Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Task Teams get to Work at the Global Forum
The first full day of the Cornell Global Forum focused on the work of 11 task teams, covering topics such as water, sustainable materials, health, food and agriculture, renewable energy, and alternative fuels. Theteams spent a total of four hours together on Tuesday. In the morning, they were to address the question: "What does the Great Convergence mean to you and your business success in the coming decade?" The afternoon's outcome was difficult for most of the teams, for it required them to state a specific initiative to undertake now, to accelerate the rate of change toward sustainability.
I spent my day with the Alternative Fuels task team. Like other task teams, mine spent time discussing processes and systems, but it also got seriously down to the business of forming a plan to accelerate the rate of change in alternative fuels, specifically biofuels. Our work was aided by a great mix of delegates. From the finance realm, we had Paul Ferreri, who runs a clean-tech hedge fund; Martin Lagod, a venture capitalist investing in clean tech; Rajan Kundra runs a social venture fund, with investments primarily in India.
Two of our delegates are actively engaged in biofuel production and distribution on the ground in the developing world. Rod McLaughlin founded a biodiesel fuel company, informed by his solid background in auto manufacturing. Sagun Saxena founded a company, primarily operating in India, that converts tree-seed oil to fuel to run diesal engines, in a process that does not require the chemicals or equipment needed to produce biodiesel.
Larry Walker, a biofuels expert from the Cornell faculty, served as our technical expert. Among the value he brought to the endeavor was to gently remind the delegates throughout the dayt to consider the systems that would be affected and altered by whatever initiative we propose. Larry particularly held our feet to the fire on the topic of sustainable production of the raw product for biofuels: the base of the pyramid is not well served by energy initiatives that result in greater deforestation, increased degradation of crop soil, and conversion of food-growing lands to production of fuel plants, in a world that currently can't feed its population.
So is it hard to convert oil seeds, such as coconut, cotton, and those grown on the Jatropa tree to oil to fuel diesal engines, (which, in developing countries, are most heavily used to irrigate crops?) Does the process require complex technology, highly skilled technical specialists, and massive amounts of capital?
This task team agreed that the technology to create biofuels, while not in the currently sexy early-stage clean tech domain, is readily available and fairly in expensive. The group's final initiative and plan for roll out will not include a proposal for eye-popping new technology, but rather one to demonstrate in practice that a model for sustainable, finanacially viable biofuel production and distribution can be achieved. The financiers on the team think it can; so do the scientists, and the business development specialists.
Today, the team will nail down how.
I spent my day with the Alternative Fuels task team. Like other task teams, mine spent time discussing processes and systems, but it also got seriously down to the business of forming a plan to accelerate the rate of change in alternative fuels, specifically biofuels. Our work was aided by a great mix of delegates. From the finance realm, we had Paul Ferreri, who runs a clean-tech hedge fund; Martin Lagod, a venture capitalist investing in clean tech; Rajan Kundra runs a social venture fund, with investments primarily in India.
Two of our delegates are actively engaged in biofuel production and distribution on the ground in the developing world. Rod McLaughlin founded a biodiesel fuel company, informed by his solid background in auto manufacturing. Sagun Saxena founded a company, primarily operating in India, that converts tree-seed oil to fuel to run diesal engines, in a process that does not require the chemicals or equipment needed to produce biodiesel.
Larry Walker, a biofuels expert from the Cornell faculty, served as our technical expert. Among the value he brought to the endeavor was to gently remind the delegates throughout the dayt to consider the systems that would be affected and altered by whatever initiative we propose. Larry particularly held our feet to the fire on the topic of sustainable production of the raw product for biofuels: the base of the pyramid is not well served by energy initiatives that result in greater deforestation, increased degradation of crop soil, and conversion of food-growing lands to production of fuel plants, in a world that currently can't feed its population.
So is it hard to convert oil seeds, such as coconut, cotton, and those grown on the Jatropa tree to oil to fuel diesal engines, (which, in developing countries, are most heavily used to irrigate crops?) Does the process require complex technology, highly skilled technical specialists, and massive amounts of capital?
This task team agreed that the technology to create biofuels, while not in the currently sexy early-stage clean tech domain, is readily available and fairly in expensive. The group's final initiative and plan for roll out will not include a proposal for eye-popping new technology, but rather one to demonstrate in practice that a model for sustainable, finanacially viable biofuel production and distribution can be achieved. The financiers on the team think it can; so do the scientists, and the business development specialists.
Today, the team will nail down how.
# posted by Shannon Dortch @ 4:12 AM 
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