EPD Activity Report May 2, 2012

By: Katie Fehrenbacher

When a friend of mine who follows clean power and greentech closely sent me Bloomberg’s story on Rocketjet, I burst out laughing. We have an unspoken contest over who can send each other the worst scams in the energy and green industries. Rocketjet’s hopes for perhaps crowd-funding its water atomic engine that will kick off a “Free Energy Era” is one of the more obvious ones — enough to draw the attention of the often straight-laced Bloomberg, and also to become a mini-symbol of all that could go wrong with the new crowd-funding act.

But after the initial guffaw, Rocketjet got me thinking: why are there so many snake oil salesmen and scam artists in the energy space? Other gems that have emerged in recent years are the solar developers at Matinee Energy (awesome piece by the Phoenix New Times on these folks), biofuel company Cello Energy, which was sued in court for fraud, the oft-discussed capacitor maker eeStor, which has over-promised and never delivered, and the biochar ponzi scheme Mantria, whose lead investment broker funnelled other people’s funds into, among other things, his own penchant for prostitutes (another amazing local report covered those guys).

And yes, I know all sectors have their own charlatans. The web, in particular had more than its fair share in the 90′s dotcom boom. But the green energy sector has its own specific brand of snake oil salesman that benefit from the difficulties of knowing and proving breakthroughs in science; the optimism of investors who want to give their funds to investments that have a higher aim; and the fact that a major breakthrough in the trillion-dollar energy markets could actually be a massive financial opportunity.

Some of these energy scams have the imaginative do-gooder power and infrastructure buildout of the monorail scheme. Put the money into building out the infrastructure-heavy project and it’ll bring jobs, revitalizing a depressed area, and also save the planet (misplaced clean power projects or factories come to mind for this type).

Other energy scams involve a breakthrough that is so large that it’s, well, not scientifically possible. Things that tout free, infinite clean energy are often too good to be true. And these companies aren’t even necessarily scams, but perhaps over eager or incorrect scientists. There’s been more than a few times when scientists have called BS on venture-backed green startups.

The problem with these colossal-sounding breakthroughs is that they are near-impossible to prove even to other scientists. Take eeStor, which probably wouldn’t consider itself a scam, but which promised huge gains for its ultracapacitor yet never publicly proved its technology nor showed off or commercialized its tech.

Even for a seasoned energy investor, it’s hard to distinguish between an outright scam, a really bad idea and a high-risk project. The majority of some investors’ green portfolios could be allocated to super high-risk startups, which probably won’t work and won’t ever make money. But those wouldn’t necessarily be scams — just investors with a high tolerance for risk (and it’s easier if it’s high risks with other people’s money).

There’s also just the reality that energy entrepreneurs that are trying to crack the very difficult greentech world are sometimes a little “out there,” to begin with. As Bill Gates put it, the world needs hundreds of “crazy energy entrepreneurs” that think their idea alone can solve the energy problem. The energy problem is really, really hard, and will need quite a few amazing breakthroughs to deliver progress.

That’s the real problem with the outright energy scams. The crazy energy entrepreneurs we so need and love won’t be able to get the funding or partnerships they need if the bad apples tarnish the sector. But at the end of the day, they do make for some pretty fun reading.

There will be a public meeting to review and comment on plans for Bicentennial Park on Thursday, May 3rd from 7pm to 9pm at the Old Post Office. The meeting is an open house format, which will allow participants the flexibility of arriving and leaving at their convenience. To that end, there will be no formal large group presentation. Members of the design team and the Department of Metropolitan Development will be present to review the plans with attendees and receive comment and feedback on the proposed design. The design team includes RATIO Architects, Bernardin Lochmueller & Associates, Hafer and Associates and Bill Gaisser Designs/Architecture.

For the second year in a row, Thompkins Middle School earned the highest score in the state in the area of social studies in the Indiana Junior Academic Super Bowl competition. In addition, in Class 1, North Junior High School placed in the top 10 in the state in the area of science and in Class 4, Glenwood placed in the top 10 in science and social studies. The competition is supported by the Public Education Foundation and facilitated by the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation.

The teams earned the rankings after competing in the Junior Area Academic Super Bowl Competition last Saturday at Helfrich Park Stem Academy. The state classification is based solely on the total scores received by each school and then are compared to other scores from across the state.

Middle School Academic Super Bowl competitions are composed of four subject matter rounds – English, science, social studies and mathematics – and a sixth interdisciplinary round in which questions may come from any and all of the subject areas. This year’s theme was “Colonial and Revolutionary America.

Are you interested in learning how organizational psychology could benefit employee communication, market-entry analysis, and human resource practices and policies in your business? The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library will host Cross-Cultural Psychological Literacy: A Science-Based Approach to Global Business.

The program will take place on May 9 and again on June 13 at 6:00 pm in the Large Group Room at Central Library.

The interactive presentation will cover:

How societal cultures can be compared based on their values, pratices, use of time.
How cross-cultural literacy can inform market-entry decisions, employee communications, marketing and branding, HR policies, etc.
Countries that can be discussed in-depth: US, China, Japan, Thailand, Signapore, Netherlands, Switzerland, Argentina, and Mexico.

This program is presented by organizational scientist Jan Aylsworth, who uses scientifically valid frameworks from the social sciences to help organizations avoid and resolve issues related to culture-of-origin.

For more information, call 428-8218 or visit www.janorgpsy.com.

The EVSC has released the “State of our Schools” report for 2012. The report is currently live on their website, and will later be accompanied by a video as well.
Click here to view

The Evansville Fire Department Combat Challenge Team went to Milford Ohio this past weekend to participate in Milford-Miami Ohio Regionals. Staying true to form the Challenge Tandem Team of George Madison and Adam Brock took another 1st place against the usual field of competitors.

You would think placing first at a regional competition would be enough for most competitors. Not so for Firefighter Adam Brock who went on to win the Individual category. Brock posted a 1:34.53, missing his personal best time by less than a second, to capture the Gold and become the overall Individual winner for the event.

What’s Next? The Team is busy training for several more Regionals being held throughout the summer. We’ll keep you up to date on their progress.

The Vanderburgh County Medical reserve corps will be conducting training on May 9th at The Centre in the Walnut room starting at 6pm.

The MRC is looking to recruit new volunteers, both medical and non-medical, to help their community during public health emergencies. If interested please call the unit coordinator at 435-5695 for more details.