When Pigs Can Fly! Some speeches you just have to love for their absurdist qualities.  What could have possibly been a mundane speech by an Assistant Secretary of Energy was turned into a 45 minute exercise in surrealism in front of an audience of 600 venture capitalists from Silicon Valley.  The Asst. Secretary went a long way towards livening up a post lunch doldrum in the schedule with his colorful description of the current state of the CleanTechnology industry.   Many listeners found it bizarre and amusing, others just walked out in bewilderment. Overall it did not make the second in command of a major government department who seemed to believe he was speaking to an audience of the converted, look very good.  After the first five minutes comments at our table ranged from 'this man is just smart enough to be dangerous' to 'whichever Administration takes office next should sack him immediately.'  There was a complete lack of stated policy in the the odd jumble of words, concepts and metaphors that came out.   As source material for a Terry Gilliam  movie it could not have been better.   For a roomful of relatively hard bitten Silicon Valley VC's, not the right audience for an evolved dark comedy play leaking out of the energy departments collective unconscious.
Something Smells FunnyAfter an introduction which eulogised  Lee Raymond, former Chairman of Exxon as 'a great apostle of the climate change discussion'  the Asst. Secretary  went on to explain that 'demand for oil will continue to outstrip supply'   leading to as the Dallas Fed Chairman had said the previous day to 'oil prices in excess of $300 a barrel by 2015.'    Scary stuff which was then described as 'a great opportunity for everyone in this room.'  That certainly could be construed as true, in a way.  But a  description of Bush administration policy which started out with the line 'when is a lame duck not a lame duck' and then jumped to  a reference that the National Governors Association had declared 'Red, White & Blue' the new Green began to provoke odd looks from the attendees.  The Asst. Secretary then made the jump to China where he spoke about his first trip to the Shenzhen special economic zone when it 'was a dirty little place' and his recent visit when it 'had blossomed into a dirty big place, showing the world that Chinese Capitalism is a new model for the future.'
Brave New ModelThis started to be a bit much, one of my neighbors leaned over and eloquently commented 'he either wields the subtle knife of caustic wit or suffers from a terrifyingly large disconnect from observable reality.'  Climate changed then metastasized 'into the war on terror that was before the war on terror' creating the need for 'Apollo like mandates to get back to the moon of energy.'  'We can,' as the Secretary then said, 'Drive this Science all the way back to Kansas because this is the time of good ideas whose time has come.''Disconnect?'  Another gentleman from San Jose commented.  'I would say schizophrenia is a better description.'  'Naw' someone else piped up, 'this is the Wizard of Oz meets  K-Street speech, wait'll he pulls a white rabbit out of his ass thats the finale.'Continuing on the Secretary  invoked the phrase 'phasing out Edison by getting rid of the light bulb and coming up with a new zero emission strategy for home appliances.'  I thought cars emitted more CO2 than dishwashers but they were never mentioned.  We were told that Bali had also 'nailed down the post 2012 world.'  I couldn't help wondering which world this guy was talking about as he looked forward to the next annual 'Big Bang Conference' in Copenhagen.   A place where in the US's  view 'Every Country gets to decide its own problem.'   One translation of that could be 'If we don't like it we won't do it' which was pretty much the pre Bali state of Kyoto.  The Energy Under Secretary also proposed a 'US sponsored CleanTech Fund to accelerate the commercialization of CleanTechnology.'  In theory this sounds good but no numbers were mentioned (e.g. Singapore's Cleantech development fund is allocating $14 Billion over 2 years to for education, incubators, matching funds and satellite university campuses) or details given.  
Cushy Job if You Can Get itWhat was interesting came next, and reveals much about this administration's view of capitalism: 'If you want to do well in the Government's new Manhattan-like program for Cleantech innovation you had better participate in ESCOPs.'  This was emphasized 3 times  to a crowd that probably got it the first time.   An ESCOP is an 'Energy Saving Contract Procurement'  it seems to be descended from a predecessor instrument called an ESCO.  It is bureaucrat-ese for being 'on board with the government' for 'future contracts' and apparently has something to do with being in the right place to take advantage of the huge windfalls that will be associated with the auction of carbon offsets after one of the pending pieces of cap & trade legislation passes and for letting of new 'energy efficient contracts' across the board.  Definitely something to look out for if you are at the governments feeding trough or have just been bailed out from a subprime debacle.  For closing I agree with the Asst. Secretary that we 'have never been up a mountain this big before'   and that the future is definitely too important ' to leave to bumper sticker diplomacy' and  'if we continue on this path we will lay a big fat federal goose egg.' 
A Bleak ViewAbout this time the remaining two people at our table decided it was time to leave, none of us could take it any longer. 'We've gone from 'When is a lame duck not a lame duck,' to big fat Federal goose eggs.' said one, the other said 'It all sounds like Tofurkey to me and time to get out of here.'  That pretty much sums up the reaction of the entrepreneurs and investors who are expected to create a new 'CleanTech' economy to the current U.S. Administration's energy policy Except for one last comment overheard in the lobby: 'not much we can use coming out of Washington these days is there.' Believe it or not? This could be the state of an energy policy somewhere in our World today!

The groundwater table in Beijing drops a half-meter per day. China and India have to import grain because there is not enough water for crop cultivation. In the grain fields of Punjab agriculturists have to drill 270 meters into the earth in order to find water – ten years ago it was only 90 meters. These numbers clearly demonstrate the decrease in water resources. Water, like oil, is a non-regenerative element of life. How long humankind will have petroleum at its disposal is estimated at a maximum of 135 years. Such estimations for water can only be provisional since daily water use depends on consumer habits and the rate of population growth. The average person uses around 50 liters per day for drinking and personal hygiene; add to that around 8000 liters of water needed for the manufacture of his or her daily food. Enormous amounts of water are necessary for the production of biofuel. One liter of ethanol requires approximately 4500 liters of water. That makes production expensive and leads to increasing prices for staple foods. The price for one ton of corn (maize) has already risen from 128 to 135 dollars. Agriculture is the leading water consumer. It uses about 90 percent of the freshwater, but does not use it efficiently enough. In poorer, mostly warmer countries the water flows through aboveground channels. The result: Much too much water evaporates. Access to water is a human right. It is now regulated by law in South Africa that every person has the right to 25 liters of water per day free of charge. Whoever needs more must pay for it.