SOLAR TODAY - July/August 2008

Efficiency is cheaper than renewable energy,
which is cheaper than coal.

were enabled by half a century of government support, mostly through the defense department, to accelerate computer and Internet technologies? Our dirty energy market is due to a legacy of entrenched government rules, regulations, policies and lavish subsidies all designed for last century’s industrial revolution. Transforming to a green energy market must include superseding these ingrained legacies with new rules, regs and incentives that unleash the market for climate-friendly green electrons. Google’s web tools, and more pointedly, Google grant support for citizen advocacy groups, can play instrumental roles in accelerating adoption of two of the most critically important state utility regulatory changes. First is decoupling utility revenues from profits, and aligning their financial interests with customers’ by rewarding them for capturing lower cost, on-site efficiency gains. California led this sine qua non market-based innovation more than two decades ago. Utilities were rewarded for reducing customers’ energy bills through delivery of energy services by means of a myriad of efficiency improvements.

Even though utility sales declined, the utility earnings increased. And even though rates increased to recoup utilities’ lost earnings, energy bills declined. Second is implementing state and regional carbon cap-and-auc-tions with “customer-facing” allocations, like those California, Oregon and the New England states are adopting. Federal legislation is moving in just the opposite direction with “polluter-facing” allocations. Customer-facing focuses first and foremost on efficiency savings that reduce energy bills and emissions, while polluter-facing [constitutes] a massive windfall to coal polluters and 20 to 50 percent customer rate hikes. This is a web map mash-up tool of immense importance and value awaiting support by a company like Google.”

K.H., California: “What’s wrong with those Googlers? They should be spawning use of Web 2.0 tools for networking citizens to collaborate in visualizing and calculating greening of the economy. I’m passionately for PHEVs and connecting vehicles to the grid — Go, Google! — but hey, Google can

also support the even cheaper, faster, cleaner and safer mobility option: Complete-the-Streets ( completestreets.org) and Rails-to-Trails ( railtrails.org). Safe pathways for biking and walking are why Scandinavian citizens travel half their annual miles via bicycle. A bike gets 2,000 miles per gallon equivalent; and the average trip for 80 percent of Americans is a few miles at a time. Polls find that half of Americans would walk and bike to work if safe bikeways were conveniently integrated with transit-accessible routes.”

Purposely or not, Google has triggered high expectations among its admirers. A recent assessment ranked Google first with a global brand value of more than $66 billion, nearly double its value in the 2006 ranking. If the maniacal coders at Google respond to these suggestions, Google is positioned to help citizens tackle climate change the smart way: É<RE<C. ●

Michael Totten is chief advisor on climate, water and ecosystem services at Conservation International. Contact him at m.totten@ conservation.org.

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