Lifeline

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Shaking things up a bit

Every once in a while I read the op-ed by Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek on the website of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. I love the way he discusses high-profile events from the lowlands. He never fails to point out how narrow-minded some of the key players in those events can be, and how large egos can harm such a small country. Some of the best examples of course are the sell-out of ABN AMRO to RBS, Santander and Fortis, after which CEO Rijkman Groenink left what used to be the biggest bank of the Netherlands with a bonus of about 26 million euros. Or Dirk Scheringa who orchestrated the rapid growth of the DSB Bank through misleading credit terms for high-risk consumers. This eventually led to a massive walk-out of disgruntled customers, pushing the bank into bankruptcy and depriving the US speed-skating team from one of their main sponsors.
But one line of Youp van 't Hek, which he used in his show "Scherven" (Broken Glass), has echoed through my head for the last few days. When, during a dinner, one of his friends asks the father of another friend several tough questions, such as "Why, as a banker, do you provide credit to companies that contribute to the destruction of the planet?" or "Why do you think you are driving a high-occupancy vehicle because you have your own driver?", the atmosphere at the table soon deteriorates - but at least it shakes things up a bit.

Lately, quite some things have been shaken up considerably. First of all, the Dutch coalition has collapsed, after the coalition-parties couldn't reach an agreement on the duration of the Dutch mission in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. Personally, I am glad that the Labor Party stuck to their deadline of 2010 to pull out. In the beginning I supported the Dutch presence in Afghanistan because I believed we did a good job there (especially compared to the indiscriminate destruction by deadly US drones), but after seeing several documentaries, notably the one by Tegenlicht, or Backlight, I realized how surreal it is to go into a country as Afghanistan and think you can solve problems that you have nothing to do with. So it's better to pull out. Even decades of foreign intervention will not change the local situation, so why waste money on it. Obama's surge is just an excuse to impose a deadline by which the US can leave and say: at least we tried. In the meanwhile, the Taliban are waiting until those over-equipped and scared foreigners move out so that they can take over the country again.

But back to the Dutch coalition. It's an interesting experience trying to explain the procedure to an American: "So, the coalition parties didn't agree on one issue of their agenda, and therefore they can't cooperate anymore" - That's how much coalition parties trust each other. And now we're delivered to the mercy of the Dutch population. Unfortunately, the Dutch population has shown rather populist tendencies lately, giving the right-wing Party for the Freedom 17.4% of the votes, according to a poll by Synovate. That would give it the same number of seats in the Parliament as the Labor Party (27), while leaving the Christian Democratic Party the largest with 31 seats. I hope the Dutch people will come to their senses and realize that radicalization can't solve problems, but as our deputy-CEO said lately: "Something always comes out if you shake things up a bit."

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

RETech 2010 + Snowmageddon








From February 3-5 the Renewable Energy Technology Conference and Exhibition took place at the Convention Center of Washington, DC. During this event, specialists gathered for speeches, workshops, exhibitions and discussions about the latest developments and initiatives in Renewable Energy Technologies. Of course, Taylor-DeJongh was there to promote their investment banking services, backed up by years of experience in the power and energy sector. In the few hours that I helped manage the booth on Friday, numerous people stopped by to pick our brains on financing opportunities for renewable energy projects, ranging from solar plants and new wind-turbine technology to energy efficient buildings and biofuels.
One of the other exhibitors at RETech 2010 was Concord Blue Energy, a US license holder of a German technology that allows power-generation from waste through pyrolytical gasification, resulting in high energy efficiency and very low CO2 emissions. Solar Millenium also had a booth on the exhibit floor. This German Concentrated Solar Power manufacturer was one of the first companies to build large-scale parabolic trough plants in Europe with the Andasol projects in Spain. It's subsidiary, Solar Trust of America, is planning to do the same thing in California, Nevada and Arizona. Covanta, one of the leading waste-to-energy companies in the US, was also there to promote its products. Even though no waste-to-energy plants has been built in the US over the past 20 years, this will hopefully change now that dumping trash into a landfill is becoming more and more expensive. Another interesting company was Suzlon, the Indian wind-turbine manufacturer that has a large market share in the US market through its subsidiary REPower.
Apart from companies, states and countries also promoted their RE capabilities, mainly to attract investments in projects and start-ups or trade. Among them were Nevada, Ontario, Italy, Denmark, Japan etc. And of course many government agencies and industry associations offered their services during the trade fair.
It was great to see so many people who were actively promoting renewable energy solutions, but it is unfortunate that so many governments still drag their feet to provide the right incentives to make this market really take off. Especially given the current economic climate, many investors and lenders are wary to take any risk at all, making it very hard for new technologies to raise sufficient funds for commercial scale development.

During a breakfast-event at the law-firm K&L Gates, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, one of the sponsors of a climate bill that was introduced in the Senate, emphasized how the US will end up lagging behind while countries like China, Japan and Germany develop state-of-the-art RE manufacturing and development capabilities. So there are certainly members of Congress who would like to see a climate bill move forward, but given the time it takes to adopt a much-needed health-care bill, I don't have much confidence in any climate-legislation being implemented in the US this year.

While RETech 2010 was supposed to last until Friday-evening, the snowstorm that was coming to DC made the organization decide to close up early, and by 1:30pm most exhibitors had left the floor. While it was still relatively easy to move around last Friday, the snow really came down on Saturday and made it virtually impossible for cars to even leave their parking spot. Many people participated in huge snowball-fights that occured throughout the city (including yours sincerely), while others recorded the transformation of DC into a ski-resort. Metros were only running on the tracks underground, and on Monday the federal government was closed. Yesterday things became a bit better, but last night it has been snowing again so all streets and cars are once more covered under a thick layer of water crystals.















Our street















At the intersection of 16th St and Columbia Road