It is also worth noting how the outcome of the fluorescent conversion project Auden proposed to his management might have been different if Aspen were in a state with electric utility profits based upon efficiency instead of revenue. California has such a program, and its utilities could well have provided the money for such a retrofit. Combining all the savings at their millions of customers, such retrofits would be viewed at the Public Utilities Commission as the equivalent of building a new power plant, but one that produces electricity at $0.01 or $0.02 per kWh instead of $0.05 to $0.15 per kWh. That’s a good deal for the ratepayers, and so the utility would be rewarded with higher profits and the ratepayer with rates not rising and the planet with temperatures rising less.

Peter A. Darbee Chairman, President & CEO, PG&E Corporation, was one of a bunch of good speakers. He described all the things they’re doing to help save energy, and was quite explicit: do not serious energy savings until state PUCs decouple profits and amount of energy sold in ways akin to California’s… He was well-informed and quite articulate.

http://www.pge.com/

[Note: while Dow Jones publishes the Wall Street Journal, this conference, as well as WSJ news, have nothing to do with WSJ OpEd, whose opinions on this topic are different.
The whole Journal Report section today was overall pretty good, on energy and environment.]

Diane is a very thoughtful person who definitely works on this(from personal experience). She noted cooperation with PGE, which actually gives rebates for computer server virtualization (what VMware does), because it saves energy, and also described what Vmware did in building their new campus.

However, the broader story was the need for both government and business to do their parts.

This was a much better use of the column inches than printing “Global warming is a hoax” letters to editor!

I suggested to him that they change how they did things. Instead of sending two or more to a location, send one person who electronically copies all the paper work and then have that person do all the non-paperwork stuff. The electronically copied stuff could be sent to the office and then have most of the work done at the home office instead of at the location.

My friend thought about it for 5 minutes and said it would reduce travel in the office by ½ to 2/3rds. He is not going to suggest doing it that way because he makes a lot more money in a department that has high turnover because of all the travel. They have to pay him more to keep some experience in the department. He doesn’t mind it as much, but most everybody else only lasts a couple of years.

He’s got super duper flyer miles.

My own experience with companies is that I was put on some trips that could have been done as well with some creative thinking and phone calls.

Not to say that all business travel is that way, but we all get into habits, humans and companies run by humans.

‘In private, he pushed REC brokers for hard evidence that new wind capacity was being built. Their evasiveness gnawed at him. He asked veterans in the renewable energy field whether his marketing message was legitimate. “They laughed at me,” he says.’

“Eric, one of the better 5-star hoteliers in the country, has pointed out that many high-end guests simply won’t tolerate fluorescent lighting. Equally bad, such lighting might even jeopardize a hotel’s 5 star rating.”

Well Eric, you could just consider those ratings a 5 point suppository. But keep this kind of information coming. It is delightful to see how the other .01% live. Examples like these are invaluable. We never have enough rope.

Best, Jeff Maus