Sustainability, Sustainability, Sustainabilty

Sustainability is a hot topic of conversation these days and especially in light of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was an especially hot topic at the Fast Companies, Fast Oakland breakfast this morning. I found myself getting over the case of the Monday’s by participating in none other than a little game of jeopardy. The topic… You guessed it sustainability and was hosted by First Solar. The first question was “what region/area has the highest concentration of solar panels”? Inevitably my answer was Berkeley. Wrong! Turns out Germany has a ton of solar panels and leads the way on use. Next question “What percent of electricity in the World comes from solar/alternative sources”? Again my answer (which I didn’t think was bad) 5%. Again wrong, the actual answer 0.06. Wow!! So you might ask why this ramble on Tuesday morning. Turns out in the commercial real estate world “Solar” is very relevant. One mind boggling fact Solyndra (Knock off of “cylinder” with suffix “dra”) just received $535 million in stimulus from the federal government. Again WOW! The greater bay area and becoming more so Oakland and the east bay is becoming home to several innovative leading edge alternative energy companies. One huge advantage is that they receive federal money unlike other companies that have to rely on venture capital funds which don’t seem to be readily available these days. So the conclusion to this piece is that there is some merit in solar/alternative energy as the next “.com” boom and frankly something to watch in the future.