The release of the new iPhone has brought a great deal of excitement, panic, impatience and now…lawsuits. The mobile giant has been caught off guard, for sure. One of their major bragging points has been that the antenna is built into the steal frame, giving it an even more sleek approach and style. The problem is that some people are complaining that the reception goes away, depending on how the device is held. Other people counter that the antenna sucked the same way with the iPhone 3G. Maybe 2 straight models with the same problem omits the lawsuit all-together? Instead of double jeopardy it’s something else. When I think of something clever I’ll tweet it.

The other big defense for Apple is that AT&T reception sucks. This is a tough defense for Apple though since they are tied into AT&T exclusively. Or should I say, they were tied in with AT&T exclusively. It was recently announced that come January 2011 Verizon would get to play the iPhone game. This is big news on many fronts, maybe even the lawsuit front. Questions about the stability of the iPhone 4 when these iPhone 4 repair guys did this drop test. What this proves is that when you double up the glass (now front and back) the glass will still shatter and probably at a faster rate. Immediately (just like previous models) people began breaking their iPhones. There have been other complaints, like a yellowing screen.

The reality is, in my estimation, …

In all sectors, the idea of economy, the idea of green business is becoming popular. Thanks to government tax credits, long term savings and good old fashioned guilt, our culture is slowly adapting. The idea of e-wast is new to some but it is one of the least talked about yet worrisome issues around. And oh yeah, it’s big business too.

From the smaller iphone repair guys to the big plants that are sprouting up everywhere, all raising awareness and providing solutions in their own way.

After about 20 years of solid growth during the electronic age, it only makes sense that people are profiting off of repairs of the good stuff, recycling of the bad. In a time when resources are slim, there is plenty of junk, so it’s a good thing dollar signs are imminent.

The business environment is one of the worst for e-waste abuse and some e-waste services are aware of this and are taking steps go around collecting e-waste from offices.

Check out this ewaste business run by George Lembo. It sounds pretty typical of the times. Someone lost their job and quickly they find a solution through trash. It really is a glorious thing.

California leads the way in e-wast management and the other states are doing their best to catch up. Lembo seems to be wanting to lead the way in Cali. It’s almost like he is helping out the community, when all he was really intending was helping out …

So I am looking at this report on green jobs

According to the report, renewable energy technologies provide three to six times as many jobs as equivalent investments in fossil fuels when manufacturing, installation, operation and maintenance jobs are taken into account.

This is marketing genius.  What this is telling me is that renewable energy technologies are 3 to 6 times more labor intensive - which from a macro perspective is not a great thing.  Where does that come from, are these renewable technologies three times harder to manufacture?  Three times more complex to install? Require three times the significant human input for operation or break down a lot?  Wait don’t answer that - I am not certain I want to know.

I would love to see more details on this topic.  If indeed these results are true we are either a.) spending too much emphasis on technologies which are flawed (but we can’t see that through the fog of government policy intervention that drives consumer choice), or b.) there is a lot of room for improvement in this industry in efficiencies regarding labor.

I suspect it is both - which creates two investment considerations.  The first what is the risks associated with companies that are in group ”a” - e.g., what happens to solar when tax subsidies cross break points, or wind tax breaks aren’t renewed (this was actually covered in a post here).  The second is where are the opportunities for the most improvement in group ”b” - what technologies have the chance to improve their labor …

Living in a time where energy conservation and sustainability have become an integral part of living, many cities and states are taking an active approach by updating older homes and buildings to suit the needs of achieving a healthy home and environment.

As a home owner, I have become very conscious about making sure my home is as sustainable and green as possible. Not only has it resulted in a reduction of annual energy costs and healthier living, it increase the value of your property.

Why Green?

The Green Economy Initiative is designed to assist governments in “greening” their economies by reshaping and refocusing policies, investments towards clean/renewable technologies, green transportation, waste management and green architecture.

“Greening the economy refers to the process of reconfiguring businesses and infrastructure to deliver better returns on natural, human and economic capital investments, while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions, extracting and using less natural resources, creating less waste and reducing social disparities.”

In a recent article published by Reuters, the green building movement has been steadily increasing. However, home owners feeling the financial crunch have been un-decided about going green because of fiscal reasons. It should be known that going green will be good on your wallet!

“The green movement is growing in the real estate world, but not without some growing pains caused by the credit crunch and the recession. The nation has a good opportunity to excel in this, said Vincent Cozzolino, of The Solar Energy Consortium, because it has the chance …

Pop quiz.  Looking forward 10 years, if you had to choose between two groups - Group 1: Investment bankers and GWB or Group 2: The NRDC and WWF - to guess which group’s actions will have had bigger positive impact on the course of environmental policy, cleantech and green living over that time - which group would you choose?  If you chose Group 2 - then you obviously don’t know a trick question when you see one.

I am dead serious…  this is not hyperbole.  I believe that when we look back 10 years from now we will see that the actions of the Bush Administration and Investment Bankers peddling mortgage backed securitized junk will have done more to help the cause of the green movement than armies of advocates, lawyers, non-profiteers, and career environmentalists have been able to do in decades of earnest, often unappreciated, toil in the name of the greater good.

That the result of Group 1’s actions in this instance were entirely unintentional side-effects of other more self-serving goals totally unrelated to the environment is irrelevant - results are what count.  And without these guys its highly unlikely that we would have the perfect storm of conditions that exist today allowing the fundemental systemic changes necessary for things such as alternative energy and other cleantech technologies to take root.

Ok, so what am I really talking about?  Well, if the bankers and Bush’s administration hadn’t hosed up the economy so badly (which at the core was a consumer driven growth cycle fueled by the housing boom that led to the financial crisis which …

I came across this piece at MIT Technology Review that highlighted how battery technology companies are poised to reap significant benefits of the federal stimulus package.  Obviously this is part and parcel with the scrambling going on to save the U.S. auto manufacturing industry (oh… if it were just that simple).  The bigger question is - why exactly is this a good bet?

Don’t get me wrong - I am all for breakthroughs in battery technology and energy storage.  Particularly for use in managing the power grid, but I think its telling that while funding for cleantech and green ideas has been exploding, capital has been somewhat slow to flow into battery technologies - which should be a warning sign to the government check signers.

I think part of the problem is highlighted right in the MIT piece - despite its rah rah tone.  Are there really these “economies of scale” that are touted out there for battery technologies?

Battery manufacturing is largely automated, so labor costs aren’t much of a concern, he says. Rather, the battery industry developed in Asia because countries there, particularly Japan, developed portable electronics and hybrid vehicles, creating a market for batteries.

Well if battery labor costs aren’t a concern in the battery construction process due to automation - then how exactly will increased manufacturing volume result in the 10x economy of scale that one will need to make batteries cost effective for autos?  Certainly there are some administrative and R&D costs that can be amortized across larger …

After raising long term crude oil price projections by 100% last week, the IEA lowered its 2009 per barrel projection for crude oil by nearly 30% yesterday.  Its not an enviable job to sort out the variables that go into oil price projections - but given the magnitude of the revisions we are seeing in these projections I have to wonder how effective the projection models are in dealing with the volatility that the market is showing?  What good model that results in a projection that changes by 30 to 100% on a yearly basis?  I have no idea as to how much this impacts the volatility of oil prices - but it can’t help.

Its evident that the current projection models are getting whipsawed by the changing economic projections as we have seen the global recession spread - but the conditions to ignite the recession have been in place for some time - so one has to wonder where the oil pricing models (particularly the long term ones) are missing the boat.

This volatility is not only causing trouble with the projections used by many to hedge oil bets, etc.  But its wrecking havoc with long term oil production planning as well.  Ideas that seemed good just 6 months ago are now getting shelved as prices and projections of prices are falling. 

Private oil companies are already reining in plans for investment-heavy expansion, in part because falling prices no longer justify the extra output, in part as a punt on further declines in project …

(continue reading)

BP and Berkeley (and the DOE) have teamed up to pour $500MM into research for biofuels.  There was a fluff piece on NPR today about that effort.  While on the surface it might be considered admirable that a big oil company would invest in our research of alternative fuel technologies - when you peel back the onion and really look at the deal - its a big giveaway to big oil wrapped in a public relations friendly package.  Basically they get all of the important benefits of private investment from research on this topic but have it subsidized by public monies.  As a Californian and taxpayer I really have to question the wisdom and equity of essentially giving taxpayer dollars to a private corporation in order to monopolize a public insitution on this topic - not to mention providing them a sweetheart deal to monetize any fruits of that research at our cost.  Research institutions exist to do research - when funded by public monies those efforts should be public available information.  Does a $500MM grant really offset what the State of California is giving BP in terms of access, infrastructure, prestige, etc.?

This deal is rife with problems.  BP has defacto control over the research agenda on both the public and private side of the lab.  BP gets to use the inventions created through this research free of charge.  Most concerning is that BP will be able to use its position to block usage of inventions coming out of lab staff (public employees I remind you) …