Last week Google announced that the company, and its philanthropic subsidiary, Google.org, would explore research and develop renewable energy.  The goal is to ultimately produce one gigawatt of renewable energy and do so more cheaply that coal-generated electricity, which of course creates vast amounts of CO2.  I was thrilled to read the news reports of this announcement.

As someone who thinks about the future, converting global society to alternative and renewable types of energy and away from fossil fuels is perhaps the top challenge humanity faces.  The way this will get done is through creativity, innovation, technological breakthroughs and non-attachment to existing status quos. Sounds like something that Google is well prepared to do.  (Regular readers know that I have admired Google in the past; click on ‘Google’ in the archives at right).

Of course the traditional reaction to this announcement, mostly from those supposedly insightful “Wall Street Analysts” was to suggest the company was risking corporate focus on its’ core businesses.  Nonsense!  It was these types of conventional pundits that, a century ago suggested that the railroad companies were in the railroad and not transportation businesses.  Flying people in airplanes, nah, you guys are in the train business.  Using all your right of way real estate for development?  Nah, stick to the train business.

As readers of this column know, I have often …

In this ninth installment of our on-going series of interviews with some of the leading thinkers and scientists on the subject of energy, we interview John C. Mankins.Facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species. There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the main stream media. If you have missed the first eight interviews, please scroll down the right side of the page and click on ‘Scientists – Interviews’.

John C. Mankins is the President of ARTEMIS Innovation Management Solutions LLC, a research and development management consulting start-up that solves tough innovation challenges for government, industry and not-for-profit clients, and Co-founder of Managed Energy Technologies LLC, a new energy technology start-up that aspires to transform solar energy solutions for terrestrial and space markets. He is internationally recognized as a successful leader in space systems and technology innovation, as a highly effective manager of large-scale technology R&D programs, and as an accomplished communicator. He is also one of the foremost authorities on the subject of space solar power (SSP). Mr. Mankins led NASA’s SSP “Fresh Look Study” in the mid-1990s, managed the SSP Exploratory Research & Technology (SERT) Program, and is the creator of several important SSP systems concepts, including the SunTower, the Solar Clipper, and others. He serves as the President of the Sunsat Energy …

It was 50 years ago this week that the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to orbit the earth. It changed the world.  In fact, there are few, if any events of the last 50 years that had such a global impact on just about every aspect of humanity. I can still remember the night that, as a young boy standing in the front yard with my parents; we looked up at the starry sky waiting for Sputnik.  There it was, a slow man-made star moving across the sky. We listened to its’ beeping on the radio. It filled me with wonder.  I did not see it as Russian but rather as man made, that we humans had done this.  The phrase “The sky’s the limit” was now a phrase of the past. This was space!

The launch of Sputnik caused great consternation in the United States.  We had fallen behind the Russians.  We were no longer the only player at the center of the stage of human dreams and aspirations.  It has been universally acknowledged that this event triggered the space race and jump started a decades’ long emphasis on the teaching of science at all levels in the United States.  Within the context of the cold war, …