The more things change, the more they stay the same...
That's the theme of my initial plunge into renewables. Typically, this phrase is a cliched downer, but in my case it's actually grounds for optimism.
Here's a little more insight on what one 52-year-old journalist -- that's me (a tagline that, admittedly, screams "extinction") -- is encountering as I attempt to transform myself for employment in the renewables field.
First off, the renewables field is alot like other fields in terms of the skills and roles in need. Your current skills -- make that MY current skills -- may well translate to the fields opening up in renewables. At first I had envisioned a wholesale transformation. I'm not talking botox and facelift, despite free advice from friends. I'm talking about a man who has made his living dancing with words for 27 years and has come to realize that words, with all their wondrous ability to express nuances of thought and feeling, may be slipping towards a reduction to mere data. Poets may well be the ones to fight this tooth-and-nail while journalists just jump to the next lily pad.
I'd spent years at small newspapers and large, reported the dirt on public officials and sent them packing. Wrote about education, crime, courts, cops, agriculture, roads, coal, you name it. Wrote a ton of feature articles on mushing, climbing, the desert backcountry, blah blah. Did technical journalism in drinking water research and wireless technologies. Did some speech-writing at CSU. Wrote a handful of books on early mountain ascents in Colorado, on Spanish colonial exploration here, on American popular music.
But with print-based journalism dying, the Web-based journalism business model not yet clear, and your friend and mine, Apple's Steve Jobs, declaring that "no one reads anymore" (Steve, spend a few months on a desert island with nothing but a half-full iPod Nano and you'll come begging for Thomas Friedman's latest book), I thought I'd better envision tools I could use other than my curiosity and my keyboard.
Initially, I thought "solar installer," but hey, I'm 52 and despite a degree of comfort in a climbing harness -- mostly rappelling down, not climbing up -- I could see that lasting an entire week or two. Then I thought "project manager," because I've led crews of more than a dozen in intensive, deadline-driven publishing operations. And I'm a master of logistics when it comes to getting lost in the backcountry for, say, 10-12 days at a shot with fresh food and cold beer guaranteed until the very last day. But would I be just as enthused to apply these skills to ordering the proper number of solar panel mounting racks and ensuring that crews arrived on time at a job? And did I really want to hitch my wagon to one company, likely a small one, where my world might shrink to a tangible horizon, however noble the cause?
How about "solar designer," where I could match up a residence's or business' locale, orientation, roof pitch and energy needs and strategy with a PV system that would do the job? Getting warmer, but still, the freedom to write about broad issues and specific examples, about multi-national manufacturers and mom-and-pop design/install firms, about the tangible technology and the geo-political issues involved, is pretty heady stuff -- even when no one is hiring geniuses such as me.
Did I mention fear? I have a kinship with the auto workers in Detroit in that it is indeed difficult to envision completely chucking all of one's hard-earned work experience to head out onto the savannah with nothing more than a loincloth and a Bowie knife. On the other hand, I don't write for love anymore and the possibilities needed a closer look. So I've been delving to see what publications -- print or Web or otherwise -- might exist and what related roles might present themselves. That's where I am now, scouring the planet for a role reporting and writing on renewable technology and their universe of issues. Perhaps a role akin to the traditional journalist will develop, or possibly as a market analyst serving institutional investors could be worthy of pursuit. Of course, the higher up the food chain you go, the narrower the focus on large, public companies, which threatens to overshadow the intense activity at the start-up level.
So I'm still delving and circumstances are, shall we say, lighting a fire under my feet.
Returning to my broader point, any role you can conceive in the renewables field will require extensive knowledge of the technology, the terminology, the public policy issues and the nitty gritty of one home's, one business', one family's energy needs at a time. The basics should serve anyone pursuing nearly any role.
So in taking the plunge, I'm grabbing every opportunity to talk to people in the field and get up-to-speed. That's why I'm pursuing the Sustainable Practices certificate at CU's Continuing Education and Professional Development department. And getting around to local events and gatherings.
Last Friday's tour of NREL's facilities (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) is a case in point. The tour revealed the NREL campus in a positive ferment as new buildings are under construction, there's a scramble to hire needed personnel and the mood seemed to be upbeat. And why not? NREL's funding has been a political football over the decades as presidential administrations have declared energy independence critical to our national future, or buried that notion to serve the entrenched fossil fuels industry.
As our tour guide, Carol Tombari (author of Power of the People: America's New Electricity Choices and winner of this year's Larson-Notari Award bestowed by the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES), noted, your friend and mine, Pres. Nixon, was first to articulate the goal of an energy-independent USA. (You know these are wild times when we harken back to the positives on the disgraced former president.) Pres. Carter pushed forward, only to have Pres. Reagan slash funding for NREL, then known as the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) and actually remove solar panels from the White House roof. Can you imagine anything more back-asswards? Much of the Reagan myth really seems to be based on his desire to turn back the clock to a just-as-mythical, oh-so-simple 1950s, before we understood that finite resources have finite futures. That's a political delusion we couldn't afford then, let alone now. But our country lost fully 30 years to that delusion and even today many people just don't get that America doesn't need to worship over-consumption and an obscene waste of resources. Okay, probably preaching to the choir here...
Anyway, say what you will about Pres. Obama's efforts to date, but he gets energy independence and its role in national security. Case in point: NREL does significant work for the Department of Defense. Armchair bloviators can stir lesser minds to poo-poo renewables, but the men and women charged with defending our country also get it. Progressives and the military coming together on renewable energy sounds to me like a matchup that reflects mainstreaming of this common sense concept that can save our country and give each citizen some leverage over an uncertain energy future and their personal financial picture.
Personally, I was heartened to hear our other NREL tour leader, Jim Bosch, note that more communicators will be needed to get the word out on NREL's mission and practical advances to garner the support that in turn will direct more resources to this national priority. NREL is all about applied renewable energy and energy efficiency, from the designs and operations of its buildings to the work taking place within. If you seek a palpable sense that our country once again is generally moving in the right direction, take an NREL tour. It only lasts 90 minutes and, frankly, I would have devoted a couple days to hearing more specifics.
Over the weekend, I also attended the CRES conference at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. Due to costs, I simply visited the public exhibition by perhaps two dozen vendors and nonprofits, from renewable energy financing to community colleges and their training courses, from solar roofing to research initiatives by, for instance, the Colorado School of Mines. On Sunday, the Smart Energy Living Alliance (SELA) sponsored some very inexpensive educational sessions ($10 each) and I chose three sessions: solar thermal and electric basics, residential energy efficiency and, naturally, "green jobs."
These sessions were fairly well-attended -- the lecture halls were just under half full, except for the green jobs presentation, in which I counted 64 people, not counting the two presenters. The bulk of the latter group was actively looking for work.
Briefly -- this blog may have become a slog -- Daimon Vilppu of Simply Efficient gave a rundown on the three basic types of solar thermal equipment. He noted that the flat plate collector for residential hot water is the most common technology and application, while also urging homeowners to perform or pay for an energy audit in preparation for adding renewables to their mix. For those of you who bought your home with solar thermal panels and plumbing already installed, Vilppu advised getting the glycol tested to ensure that it is non-toxic and fresh; it needs changing every few years.
Lauren Coyne, education and community outreach coordinator for Namaste Solar Electric, clearly demonstrated with worldwide sunshine charts that Germany -- the most advanced nation in solar deployment -- does poorly in terms of sunshine, but is simply ahead in the use of financial incentives via government policy. Coyne ran through solar PV technology basics, including system design and the manufacturers used by Namaste. Apropos of her point on Germany's public policy advances, she urged everyone in the room to notify their Congressional representation that solar incentives should be consistent and aggressive to help the industry help the renewable cause. She also made a point about Namaste that Dan Yechout, sales director at the company, made to me earlier: Namaste guarantees the electricity production they calculate for a system they install for ten years and they monitor your system via a Web connection to your residential Wi-Fi. Either they correct deficiencies or they pay you cash for the difference. Seems to reflect confidence in their products and installation procedures.
The energy efficiency (EE) session echoed many things I'd heard in my CU class on "Energy Solutions for Existing Homes" (detailed in a previous blog) and it's kinda fun the way the EE crowd likes to play the role of the "un-sexy" to, say, solar's gleaming roof panels. Anyone who has donned a respirator, grabbed a caulking gun and headed up into their attic crawlspace will smile knowingly. The numbers currently favor the EE industry, which in 2007 was a $1 trillion industry in the U.S., about 20 times the size of renewables. Of course, they go hand-in-hand. Matt Thornberry, deputy director at SELA, delivered the basics, noting that residential energy conservation is "the sleeping giant" -- a fact echoed by others. In fact, just tightening up your home could save the U.S. from building and operating more fossil-fuel-driven power plants. Rich Moore, principal at Invisible Energy, gave a bit of diagnostic razzle-dazzle on the nuances.
Maureen McIntyre, whose McIntyre Communications designed and edited the ASES' recently released "Green Jobs" report (free pdf on the ASES Website), suggested that green job seekers inventory their skills, volunteer and join trade groups and advocacy groups to immerse themselves, network and help out. McIntyre noted that "green jobs" -- like "green" anything -- is an ill-defined and often abused term. For those interested in mastering currently available federal, state and local incentives, tax credits, etc., she suggested www.dsireusa.org.
Georgia Howard from the Denver office of economic develoopment noted that Colorado ranks fifth in the nation in the amount of private venture capital directed at renewable energy and provided resource lists of companies, organizations and job growth in various specific sectors.
And then I was off to Red Rocks to hear Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal, whose current tour benefits a number of progressive organizations. I joked in my last blog about how rocking out at Red Rocks could serve as a renewable energy source. But these two musicians have indeed managed to direct some fan energy and dollars into good causes, perhaps a model for those of us in the audience.
Here's a little more insight on what one 52-year-old journalist -- that's me (a tagline that, admittedly, screams "extinction") -- is encountering as I attempt to transform myself for employment in the renewables field.
First off, the renewables field is alot like other fields in terms of the skills and roles in need. Your current skills -- make that MY current skills -- may well translate to the fields opening up in renewables. At first I had envisioned a wholesale transformation. I'm not talking botox and facelift, despite free advice from friends. I'm talking about a man who has made his living dancing with words for 27 years and has come to realize that words, with all their wondrous ability to express nuances of thought and feeling, may be slipping towards a reduction to mere data. Poets may well be the ones to fight this tooth-and-nail while journalists just jump to the next lily pad.
I'd spent years at small newspapers and large, reported the dirt on public officials and sent them packing. Wrote about education, crime, courts, cops, agriculture, roads, coal, you name it. Wrote a ton of feature articles on mushing, climbing, the desert backcountry, blah blah. Did technical journalism in drinking water research and wireless technologies. Did some speech-writing at CSU. Wrote a handful of books on early mountain ascents in Colorado, on Spanish colonial exploration here, on American popular music.
But with print-based journalism dying, the Web-based journalism business model not yet clear, and your friend and mine, Apple's Steve Jobs, declaring that "no one reads anymore" (Steve, spend a few months on a desert island with nothing but a half-full iPod Nano and you'll come begging for Thomas Friedman's latest book), I thought I'd better envision tools I could use other than my curiosity and my keyboard.
Initially, I thought "solar installer," but hey, I'm 52 and despite a degree of comfort in a climbing harness -- mostly rappelling down, not climbing up -- I could see that lasting an entire week or two. Then I thought "project manager," because I've led crews of more than a dozen in intensive, deadline-driven publishing operations. And I'm a master of logistics when it comes to getting lost in the backcountry for, say, 10-12 days at a shot with fresh food and cold beer guaranteed until the very last day. But would I be just as enthused to apply these skills to ordering the proper number of solar panel mounting racks and ensuring that crews arrived on time at a job? And did I really want to hitch my wagon to one company, likely a small one, where my world might shrink to a tangible horizon, however noble the cause?
How about "solar designer," where I could match up a residence's or business' locale, orientation, roof pitch and energy needs and strategy with a PV system that would do the job? Getting warmer, but still, the freedom to write about broad issues and specific examples, about multi-national manufacturers and mom-and-pop design/install firms, about the tangible technology and the geo-political issues involved, is pretty heady stuff -- even when no one is hiring geniuses such as me.
Did I mention fear? I have a kinship with the auto workers in Detroit in that it is indeed difficult to envision completely chucking all of one's hard-earned work experience to head out onto the savannah with nothing more than a loincloth and a Bowie knife. On the other hand, I don't write for love anymore and the possibilities needed a closer look. So I've been delving to see what publications -- print or Web or otherwise -- might exist and what related roles might present themselves. That's where I am now, scouring the planet for a role reporting and writing on renewable technology and their universe of issues. Perhaps a role akin to the traditional journalist will develop, or possibly as a market analyst serving institutional investors could be worthy of pursuit. Of course, the higher up the food chain you go, the narrower the focus on large, public companies, which threatens to overshadow the intense activity at the start-up level.
So I'm still delving and circumstances are, shall we say, lighting a fire under my feet.
Returning to my broader point, any role you can conceive in the renewables field will require extensive knowledge of the technology, the terminology, the public policy issues and the nitty gritty of one home's, one business', one family's energy needs at a time. The basics should serve anyone pursuing nearly any role.
So in taking the plunge, I'm grabbing every opportunity to talk to people in the field and get up-to-speed. That's why I'm pursuing the Sustainable Practices certificate at CU's Continuing Education and Professional Development department. And getting around to local events and gatherings.
Last Friday's tour of NREL's facilities (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) is a case in point. The tour revealed the NREL campus in a positive ferment as new buildings are under construction, there's a scramble to hire needed personnel and the mood seemed to be upbeat. And why not? NREL's funding has been a political football over the decades as presidential administrations have declared energy independence critical to our national future, or buried that notion to serve the entrenched fossil fuels industry.
As our tour guide, Carol Tombari (author of Power of the People: America's New Electricity Choices and winner of this year's Larson-Notari Award bestowed by the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES), noted, your friend and mine, Pres. Nixon, was first to articulate the goal of an energy-independent USA. (You know these are wild times when we harken back to the positives on the disgraced former president.) Pres. Carter pushed forward, only to have Pres. Reagan slash funding for NREL, then known as the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) and actually remove solar panels from the White House roof. Can you imagine anything more back-asswards? Much of the Reagan myth really seems to be based on his desire to turn back the clock to a just-as-mythical, oh-so-simple 1950s, before we understood that finite resources have finite futures. That's a political delusion we couldn't afford then, let alone now. But our country lost fully 30 years to that delusion and even today many people just don't get that America doesn't need to worship over-consumption and an obscene waste of resources. Okay, probably preaching to the choir here...
Anyway, say what you will about Pres. Obama's efforts to date, but he gets energy independence and its role in national security. Case in point: NREL does significant work for the Department of Defense. Armchair bloviators can stir lesser minds to poo-poo renewables, but the men and women charged with defending our country also get it. Progressives and the military coming together on renewable energy sounds to me like a matchup that reflects mainstreaming of this common sense concept that can save our country and give each citizen some leverage over an uncertain energy future and their personal financial picture.
Personally, I was heartened to hear our other NREL tour leader, Jim Bosch, note that more communicators will be needed to get the word out on NREL's mission and practical advances to garner the support that in turn will direct more resources to this national priority. NREL is all about applied renewable energy and energy efficiency, from the designs and operations of its buildings to the work taking place within. If you seek a palpable sense that our country once again is generally moving in the right direction, take an NREL tour. It only lasts 90 minutes and, frankly, I would have devoted a couple days to hearing more specifics.
Over the weekend, I also attended the CRES conference at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. Due to costs, I simply visited the public exhibition by perhaps two dozen vendors and nonprofits, from renewable energy financing to community colleges and their training courses, from solar roofing to research initiatives by, for instance, the Colorado School of Mines. On Sunday, the Smart Energy Living Alliance (SELA) sponsored some very inexpensive educational sessions ($10 each) and I chose three sessions: solar thermal and electric basics, residential energy efficiency and, naturally, "green jobs."
These sessions were fairly well-attended -- the lecture halls were just under half full, except for the green jobs presentation, in which I counted 64 people, not counting the two presenters. The bulk of the latter group was actively looking for work.
Briefly -- this blog may have become a slog -- Daimon Vilppu of Simply Efficient gave a rundown on the three basic types of solar thermal equipment. He noted that the flat plate collector for residential hot water is the most common technology and application, while also urging homeowners to perform or pay for an energy audit in preparation for adding renewables to their mix. For those of you who bought your home with solar thermal panels and plumbing already installed, Vilppu advised getting the glycol tested to ensure that it is non-toxic and fresh; it needs changing every few years.
Lauren Coyne, education and community outreach coordinator for Namaste Solar Electric, clearly demonstrated with worldwide sunshine charts that Germany -- the most advanced nation in solar deployment -- does poorly in terms of sunshine, but is simply ahead in the use of financial incentives via government policy. Coyne ran through solar PV technology basics, including system design and the manufacturers used by Namaste. Apropos of her point on Germany's public policy advances, she urged everyone in the room to notify their Congressional representation that solar incentives should be consistent and aggressive to help the industry help the renewable cause. She also made a point about Namaste that Dan Yechout, sales director at the company, made to me earlier: Namaste guarantees the electricity production they calculate for a system they install for ten years and they monitor your system via a Web connection to your residential Wi-Fi. Either they correct deficiencies or they pay you cash for the difference. Seems to reflect confidence in their products and installation procedures.
The energy efficiency (EE) session echoed many things I'd heard in my CU class on "Energy Solutions for Existing Homes" (detailed in a previous blog) and it's kinda fun the way the EE crowd likes to play the role of the "un-sexy" to, say, solar's gleaming roof panels. Anyone who has donned a respirator, grabbed a caulking gun and headed up into their attic crawlspace will smile knowingly. The numbers currently favor the EE industry, which in 2007 was a $1 trillion industry in the U.S., about 20 times the size of renewables. Of course, they go hand-in-hand. Matt Thornberry, deputy director at SELA, delivered the basics, noting that residential energy conservation is "the sleeping giant" -- a fact echoed by others. In fact, just tightening up your home could save the U.S. from building and operating more fossil-fuel-driven power plants. Rich Moore, principal at Invisible Energy, gave a bit of diagnostic razzle-dazzle on the nuances.
Maureen McIntyre, whose McIntyre Communications designed and edited the ASES' recently released "Green Jobs" report (free pdf on the ASES Website), suggested that green job seekers inventory their skills, volunteer and join trade groups and advocacy groups to immerse themselves, network and help out. McIntyre noted that "green jobs" -- like "green" anything -- is an ill-defined and often abused term. For those interested in mastering currently available federal, state and local incentives, tax credits, etc., she suggested www.dsireusa.org.
Georgia Howard from the Denver office of economic develoopment noted that Colorado ranks fifth in the nation in the amount of private venture capital directed at renewable energy and provided resource lists of companies, organizations and job growth in various specific sectors.
And then I was off to Red Rocks to hear Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal, whose current tour benefits a number of progressive organizations. I joked in my last blog about how rocking out at Red Rocks could serve as a renewable energy source. But these two musicians have indeed managed to direct some fan energy and dollars into good causes, perhaps a model for those of us in the audience.
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