) . Only solar thermal will qualify as a more or less practical alternative power source - the rest of the world will pass "innovative" Silicon Valley by (which uses primitive wind power, which hasn't improved in 1000 years!!!) via nuclear power, probably PBMR in the near future, as Westinghouse and Mitsubishi are poised to launch this revolutionary technology in the first commercial plant next Spring. I laugh out loud at boastful Californians, who produce 650 pounds of carbon with every megawatthour they generate, whicle nuclear rich Vermont trounces them with a mere 5 pounds (!!!) per MwHr.
Only California, whose environmentalists blocked nuclear power for thirty years and caused global warming, is dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. California already rapes it citizens with the highest electric rates in the country. Now they are planning to increase those even more using obsolete alternative energy technologies
to boot. I love watching arrogant Californians fall on their collective *****. By the way, over 400 nuclear plants are planned or under construction thruout the world. They will be even more compettitve than ever with their cheap electricity, while California sinks even further into its economc abyss.
First of all, California doesn't have the highest electricity rates in the nation. That distinction belongs to Hawaii.
In fact, California's average residential rate is slightly lower than Vermont's:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
As for Vermont being nuclear rich, it does indeed have one, single-reactor, working nuclear power station. The Vermont Yankee plant has a net capacity of a bit more than 500 MW.
California has two - Diablo Canyon and San Onofre. Each plant has two reactors, with a combined output of a bit more than 4,300 MW.
As for poor, old, primitive wind, just check out what companies such as Vestas, Gamesa et al are doing over in Europe and the way U.S. companies are finally playing catch-up.
Oh, and as for Mitsubishi, just try Google for news their growing solar business.
First of all, California doesn't have the highest electricity rates in the nation. That distinction belongs to Hawaii.
In fact, California's average residential rate is slightly lower than Vermont's:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
As for Vermont being nuclear rich, it does indeed have one, single-reactor, working nuclear power station. The Vermont Yankee plant has a net capacity of a bit more than 500 MW.
California has two - Diablo Canyon and San Onofre. Each plant has two reactors, with a combined output of a bit more than 4,300 MW.
As for poor, old, primitive wind, just check out what companies such as Vestas, Gamesa et al are doing over in Europe and the way U.S. companies are finally playing catch-up.
Oh, and as for Mitsubishi, just try Google for news their growing solar business.
NHTSA Hearings 8/4/08
I just returned from the NHTSA hearings held today (August 4, 2008) in Washington D.C., regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for NEW Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFÉ) for years 2011-2015.
IMPORTANT FACTS: You will not believe what you are reading.
1) The 414 pages DEIS analysis was based on an average gasoline price of USD $2.16/gallon for 2011-2020. A calculation approved by the NHTSA administrators/managers. Would you believe it???????????
2) The new CAFÉ rules were also established, negotiated and pre-approved by the NHTSA?s management along with the influence of domestic automotive companies and their lobbyists. We have now established fuel standards for 2011-2020 that are presently met throughout the rest of the Western world (see elow)
As one guest speaker said today ?are they on another planet??
NHTSA ?NEW Fuel Standards? (2011-2015) decision:
Automobiles are to achieve 31.2 mpg by 2011 and 35.7 mpg by 2015. Light trucks are to achieve 25 mpg by 2011, and 28.6 mpg by 2015.
The NTHSA is also setting a goal of 35 mpg on average for 2020.
America needs to know:
The European Union is currently establishing standards, with a goal of reaching 48.9 miles per gallon for new passenger vehicles as early as 2012. The current EU standard already requires more than 40 miles per gallon about 15% higher than the U.S. goal set for 12 years from now.
Japan currently has a standard of about 40 miles per gallon. Japan aims to further improve fuel efficiency by 17% by 2015, reaching 46.9 miles per gallon.
China has a current average of slightly under 35 miles per gallon. Chinese fuel standards are on target to reach the government?s goal of 35.8 miles per gallon by 2009. China will not only meet, but exceed, the goal just established by the United States for 2020 ? more than a full decade earlier.
Australia is targeting 34.4 miles per gallon by 2010.
Canada is targeting 34.1 miles per gallon by 2010.
Under the current administration, purchasing an electric vehicle is becoming more of a necessity rather than an alternative.
BG Automotive Group, Ltd.
http://www.BGelectricCars.com
- by Cheah K A August 4, 2008 7:47 PM PDT
- Dear Sir,
- Reply to this comment
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(7 Comments)To run your cars using electricity will only release Greenhouse gases to pollute the atmosphere with no advantage to the present equilibrium from your Conventional Power Stations unless your Power Stations are run by Solar Energy or Wind Turbine or HHO deriving from Water.
We fully support the views that Water will one day replace Fossil Oil as the fuel to run all internal combustion engines (for both types whether petrol or diesel) by Water derivatives HHO made on demand basis, despite suppression from vested interests.
Water(The Rocket Fuel) Miracle -The Truly Divine Gift of Enormous Power Storage & Reserve
Every Country in the World has a great responsibility to control the further release & emission of Greenhouse Gases from Fossil Oil/Fuels and to look for the really clean & cheap alternative fuels to replace Petrol/Diesel/Coal/Natural Gas in order to reduce the incidences of Global Warming that will cause hardships & deaths in many Natural Disasters cause by adversed climatic changes.
As there were successful inventors like pioneer Stanley Meyer who was murdered in 1998 and his technologies were immediately suppressed, he had more than 40 patents in his name in this water fracturing technologies and many successful ones like him were also murdered by vested interests to suppress this technologies. Yull Brown & Daniel Dingel whose proven technologies were also suppressed and now one budding Dennis Klein in USA whose water splitting technologies are proven but pending patent approvals by the Patents & Trademarks Office of USA. All these murders and suppressions were made out of greed of the vested interests in Fossil Oils and Fuels.
Nikola Tesla, the greatest inventor of the last century, had also successfully invented the technologies to generate power without fuel to run Power Stations and Cars but his technologies also were suppressed immediately after his death by the US Government and that his technologies were kept classified top secret until today.
The impending decision to increase the prices of Petroleum Products, like Petrol, Diesel and Kerosene and also Natural Gas is inevitable although some are nett Producer and Exporter of Fossil Oil and the profits only goes to Oil Cartels to further boost their earning without considering the hardship the ordinary local poor citizens who have to face in their daily lives barely earning just enough from hand to mouth but have the small luxury of owning a small second hand car to brave the elements in scorching sunshine and getting wet in the rain to go to work at their own time without having to rush joining with the crowds of using the local inefficient Bus Transportation System in waiting for many hours for a Bus to arrive in slightly remote areas. All these will change with the increase in prices of the Petroleum Products. There is only one way right now that will maintain the momentum despite the Impending Increases in all Prices come June or July 2008:-
These same principles will be applicable to Power Stations which will save most of the money from fuel costs and they can now reduce their present tariffs by 80% with hydrogen & oxygen (HHO) gases extracted & derived from Water as their final fuel source. Quote: "Obviously Water holds a better promise as the Alternative Fuel:-In our school days we have learnt in Physics that it possible to split water into its basic atomic components with the application of electricity but even great scientists overlooked the fact that Water is by itself the better, more efficient and safer storage of power, the promise water has as an alternative fuel has been unlimited using a simple process of using electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen "on demand basis" only when required, where the hydrogen & oxygen gases' power to drive a car engine will also recharge the battery (minimum 9 volts) that originally did the electrolysis splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen and also the hydrogen will be only produced when needed just before starting the engine and the electrolysis process will be switched-off when switching off the engine at the same time. This hydrogen & oxygen (HHO) gases-run engines will run cars, SUVs, trucks, buses, trains and airplanes & power stations & as Rocket's Fuel as well so cheaply and successfully that no other alternative fuels would ever be needed"
Please watch the "youtube" clip on what the HHO gases can do and in the Same Principles, this could also be applicable to run Power Stations as well instead to replace Natural Gas or other fuels:- Conspiracy has caused the Water Car Patented Pioneer Inventor to be murdered by selfish Oil Companies and vested interests to suppress his most advanced technologies:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yRn4IAsrU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhXrvCCILw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rb_rDkwGnU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stApCmxYEM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h75_TGiwg78&feature=related
9v battery will create hydrogen from water: reader comment from Zupek
Posted on: June 4, 2007, 9:47 AM PDT
Story: Alternative fuel for thought
Go home, fill a small dish with water. Go get a NEW and FULLY CHARGE 9v battery. Put one wire to the positive and put it in the water and do the same for the negative.
Those bubbles you see in the water are HYDROGEN and OXYGEN. and it took hardly any power...
Water- the divine gift has the power to give life to all beings on earth or this universe will also give power to all common internal combustion engines in the simple process of electrolysis to produce the fuels in the form of hydrogen & oxygen gases HHO that we would ever need to run everything on earth in including power stations & rockets
Daniel Dingel's Car running on 100% HHO fractured from Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhXrvCCILw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ONP-kOMXU&feature=related
- Hide quoted text -
WATER CAN RUN CAR INSTEAD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMWd6T_hbhQ
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&search_query=hho%20hydrogen%20alternative%20fuel%20water%20power%20magdrive&v=yMWd6T_hbhQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6YYUOx6fBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWDZ0RGWBUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9-mMV6dt2o
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&search_query=magnum%20magdrive%20hho%20gens%20fuel%20water%20hydrogen&v=r9Osmwd-o7I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kOzQXcYpSc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis#Electrolysis_of_water
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&search_query=alien%20ufo%20bush%20boylan%20ship%20disc%20recycle%20clean%20planet%20green&v=IXzK-zrWDgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb8wIqECwGE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMxAbqnLw-o&mode=related&search=
K A Cheah
Tel: +60162663613