entire generation in front of us
renewable energy energy efficiency and
the storage of that energy represents
much more than just the clean energy
future it’s also the key to unlocking
the potential of our planet it all
starts here the Sun powers our daily
lives in the form of fossil fuel
hydrocarbons formed over millions of
years of life on this planet
all of it created by the Sun the wide
majority of the energy we use today and
our daily lives has originated from the
Sun whether it be in our gas tank the
electricity we use in our homes and
businesses or the heat that we use to
keep ourselves warm it’s all come from
one place this is our most simple truth
the Sun our star is our original source
of energy today we tap into that star
using a variety of technological methods
mining for coal here’s a mountaintop in
Austria drilling for oil is it the oil
fields in Bakersfield California and
drilling for natural gas and more
recently fracking for natural gas now
fossil fuels are the remnants of
millions of years of photosynthesis on
this planet when we burn them we’re
utilizing the energy that the Sun
delivered to this planet at that time
but we’re also releasing the co2 that
those organisms absorb we’ve also
figured out nuclear which to be fair is
a clean energy and very powerful energy
source
now nucular has a lot of potential for
our planet and there are a lot of people
working on new ways of tapping into
nuclear power but it’s very expensive a
lot of time and a lot of energy goes
into building a nuclear power plant and
we have to keep in mind that there are
risks we’ve seen problems that
occurred over the course of time Shara
noble Three Mile Island and more
recently Fukushima the Japanese are
spending billions of dollars cleaning
this up they’ve got 40 years of work to
go and who can forget this image this is
burned in our minds this is the
Deepwater Horizon spill from 2010 a very
traumatic event for the planet it took
months to clean this up John Muir sums
it up with this quote when one tugs at a
single thing in nature he finds it
attached to the rest of the world as
long as we are mining and extracting
energy resources from below our feet
utilizing what’s been built here over
millions of years we will always be
disrupting something else in our
environment in the only possible way
that humanity can somewhat avoid this is
by tapping directly into our star solar
power represents an energy resource that
does not need to be mine and it has a
few billion years to go over the course
of one year the Sun delivers 8.2 million
quads of energy to our planet presently
across all of humanity across all
resources we’re using 400 quads the Sun
definitely has a potential to power all
of our planet it’s not a big majority of
it the only problem is exactly what we
see here in this picture as the sun goes
down energy generation stops and that is
a real problem and that is exactly the
reason that fossil fuels have been so
powerful for us we can mine fossil fuels
in one place move them to where we need
them and use them on demand you can’t do
that really with solar power in a big
way yet which is why we still have this
these our fossil fuel gas coal power
central power generation plants this is
the largest contributor to co2 and co2
in our atmosphere now to be fair
centralized electricity like this has
literally gotten us to where we are
today it’s enabled humanity
to evolve to innovate it’s powering this
room there are things that we have
benefited from in terms of fossil fuels
and the ability of this technology has
been very powerful in our lives to get
us where we are today problem is it’s
not sustainable in fact just this year
we’ve crossed over 400 parts per million
co2 levels in the atmosphere the last
time the planet was at 400 parts per
million humans did not exist and we can
tell temperature is changing NASA told
us last October was the hottest October
ever followed by the hottest November
ever then followed by the hottest
December ever and this same streak has
continued for all of 2016 the wide
majority the scientific community now
supports the theory based on evidence
from multiple sources that humans are
contributing to the climate crisis that
we’re looking at right now and fossil
fuel consumption is the primary culprit
so how come we’re not all just jumping
up out of our seats going to do
something about this even I work in the
industry and I myself have kind of an
unemotional response an uncertainty
about what to think about these facts
and studies have shown that the
abstractness of this issue and the
thought that it’s distant and it’s not
our problem today lead us to kind of
diffuse the responsibility among the
crowd and we’re really left with the
dilemma of what are we supposed to do
about this what kind of control do we
really have I think what really starts
where it really starts is that our
awareness of our energy use is very low
for example kWh what does it mean
kilowatt hour is the metric by which our
electric utilities charge us for our
electric use do we really understand
what that means
do any of us really have a feel for how
many kilowatt hours were using in a
month or over the course of a year no
and the fact is that energy in its
current form just works you know we flip
the light switch lights come on we go to
the gas station fill up with gas we get
to where we’re going energy works I
think what really needs to happen here
is we need to demand transparency we
need to demand transparency from the
people the businesses that are
developing energy resources that we are
then tapping into because as of right
now we have little choice what sits at
the end of these transmission lines do
we really understand where the energy is
coming from most of us don’t where’s the
energy coming from the power the lights
in this room there’s a missing link here
every single day we turn on the lights
but the awareness of where that energy
is coming from is very low we need to
demand something like this everybody
knows what this is the Nutrition Facts
label and this has been very powerful
for Humanity we can now make a choice in
the grocery store which item we’re gonna
pick based on what’s better for us we
need this same kind of idea for energy
we see it now in the products that we
buy when we go shopping for appliances
TVs even our car we get data that helps
us make the most efficient choice and
this is again been very powerful in
helping to reduce our energy consumption
but what we don’t yet have is something
that tells us exactly where our
electricity is coming from I really
think that this is what we need
something to the effect of a utility
electric electricity Facts label
something that defines exactly what
we’re paying that makes it very clear to
us what the fixed costs are and that
also calls out what the utilities
investment is in renewables specifically
solar wind tell us exactly where you’re
investing your
and to be fair a lot of utilities do
publish this information if I went out
to a website I could dig in a couple of
PDFs and probably find the information
I’m looking for
but we’re not going to do that consumers
want it easy we need it on the side of
the box this kind of label needs to be
on everyone’s electricity bill every
single month and let’s start from there
everybody can build an awareness of
where we’re starting from and then
people who feel really compelled to push
the industry forward will feel like they
have the information to do so and then
as a society we can all drive toward
more clean renewable energy fortunately
there are a lot of players already
investing in this business it’s believed
that energy will be the next large
industry to be disrupted Cisco Microsoft
Apple all of these companies big tech
companies they’re investing millions of
dollars of research into energy business
into the energy business and it’s
already turned into products that you
and I can pick off the shelf for our
homes and our businesses it’ll help us
save energy
here’s a few examples everybody knows
what these lights look like fluorescent
lights exist in our churches our
businesses our schools they represent
approximately 15% of all energy consumed
across the planet these are the largest
lighting products the most quantity is
set as seen right here in fluorescent
technology today developed by
manufacturers in the LED industry have
come out with a product that reduces
that fluorescent lamp by 50% and just
recently retail pricing can be found
under $10 this is a really compelling
product switch for one of the largest
opportunities across the planet let me
just show you the numbers so you can
understand them when we go from a 32
watt fluorescent lamp to 15 watts
converted to kilowatts and
multiplied by 12 and 365 which 12 hours
a day 365 days a year which is common in
a commercial application we’re gonna
save 74 kilowatt hours a year multiplied
by a common energy cost seen here for
example 12 cents in the Midwest you’re
gonna save eight dollars and 88 cents
per tube now utility companies are also
driven by state regulation that put
utility rebates and incentives into the
market to drive businesses to make these
changes
on average the incentive for these tubes
six dollars there is no reason that
every small business and every
commercial entity in America shouldn’t
be looking at this right now it’s an
immediate investment that they can make
that provides a payback of as little as
12 months it’s really powerful stuff and
there are a few more examples just like
it
outdoor pole lighting you see these
every time you go anywhere they’re in
parking lots they’re on your streets
most of them are using metal halide and
high-pressure sodium lighting this is
like a supercharged incandescent lamp
400 watts in most cases producing a lot
of heat
now they do produce a lot of light too
which is why they’re so you know they’re
everywhere
but LED today can do the same amount of
light output 60 percent less energy
really powerful stuff the numbers again
look great
126 dollars annually per lamp per
fixture again utilities are supporting
this transition now even in our homes we
can make a change
something simple 60 watt incandescent
replaced by a 9 watt LED will produce
the savings of six dollars and sixty
cents per lamp you can go out today and
fight these LED lamps for less than five
dollars with utility incentives as low
as a dollar if you haven’t already
converted to LED please go ahead and do
it now there’s also some other powerful
changes happening in the industry that
want to tell you about the price of
solar power and the price of modules per
watt has reached 30 cents at a wholesale
number this is an incredible decline
this has really enabled the industry to
move really quickly in the installation
of solar the only thing really holding
back solar in many cases is state
regulation that limits a homeowner or a
business being able to reap the full
benefit this last summer Willy Street
co-op here in Madison had a new LED
system installed in their store and a
solar system installed on the roof but
it wasn’t invested in by Willy Street
co-op or the building owner it was
invested in by a third party somebody by
the name of Don wicker a local Madison
energy guru who wanted to invest his
money in something other than the stock
market he partnered with legacy solar
co-op and came up with an investment
that pays him back like a bond over time
this is a real investment that he was
able to make with his money that
otherwise would have gone into the stock
market we need to develop a marketplace
that enables businesses with open
rooftops and investors with free cash to
match up and do this kind of thing this
is really where we need to head there’s
one more really big catalyst coming
Tesla is building the world’s largest
battery factory right now in Nevada when
it’s completed at the end of next year
it will have doubled the worldwide
production of batteries this is really
powerful because if you remember storage
is the missing link that’s really what
solar and renewables do not have that
fossil fuels can accomplish and just
last night Solar City and Tesla revealed
their solar roof when you think about
going solar right now you need to think
about your
in the future you won’t have a roof your
solar will become integrated it will be
your roof this is a really exciting
technological breakthrough it is really
dependent on good messaging though
recently I use the website called energy
sage and this was the message I was
delivered now I totally understand the
dollar savings number that is something
I can get but when I start looking at
the trees message two thousand and two
hundred sixty three trees planted what
does that mean those trees are not going
to get planted whose planting those
trees and then two hundred and twelve
thousand miles not driven what like what
a waste of space that’s not relevant to
me as a homeowner it’s not something
that’s going to get me to move forward
it’s certainly not something that’s
gonna get me to share this message out
messaging is key we need to frame this
as an investment nest is another example
every month I get this email from nest
nest is trying to get me to
conceptualize a ridiculously high number
of kilowatt hours saved nest has a
beautiful product but this messaging
needs to be tied in to my actual
experience and given me reason to share
it with my neighbors and friends that’s
the kind of thing that helps energy
efficiency spread we’re starting from a
really low awareness of where we use or
how we use energy where it’s coming from
and really what the costs are associated
with it I really believe that that
transparency coming from our energy
providers is key to the future here and
that we can really do some amazing
things together the cool thing about it
is that the investments made in
efficiency and renewables the savings
coming from those can be reinvested into
even more efficiency and storage and
renewables that’s really powerful when
you think about it over the over the
course of the entire planet on average
here in America we spent $3,000 per
person on energy some cases up to 5,000
dollars just imagine if that money could
be redeployed
into education the arts job training all
sorts of cool things that we could be
doing with this money that right now
it’s just kind of floating away there’s
a lot of power here and it is a positive
feedback loop that we need to fuel so I
would like to invite all of us to devise
our own clean energy investment and
figure out what we can do to make an
impact here in the future thank you [Applause]