Making Money a Renewable Resource - How Peter Liu, a former oil industry engineer, stopped designing petrochemical plants and started the first green bank in the U.S.
By David Bank Ode Magazine December 2008
Several years ago, when the drips through our ceiling could no longer be ignored, we decided to install solar panels along with a new roof on our Berkeley, California, home. Then, when we needed a new car after our son arrived, we opted for a Toyota Prius.
We paid a premium for our little bit ofgreen chic. That is, the money saved on our monthly electricity bill and at the gas pump didn’t immediately justify the price of the not-yet-mainstream products. We figured the photovoltaic system wouldn’t save us money for at least a dozen years,and it may be at least half that long for the gas-electric hybrid to pay for itself with better gas mileage. “We’re counting on global instability and corporate malfeasance to makeour investments pay off,” we joked to friends. “And we havent been wrong yet.”
At about the same time, across the San Francisco Bay, Peter Liu was making a much bigger bet on the same trends, literally banking on the green economy. Liu, a chemical engineer by training, assembled a Who’s Who of Silicon Valley investors and others to put up just less than $25 million to open the first explicitly green bank in the U.S.
Since then, with a single branch and nearly no marketing, the New Resource Bank has attracted $166 million in deposits, including $10 million from the state of California. For individuals and institutions that have to bank somewhere, having ordinary savings and checking accounts in a bank that puts the money to work with loans to organic food producers, green developers and sustainable businesses has powerful appeal. As of June 30, deposits had more than doubled from a year earlier, while loans had nearly tripled, to $98 million.
“Green may be the best kind of bank to be in these economic conditions,” says Julius Genachowski, co-founder of the investment firm Rock Creek Ventures. He was one of New Resource Banks original organizers and came up with its name. “I think we were early in recognizing that a bank that focused on this market could also be a successful business.”
The promise of the green economy enabled Liu to raise an additional $14 million from investors this summer, despite the meltdown on Wall Street. New investors included Generation Investment Management LLP, the fund established by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore and his partner, David Blood (their moniker, “Blood and Gore,” is a good description of the financial markets). Triodos Bank in the Netherlands,one of the worlds first banks established specifically to finance sustainable businesses, increased its stake in New Resource Bank. The amount of new financing fell short of New Resource Banks targets, but nonetheless gave the bank room for growth in both deposits and loans.
These days, making loans to businesses like organic cheese-maker Cowgirl Creamery, and offering no money down financing to homeowners interested in putting solar systems on their roofs no longer seems risky compared to investments in, say, subprime mortgage backed securities.(New Resource Bank did recently announce its first bad investment, a $1.9 million residential construction loan.)
Still, in the financial ecosystem, banks like New Resource represent an evolutionary growth spurt. Socially responsible investments, now 10 percent of the market, primarily seek to avoid harmful practices. Green venture capitalists made a record $2 billion in equity investments during the second quarter of 2008, according to Cleantech Group, a San Francisco research consulting firm. That has created a boom (dare we say bubble?)in green technology startups. But scaling up the green economy also requires the kind of bread-and-butter credit traditionally provided by banks as business and construction loans or, say, financing for residential solar power systems that allow homeowners to pay a monthly installment. New Resource Bank is committed, as it says in its financial statements, to “financing efficient and sustainable resources in its community.”
Liu, now vice chairman at the bank he founded, insists the new market dynamics have reversed the historic trade-off between social benefits and financial returns. Now, sustainability is good business. When New Leaf Paper in San Francisco started to deliver 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper in 1998, for example, few paper mills had made sustainability a cornerstone oftheir business practices. With New Leaf growing 30 percent a year, competitors are starting to change their ways, says founder and chief executive Jeff Mendelsohn. New Resource Bank offered a slightly better interest rate than New Leafs previous bank on a $3.9 million line of credit, he says,which New Leaf uses to fund accounts receivable, inventory and other business needs. “They’ve been a good partner as we navigate this fast growth,” Mendelsohn says. “They invest their time and their financial skills. Its more than an arms length financial relationship.”
Paul Herman, founder of HIP Investor, a researcher and consultant for investors looking for socially responsible and sustainable business opportunities, says New Resource and a handful of other banks around the U.S. Green Bank in Texas, Home Savings Bank in Wisconsin and Charter Oak Bank in California, to name a few, fill a market niche for small green enterprises. “Access to capital allows the opportunity for those businesses to prove they can be profitable,” Herman says.
In this economy, a green bank provides a rare opportunity for depositors to leverage money to support their values with little risk, since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation now insures deposits up to $250,000. As a rule of thumb, New Resource, like other banks,is able to lend 10 times the amount of money it has on deposit, meaning a $100 deposit can enable a $1,000 loan to a green business. And since New Resource covers the ATM fees charged by other banks, depositors can get their money any time from any ATM.
Without a real marketing push, New Resource already has more than 1,000 depositors, including Ode. “We believe that we are evolving from what was yesterday a social movement into a market opportunity,” Liu told me in the banks only branch, a LEED certified green office in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. “That’s what we are engaged in a market expansion exercise.”
Peter Lius green education began at an oil company. He emigrated to the U.S. with his family from Taiwan when he was 12, settling in South Los Angeles. His father opened an electronics-supply store, where his son worked after school. Liu attended the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in chemical engineering, and went to work for Chevron oil company. “I was very practical minded and put personal economics first, he says. I took the biggest offer at the biggest company.”
As a process engineer at Chevrons petrochemical plants, Liu helped design sites that met California’s stricter environmental regulations, as well as lower-cost facilities that satisfied looser rules in Louisiana, Texas and other countries. “There are a lot of good people, great people, at Chevron, but external forces are really needed for advances to be made,” Liu says.
So Liu switched sides, joining California’s Air Resources Board and helped put into practice the states Clean Air Act. One object lesson: Executives at Chevron and other companies, who complained about proposed rules for clean gasoline, changed their tunes once the regulation was implemented. Ads trumpeted their products abilities to keep fuel lines clean and help cars run better. “It became a marketing advantage, not a requirement,” Liu says.
That experience led to a masters degree in public policy at Princeton University, and eventually into the banking world at Chase Manhattan Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston. The direct impetus for New Resource Bank came in 2004, when Liu, along with software entrepreneur Bob Epstein and several others, was asked by California’s treasurer at the time, Phil Angelides, to help develop a green strategy for the states two huge public pension funds, an initiative dubbed “The Green Wave.” Eventually, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) agreed to invest $1 billion in established companies that met environmental standards, and another $500 million in venture capital and private equity investments in “clean” technologies.
Liu says many of the entrepreneurs he met told him, “That’s all great, but the capital chain isn’t just about private equity. The real need for money is on the credit side.” In other words, in banking.
Liu and Epstein began shopping the concept for what they were calling “The Sustainable Bank.” One of their first meetings was with Peter Blom, CEO of Triodos Bank, established in the Netherlands in 1980, now with operations in the U.K., Spain, Belgium and Germany. Triodos had considered entering the U.S. market, but worried its model wouldn’t translate well.
Europeans were willing to accept slightly lower interest rates to realize social returns, Blom says; Americans,at least until recently, weren't. Likewise, Triodos was able to start in Europe with basic banking adding more services later. The U.S. market required a full menu from the start.
Blom was impressed by Lius research and analysis,and by his questions about Triodos operations. “He asked a couple of extra questions that were not so easy to get from the Internet,” Blom recalls. “We thought, ‘Why do it ourselves if there was such a good partner?’” New Resource Bank didn’t accept all the money Triodos principals wanted to put in; the initial round of financing exceeded the plan approved by bank regulators by 60 percent. Now, Triodos has a 10 percent stake.
Such interest from investors underscores what may be New Resource Banks greatest challenge, by now, everybody is going green. Some 60 banks worldwide have adopted the Equator Principles, setting out social and environmental guidelines for project financing. Citigroup vowed to provide $50 billion to environmental projects over the next decade, while Bank of America announced a $20 billion initiative to support sustainable businesses and turned its new 55-story, $1.2 billion Manhattan office into the worlds most eco friendly skyscraper.
Last year, when former U.S. President Bill Clinton launched a global energy efficiency building retrofit program, he quickly signed up five of the worlds largest banks, ABN AMRO, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and UBS, each committed to arranging $1 billion in financing for cities and building owners to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings. If the money comes through, that will double the worldwide retrofit market.
Such global-scale investments are necessary if the world is to reduce emissions 30Ã? gigatons by 2030, about half the projected output, if current trends continue, the radical step experts say is necessary to stabilize carbon dioxide levels and avoid catastrophic climate change. A few more solar rooftops and Prius drivers wont be nearly enough.
A cap on carbon output, along with a market for carbon trading, will drive a booming market for clean technology, generating billions of dollars for investments that, in theory, could meet much of that challenge. In practice, however, it will take more than money and technology to realize the potential of the green economy. Equally crucial is leadership to coordinate multiple players and diffuse new practises to homes and businesses. That’s where institutions like New Resource Bank come in.
The city of Berkeley, California, for example, said last year it would become the first urban center in the country to finance the upfront cost ofsolar installations for homeowners who agree to pay back loans over 20 years through assessments on their property tax bills. “The key to this entire program is to find a bank willing to provide the financing anticipated by the program,” city staff members wrote in a report.
Likewise, Milwaukee and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) are developing a plan to retrofit the citys building stock, an ambitious effort called Milwaukee Energy Efficiency, or Me2. Under the plan, $500 million in private financing would be repaid by building owners through monthly bills for the retrofit work, guaranteed to be below the cost of current energy bills.
“I have not found finance to be a problem, per se,” says Joel Rogers,the director of COWS and a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who hopes to launch a pilot program in January of 2009. What the banks want to see is a demonstration of this working. They don’t want to fund an experiment. “What they have all said is, If you can guarantee payments, by getting this on a utility bill, with a penalty for nonpayment, then I'll get you a very low cost of capital, below market rate. And I believe them.”
Liu says New Resource is committed to breaking down barriers and taking on such leadership. The banks solar-financing program packages government rebates, tax incentives and low-cost capital into 25-yearloans. Real estate developers who come in for financing can choose between two loans, one for conventional buildings and one for green construction, with a one-eighth percent discount and lower fees. For a $5 million loan, that could mean a savings of more than $60,000 over 10 years.
With the financial crisis exposing the perils of business as usual, Liu is looking for unconventional opportunities. “The hurt for just doing the conventional things is getting greater and greater,” he says. As the markets revive, “Green should be associated with better performance.”
That’s in line with the advice Peter Blom of Triodos offered Liu in their meetings. “You really need to be the crazy guy when others say, ‘This is green enough,’” he told Liu. “You have to go the extra mile.” Liu has already taken New Resource Bank that extra mile, and now he’s going further.
[David Bank, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is the editor of encore.org,a network for people who want “work that matters” in the second half of life.]
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
INCREDIBLE ANGRY MOBS - 'SCUSE ME - MOMS-TEA PARTY RALLY
The White House called in Swat Team to maintain order in this angry Tea Party protest in Quincy, Illinois. View the tape if you dare:
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
EPA Powers of Regulation
I get my information from many sources - newpaper articles, blogs, op-ed pieces, TV news shows, etc. Last night, April 25th, Lisa Jackson, director of the EPA, was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I watch this show when I see that he is having a guest I would like to hear more from. He is non-confrontational with the progressive guests, and sometimes they say things they ordinarily might not, perhaps because of the relaxed atmosphere. I wonder if Jon Stewart realizes how the progressives are using his show to advance their agenda?
When questioning her about the EPA and what they were working towards, she made a couple of statements that I find extremely telling and I intend to pursue the entire agenda.
The first thing she said was that they were working towards establishing a market price on carbon! My question is, who is going to be in charge of that - the Chicago Climate Exchange is my guess. We will see. I will keep researching this topic.
The second thing she said was that this was needed so that they can be ready to meet our commitments to the country and to the world! What commitments?
In 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) gave the EPA the right to regulate emissions on greenhouse gases. This is the whole purpose of the Cap and Trade legislation. The legislation is being held up in part because Congress wants to put some restrictions on the far-reaching power of the EPA, and have more power to legislate instead of the EPA being able to regulate without any congressional debate or for that matter without Congress at all!
I will continue to educate myself on the entire "carbon footprint" agenda. which appears to be a global initiative for redistributive wealth from wealthy countries to poorer countries.
I am beginning to feel that this is the purpose of my blog - to enlighten the country about the insidious nature of the administration and their plans to redistribute our wealth on a global scale.
When questioning her about the EPA and what they were working towards, she made a couple of statements that I find extremely telling and I intend to pursue the entire agenda.
The first thing she said was that they were working towards establishing a market price on carbon! My question is, who is going to be in charge of that - the Chicago Climate Exchange is my guess. We will see. I will keep researching this topic.
The second thing she said was that this was needed so that they can be ready to meet our commitments to the country and to the world! What commitments?
In 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) gave the EPA the right to regulate emissions on greenhouse gases. This is the whole purpose of the Cap and Trade legislation. The legislation is being held up in part because Congress wants to put some restrictions on the far-reaching power of the EPA, and have more power to legislate instead of the EPA being able to regulate without any congressional debate or for that matter without Congress at all!
I will continue to educate myself on the entire "carbon footprint" agenda. which appears to be a global initiative for redistributive wealth from wealthy countries to poorer countries.
I am beginning to feel that this is the purpose of my blog - to enlighten the country about the insidious nature of the administration and their plans to redistribute our wealth on a global scale.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Israel an Eco-Pioneer
WE MUST SUPPORT ISRAEL AT ALL COSTS. THE WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION IN THIS BESIEGED COUNTRY IS IRREPLACEABLE.
The first Better Place charging system became operational in February, 2010.
War-torn Israel has become an eco-pioneer.
It grows food in sand, powers homes from the sun and this year launches the world's finest city-wide electric car system. So how has war-torn Israel become such an eco-pioneer?
By the end of this year the world’s first all-electric car network will be up and running in one of the most unlikely settings. The cars built by Renault-Nissan need a network of re-charging points and battery changing stations and these are being set up in Denmark, Hawaii, California, Canada and Australia.
But the first place to host a national electric car network will be one that has almost permanently been at war with its neighbours since its inception. This is Israel, which invented the original technology and is home to Better Place, the company that came up with the idea.
“Israel will be the first country in the world with this new technology. Jerusalem will be the first city,” says Better Place boss Shai Agassi, who recently unveiled Israel’s first car charging points. The car looks like a regular Renault Megane except it has no exhaust pipe and an electric socket where the petrol cap should be. It drives noticeably quieter than a regular car and powered by a 450 lb lithium-ion battery it can run for about 140 miles without re-charging, compared with 300 miles for the average family car on a full tank of petrol.
Drivers will plug in their cars to recharge for several hours at home, work or at designated free car parks throughout the country. Or they will swap empty batteries for fully-charged ones at a network of up to 200 “swap stations” throughout Israel. The electricity for the cars will come from solar technology being developed in the desert in southern Israel. Amid the gunfire this tiny country, the size of Wales and with a population of just under 7.5 million, leads the world in developing and exporting green technologies that could save the planet.
Ironically it is precisely because of its precarious position that such eco-inventions have flourished. Surrounded by hostile neighbours, with few natural resources of its own and two-thirds of its area inhospitable desert, Israel has had to use its wits to survive. When Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest man, decided to make his first investment outside the United States, he chose Israel. “Some Americans have come to the Middle East looking for oil so they didn’t stop in Israel. We came to the Middle East looking for brains and we stopped in Israel,” Buffett explained as he put $4 billion into Iscar, a precision tool maker.
“We found that the real trick in business is not to be a genius yourself but to go around associating with geniuses who are already doing a good job and stay out of their way.” Israeli innovations range from Intel microprocessors to messaging systems that ensure the safety of nearly all the world’s financial transactions. Microsoft Intel, IBM and NDS, a firm that designs TV set-top boxes to unscramble cable and satellite signals, all have research and development centres in Israel drawing on the brainpower of those “genius”.
There are more than 1,000 clean-technology start-up companies in Israel, a country that has attracted more foreign investment in high-tech businesses in the past decade than all of Europe. It has more companies quoted on the high-tech NASDAQ stock exchange in New York than any other country outside the United States. In innovation it outshines all its neighbours. Between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US, Saudis registered 171, Israelis registered 7,652.
“We are flexible and we are smart because we know that we have to be to survive,” says Shraga Brosh, chairman of the Israeli Manufacturers’ Association. A primary motor of this technical innovation is the Israeli army. Its units cream off the top teenagers, ram them through accelerated university training and give them sophisticated military assignments. Agassi of Better Place, like the founders of computer security pioneers Check-point, demobbed from Unit 8200, a top-secret division of military intelligence where every other soldier is a computer whiz-kid.
TALPIOT, another military programme veiled in secrecy, whips its high-achieving teenagers through electronics, engineering or physics degrees before setting them up in state-of-the-art laboratories to build next-generation defence solutions. “The ingenuity in technology is tremendous. Israel is a fountain of knowledge,” says Avishay Braverman, an Israeli cabinet minister and former World Bank economist.
“The reason for the success in high-tech industry is that the army invested so much in research. Where else do you have men and women operating the most sophisticated computers in the world at such a young age?” The ingenuity and training is mixed with a need to solve Israel’s problems due to its geography and political isolation. Its main water sources are controlled by its enemies, Syria and the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The land is sandy and infertile. “Israel has become a world power in terms of green technology because of our long experience in dealing with scarcity,” says Jon Medved, head of the pioneering video ringtone company Vringo and an investor in Israeli clean technology companies. “We’ve created these technologies to solve problems that are acute here.”
Israel and experts such as Dov Pasternak lead the world in countering the creeping desertification that has made large swathes of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Satellite photographs show that only two countries have increased the area of land covered by forest and agriculture – the United States and Israel. Israeli farmers revolutionised the watering of agricultural crops more than 40 years ago through the drip irrigation system which has since been adopted worldwide.
Water is carried directly to the roots of the plant through tiny holes in small tubes that can be easily redeployed according to need. The system is set on a timer, reducing evaporation and eliminating run-off. Because the water is delivered direct to the roots of the crop there is less moisture on the leaves and surrounding soil, suppressing mould and weeds. That reduces the need for chemicals and pesticides.
Netafim, which markets the technology, says it is now used in more than 110 countries and has helped create self-sustaining agricultural communities in drought-stricken areas, particularly in Africa.Israel now recycles 70 per cent of its waste water – a huge amount that puts it way ahead of any other country. The water is used for agriculture, waste management and for fish farms in the desert.
Israel is also a pioneer in geothermal and solar energy. The world’s leading company in geothermal power – harnessing Earth’s heat to generate electricity – is Ormat, an Israeli company. For decades visitors to Israel have been struck by the solar heating panels and water tanks on the top of almost every building. These provide solar-heated water to just about every home and business.
Now Israel is leading the way in a new technology that harnesses solar power for clean electricity production. One company, Solel, was snapped up by the German industrial giant Siemens last year for more than $400 million. It is competing with Brightsource, another Israeli company, for contracts to supply more than two million homes in California with electricity produced without any fossil fuels.
But Israeli ingenuity in electricity is not limited to the sun. Innowattech is developing a system to generate electricity from the pressure of traffic driving along roads. Piezo-electric generators are installed inches beneath the upper layer of asphalt and convert the mechanical energy of traffic passing over them into electrical energy.
INNOWATTECH estimates that its generators placed along a half-mile stretch of a four-lane motorway would produce about 1MWh of electricity – enough to power 2,500 households. It is testing prototypes for roads, railways, pedestrian walkways and airport runways – all of which could generate completely clean electricity.
Before too long it will be possible to drive an electric car powered by a battery whose electricity was generated by the sun or by other cars driving across sub-surface generator, and whose engine is cooled by recycled water.
The first Better Place charging system became operational in February, 2010.
War-torn Israel has become an eco-pioneer.
It grows food in sand, powers homes from the sun and this year launches the world's finest city-wide electric car system. So how has war-torn Israel become such an eco-pioneer?
By the end of this year the world’s first all-electric car network will be up and running in one of the most unlikely settings. The cars built by Renault-Nissan need a network of re-charging points and battery changing stations and these are being set up in Denmark, Hawaii, California, Canada and Australia.
But the first place to host a national electric car network will be one that has almost permanently been at war with its neighbours since its inception. This is Israel, which invented the original technology and is home to Better Place, the company that came up with the idea.
“Israel will be the first country in the world with this new technology. Jerusalem will be the first city,” says Better Place boss Shai Agassi, who recently unveiled Israel’s first car charging points. The car looks like a regular Renault Megane except it has no exhaust pipe and an electric socket where the petrol cap should be. It drives noticeably quieter than a regular car and powered by a 450 lb lithium-ion battery it can run for about 140 miles without re-charging, compared with 300 miles for the average family car on a full tank of petrol.
Drivers will plug in their cars to recharge for several hours at home, work or at designated free car parks throughout the country. Or they will swap empty batteries for fully-charged ones at a network of up to 200 “swap stations” throughout Israel. The electricity for the cars will come from solar technology being developed in the desert in southern Israel. Amid the gunfire this tiny country, the size of Wales and with a population of just under 7.5 million, leads the world in developing and exporting green technologies that could save the planet.
Ironically it is precisely because of its precarious position that such eco-inventions have flourished. Surrounded by hostile neighbours, with few natural resources of its own and two-thirds of its area inhospitable desert, Israel has had to use its wits to survive. When Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest man, decided to make his first investment outside the United States, he chose Israel. “Some Americans have come to the Middle East looking for oil so they didn’t stop in Israel. We came to the Middle East looking for brains and we stopped in Israel,” Buffett explained as he put $4 billion into Iscar, a precision tool maker.
“We found that the real trick in business is not to be a genius yourself but to go around associating with geniuses who are already doing a good job and stay out of their way.” Israeli innovations range from Intel microprocessors to messaging systems that ensure the safety of nearly all the world’s financial transactions. Microsoft Intel, IBM and NDS, a firm that designs TV set-top boxes to unscramble cable and satellite signals, all have research and development centres in Israel drawing on the brainpower of those “genius”.
There are more than 1,000 clean-technology start-up companies in Israel, a country that has attracted more foreign investment in high-tech businesses in the past decade than all of Europe. It has more companies quoted on the high-tech NASDAQ stock exchange in New York than any other country outside the United States. In innovation it outshines all its neighbours. Between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US, Saudis registered 171, Israelis registered 7,652.
“We are flexible and we are smart because we know that we have to be to survive,” says Shraga Brosh, chairman of the Israeli Manufacturers’ Association. A primary motor of this technical innovation is the Israeli army. Its units cream off the top teenagers, ram them through accelerated university training and give them sophisticated military assignments. Agassi of Better Place, like the founders of computer security pioneers Check-point, demobbed from Unit 8200, a top-secret division of military intelligence where every other soldier is a computer whiz-kid.
TALPIOT, another military programme veiled in secrecy, whips its high-achieving teenagers through electronics, engineering or physics degrees before setting them up in state-of-the-art laboratories to build next-generation defence solutions. “The ingenuity in technology is tremendous. Israel is a fountain of knowledge,” says Avishay Braverman, an Israeli cabinet minister and former World Bank economist.
“The reason for the success in high-tech industry is that the army invested so much in research. Where else do you have men and women operating the most sophisticated computers in the world at such a young age?” The ingenuity and training is mixed with a need to solve Israel’s problems due to its geography and political isolation. Its main water sources are controlled by its enemies, Syria and the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The land is sandy and infertile. “Israel has become a world power in terms of green technology because of our long experience in dealing with scarcity,” says Jon Medved, head of the pioneering video ringtone company Vringo and an investor in Israeli clean technology companies. “We’ve created these technologies to solve problems that are acute here.”
Israel and experts such as Dov Pasternak lead the world in countering the creeping desertification that has made large swathes of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Satellite photographs show that only two countries have increased the area of land covered by forest and agriculture – the United States and Israel. Israeli farmers revolutionised the watering of agricultural crops more than 40 years ago through the drip irrigation system which has since been adopted worldwide.
Water is carried directly to the roots of the plant through tiny holes in small tubes that can be easily redeployed according to need. The system is set on a timer, reducing evaporation and eliminating run-off. Because the water is delivered direct to the roots of the crop there is less moisture on the leaves and surrounding soil, suppressing mould and weeds. That reduces the need for chemicals and pesticides.
Netafim, which markets the technology, says it is now used in more than 110 countries and has helped create self-sustaining agricultural communities in drought-stricken areas, particularly in Africa.Israel now recycles 70 per cent of its waste water – a huge amount that puts it way ahead of any other country. The water is used for agriculture, waste management and for fish farms in the desert.
Israel is also a pioneer in geothermal and solar energy. The world’s leading company in geothermal power – harnessing Earth’s heat to generate electricity – is Ormat, an Israeli company. For decades visitors to Israel have been struck by the solar heating panels and water tanks on the top of almost every building. These provide solar-heated water to just about every home and business.
Now Israel is leading the way in a new technology that harnesses solar power for clean electricity production. One company, Solel, was snapped up by the German industrial giant Siemens last year for more than $400 million. It is competing with Brightsource, another Israeli company, for contracts to supply more than two million homes in California with electricity produced without any fossil fuels.
But Israeli ingenuity in electricity is not limited to the sun. Innowattech is developing a system to generate electricity from the pressure of traffic driving along roads. Piezo-electric generators are installed inches beneath the upper layer of asphalt and convert the mechanical energy of traffic passing over them into electrical energy.
INNOWATTECH estimates that its generators placed along a half-mile stretch of a four-lane motorway would produce about 1MWh of electricity – enough to power 2,500 households. It is testing prototypes for roads, railways, pedestrian walkways and airport runways – all of which could generate completely clean electricity.
Before too long it will be possible to drive an electric car powered by a battery whose electricity was generated by the sun or by other cars driving across sub-surface generator, and whose engine is cooled by recycled water.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
PLEASE SHARE WITH ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!
THIS IS EXCELLENT...SUITABLE FOR SHARING WITH THOSE WHOSE 'SHINING STAR' AND 'FUTURE HOPE' NOW RESIDES IN THE WHITE HOUSE. THIS IS GRANDPA'S RESPONSE TO HIS GRANDDAUGHTER'S REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE. YOU WILL QUICKLY DISCOVER THAT THE GRANDDAUGHTER CAMPAIGNED HARD AND VOTED FOR OBAMA. GOOD FOR GRANDPA!!!!!!!!!!!!
John G. Is 63 years old and owns a small business. He's a life-long Republican and sees his dream of retiring next year has all but evaporated. With the stock market crashing and new taxes coming his way, John assumes now that he will work to his dying day.John has a granddaughter. Ashley is a recent college grad. She drives a flashy hybrid car, wears all the latest fashions, and loves to go out to nightclubs and restaurants. Ashley campaigned hard for Barack Obama. After the election she made sure her grandfather (and all other Republican family members) received a big I told-you-so earful on how the world is going to be a much better place now that Obama and her party is taking over.
Having lost both roommates, Ashley recently ran short of cash and cannot pay the rent (again) on her 3 bedroom townhouse.. Like she has done many times in the past, she e-mailed her grandfather asking for some financial help.
Here is his reply:
Sweetheart, I received your request for assistance. Ashley, you know I love you dearly and I 'm sympathetic to your financial plight. Unfortunately, times have changed. With the election of President Obama, your grandmother and I have had to set forth a bold new economic plan of our own..."The Ashley Economic Empowerment Plan." Let me explain.
Your grandmother and I are life-long, wage-earning tax payers. We have lived a comfortable life, as you know, but we have never had the fancier things like European vacations, luxury cars, etc.. We have worked hard and were looking forward to retiring soon. But the plan has changed. Your president is raising our personal and business taxes significantly. He says it is so he can give our hard earned money to other people. Do you know what this means, Ashley? It means less for us, and we must cut back on many business and personal expenses.
You know the wonderful receptionist who worked in my office for more than 23 years? The one who always gave you candy when you came over to visit? I had to let her go last week. I can't afford to pay her salary and all of the government mandated taxes that go with having employees. Your grandmother will now work 4 days a week to answer phones, take orders and handle the books. We will be closed on Fridays and will lose even more income to the new Wal-Mart store that recently opened.
I'm also very sorry to report that your cousin Frank will no longer be working summers in the warehouse. I called him at school this morning. He already knows about it and he's upset because he will have to give up skydiving and his yearly trip to Greenland to survey the polar bears.
That's just the business side of things. Some personal economic effects of Obama's new taxation policies include none other than you You know very well that over the years your grandmother and I have given you thousands of dollars in cash, tuition assistance, food, housing, clothing, gifts, etc., etc. But by your vote, you have chosen to help others -- not at your expense -- but at our expense.
If you need money now sweetheart, I recommend you call 202-456-1111. That is the direct phone number for the White House.. You can also contact the White House here :http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/.
You yourself told me how foolish it is to vote Republican. You said Mr Obama is going to be the People's President, and is going to help every American live a better life. Based on everything you've told me, along with all the promises we heard during the campaign, I'm sure Mr. Obama will be happy to transfer some stimulus money into your bank account. Have him call me for the account number which I memorized years ago...
Perhaps you can now understand what I've been saying all my life: those who vote for a president should consider the impact on the nation as a whole, and not be just concerned with what they can get for themselves. What Obama supporters don't seem to realize is all of the money he is redistributing to illegal aliens and non-taxpaying Americans (the so-called "less fortunate") comes from tax-paying families.
Remember how you told me, "Only the richest of the rich will be affected"? Well guess what, honey? Because we own a business, your grandmother and I are now considered to be the richest of the rich. On paper, it might look that way, but in the real world, we are far from it.
As you said while campaigning for Obama, some people will have to carry more of the burden so all of America can prosper... You understand what that means, right? It means that raising taxes on productive people results in them having less money; less money for everything, including granddaughters.
I'm sorry, Ashley, but the well has run dry... The free lunches are over... I have no money to give you now. So, congratulations on your choice for "change." For future reference, I encourage you to try and add up the total value of the gifts and cash you have received from us, just since you went off to college, and compare it to what you expect to get from Mr. Obama over the next 4 (or 8) years. I have not kept track of it, Ashley. It has all truly been the gift of our hearts.
Remember, we love you dearly...but from now on you'll need to call the number mentioned above. Your "Savior" has the money we would have given to you. Just try and get it from him.
Good luck, sweetheart.
Love,
Grandpa
John G. Is 63 years old and owns a small business. He's a life-long Republican and sees his dream of retiring next year has all but evaporated. With the stock market crashing and new taxes coming his way, John assumes now that he will work to his dying day.John has a granddaughter. Ashley is a recent college grad. She drives a flashy hybrid car, wears all the latest fashions, and loves to go out to nightclubs and restaurants. Ashley campaigned hard for Barack Obama. After the election she made sure her grandfather (and all other Republican family members) received a big I told-you-so earful on how the world is going to be a much better place now that Obama and her party is taking over.
Having lost both roommates, Ashley recently ran short of cash and cannot pay the rent (again) on her 3 bedroom townhouse.. Like she has done many times in the past, she e-mailed her grandfather asking for some financial help.
Here is his reply:
Sweetheart, I received your request for assistance. Ashley, you know I love you dearly and I 'm sympathetic to your financial plight. Unfortunately, times have changed. With the election of President Obama, your grandmother and I have had to set forth a bold new economic plan of our own..."The Ashley Economic Empowerment Plan." Let me explain.
Your grandmother and I are life-long, wage-earning tax payers. We have lived a comfortable life, as you know, but we have never had the fancier things like European vacations, luxury cars, etc.. We have worked hard and were looking forward to retiring soon. But the plan has changed. Your president is raising our personal and business taxes significantly. He says it is so he can give our hard earned money to other people. Do you know what this means, Ashley? It means less for us, and we must cut back on many business and personal expenses.
You know the wonderful receptionist who worked in my office for more than 23 years? The one who always gave you candy when you came over to visit? I had to let her go last week. I can't afford to pay her salary and all of the government mandated taxes that go with having employees. Your grandmother will now work 4 days a week to answer phones, take orders and handle the books. We will be closed on Fridays and will lose even more income to the new Wal-Mart store that recently opened.
I'm also very sorry to report that your cousin Frank will no longer be working summers in the warehouse. I called him at school this morning. He already knows about it and he's upset because he will have to give up skydiving and his yearly trip to Greenland to survey the polar bears.
That's just the business side of things. Some personal economic effects of Obama's new taxation policies include none other than you You know very well that over the years your grandmother and I have given you thousands of dollars in cash, tuition assistance, food, housing, clothing, gifts, etc., etc. But by your vote, you have chosen to help others -- not at your expense -- but at our expense.
If you need money now sweetheart, I recommend you call 202-456-1111. That is the direct phone number for the White House.. You can also contact the White House here :http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/.
You yourself told me how foolish it is to vote Republican. You said Mr Obama is going to be the People's President, and is going to help every American live a better life. Based on everything you've told me, along with all the promises we heard during the campaign, I'm sure Mr. Obama will be happy to transfer some stimulus money into your bank account. Have him call me for the account number which I memorized years ago...
Perhaps you can now understand what I've been saying all my life: those who vote for a president should consider the impact on the nation as a whole, and not be just concerned with what they can get for themselves. What Obama supporters don't seem to realize is all of the money he is redistributing to illegal aliens and non-taxpaying Americans (the so-called "less fortunate") comes from tax-paying families.
Remember how you told me, "Only the richest of the rich will be affected"? Well guess what, honey? Because we own a business, your grandmother and I are now considered to be the richest of the rich. On paper, it might look that way, but in the real world, we are far from it.
As you said while campaigning for Obama, some people will have to carry more of the burden so all of America can prosper... You understand what that means, right? It means that raising taxes on productive people results in them having less money; less money for everything, including granddaughters.
I'm sorry, Ashley, but the well has run dry... The free lunches are over... I have no money to give you now. So, congratulations on your choice for "change." For future reference, I encourage you to try and add up the total value of the gifts and cash you have received from us, just since you went off to college, and compare it to what you expect to get from Mr. Obama over the next 4 (or 8) years. I have not kept track of it, Ashley. It has all truly been the gift of our hearts.
Remember, we love you dearly...but from now on you'll need to call the number mentioned above. Your "Savior" has the money we would have given to you. Just try and get it from him.
Good luck, sweetheart.
Love,
Grandpa
I have been busy making signs for the Tea Party Tax Day protest this Thursday April 15th in downtown Tampa. As an active member of The Tampa 912 Project, we are expressing our dissatisfaction with the current tax system, and the rumblings of increasing taxes and imposing a new VAT. The President must address the economy and jobs. This country cannot get back on it's feet until taxes are cut, spending is slashed, the health care reform bill is repealed and replaced with some common sense legislation to allow interstate purchasing of health insurance, tort reform, and fraud and waste are truly being ferreted out and severe punishments are meted out to the perpetrators. We know we will have to make some sacrifices now so that our children and grandchildren will not have passed on to them the incredible amount of debt that this and past administrations have accumulated.
The health care reform bill is unconstitutional on many levels, and I plan to work tirelessly to help get it repealed.
I am attaching pictures of some of the signs I have made for Thursday, for your perusal and enjoyment. Feel free to use the slogans!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Welcome to Move Over Dot Com
I have created this blog because I am concerned with the way that our country is being governed. I am a 9th generation AMERICAN. My ancestors came here for the opportunities that this great country offered. To practice freedom of religion and free speech, to truly realize their personal potential through their own hard work and efforts, and not to be dictated to or kept in their place by an elite ruling class.
Since 1747 our family has prospered and flourished, each generation more successful than the last, passing on our love of this country and a solid “German” work ethic to our children and grandchildren.
We do not expect government handouts, nor do we expect the government to take care of us from cradle to grave. That is not America. The founding fathers wrote the Constitution to assure that America remained a Constitutional Republic:
"It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." – Daniel Webster
“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
Once again it is time to remind ourselves of our Founding Fathers and what they wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” … But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
We must stand strong and peaceful, for we cannot allow this country to fail. We are the “shining city on the hill”, as President Ronald Reagan said. Our beacon must burn strong, for the hope of all mankind.
I will be posting my musings, evaluations and comments of what I see happening in this country and around the world at least weekly, more often if I see fit.
I welcome comments and additions to this blog, for the education and enlightenment of us all.
So instead of MoveOn.org, it is time for them to MoveOverDotCom!
Since 1747 our family has prospered and flourished, each generation more successful than the last, passing on our love of this country and a solid “German” work ethic to our children and grandchildren.
We do not expect government handouts, nor do we expect the government to take care of us from cradle to grave. That is not America. The founding fathers wrote the Constitution to assure that America remained a Constitutional Republic:
"It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." – Daniel Webster
“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
Once again it is time to remind ourselves of our Founding Fathers and what they wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” … But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
We must stand strong and peaceful, for we cannot allow this country to fail. We are the “shining city on the hill”, as President Ronald Reagan said. Our beacon must burn strong, for the hope of all mankind.
I will be posting my musings, evaluations and comments of what I see happening in this country and around the world at least weekly, more often if I see fit.
I welcome comments and additions to this blog, for the education and enlightenment of us all.
So instead of MoveOn.org, it is time for them to MoveOverDotCom!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)