The Missing Element in Kaine's Green Jobs Initiative: Private Capital

Earlier this month, Arlington-based Positive Energy raised $14 million in a second round of venture funding. Positive Energy has developed a software analytics platform that it sells to electric power companies implementing demand-response programs to encourage energy conservation and loading shifting. As the company web site explains, it's one thing to adopt time-of-use pricing and similar peak-demand initiatives, it's quite another to persuade consumers to use them. The company contends that its solutions can bridge the gap between economic theory and marketplace reality.

Positive Energy is expanding -- it is currently trying to fill 13 positions in IT, sales, finance and product development.

Does Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who touted his "green jobs" initiative in his state of the Commonwealth speech, understand where green jobs come from? Does he understand the role played by entrepreneurs, angel capital, venture capital and the entrepreneurial support network?

I'm not sure he does. If he does, it's not apparent in his speech. While Kaine advanced some good ideas like retrofitting state buildings to green energy standards (See "Kaine's 'Green Jobs' Initiative"), he resorted to a pretty stale package of proposals on the economic development front.

University research. Kaine has created an "interagency task force" for energy project recruitment to "build the case" for renewable energy-related businesses to invest in Virginia. "Virginia has a tremendous natural advantage in this area through the research being done at Virginia colleges and universities," Kaine explained. "Every institution in Virginia is working on innovative new energy projects—transportation fuel cells at Virginia Tech, energy-efficient buildings at UVA, algae-based biodiesel at ODU, and new energy crops at Virginia State University."

Terrific. How do we take advantage of all that research? Says Kaine: "Technology-based economic development organizations" (does that mean the Center for Innovative Technology?) will build a single Internet portal where investors can access information about the research. Wow. Back off, California, Virginia's building a web site!

Tax incentives. No economic development program would be complete without grants, tax incentives and regulations. These include:

• Expand an existing incentive for solar manufacturers to include new plants that make other alternative energy equipment and products.
• Enact a requirement that biodiesel should comprise 2% of diesel fuel sold in Virginia.
• Enact an income tax credit of up to $8,000 on solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind-power electric generators installed in homes or businesses in Virginia.

Unfortunately, the Kaine package doesn't do anything to promote companies like Positive Energy. Silicon Valley venture capital is transforming the economics of renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy conservation by underwriting a wave of technologies, some of which are already entering the marketplace. (More on that in a week or two.) The Washington-area venture capital network isn't as deep as Silicon Valley's, but it's one of the strongest on the East Coast. And it's well positioned geographically near the seat of national government, where all manner of "green" boodle and pork will soon begin flowing. If Virginia is to develop an economically sustainable "green" industry, critical financial support and human capital will come out of NoVa.

There's nothing wrong with pursuing green industry (other than the fact that every other state in the country is vying for the same market). But it's going to take a lot more than a web site and a smattering of tax incentives lacking strategic focus to do so.

If the governor wants to do something useful during his last year in office, he should convene a "green industry" summit that brings the established energy/environmental companies, would-be entrepreneurs, financiers, university researchers, intellectual property attorneys and other supporting professionals into the same place at the same time so they can begin networking and deal making. Ultimately, it's all about putting the right people together.

VOCABULARY OF SETTLEMENT PATTERN

Well down in the post titled “The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing” Peter G. said:

“EMR,

“It's so frustrating. I can never win. Just when I think I come up with a really good post, you tell me I got the vocabulary all wrong. If I get the vocabulary right, you'll say my point is all wrong.

“Geez!

“Peter Galuszka”

Peter:

EMR did not intend to be critical in any way. As many other comments following you post suggest, settlement patterns that have evolved since 1940 are different things to different people.

All we say is to understand why patterns are functional or dysfunctional everyone must speak the same language. If you do not like ours, come up with your own.

Here is a little exercise for readers:

Take the original post by Peter, Jim Bacon’s 6:59 AM post (good to see Jim up early!) and Groveton’s posts of 12:13 PM and 12:59 PM. Print them out and circle all the times that “suburb” and “suburban” are used. No look at those circled words and see how many different things they describe, especially in the context of the many different experiences noted in the other comments – some good, some bad; some accurate, some ‘adjusted’ to fit preconceived ideas and agendas.

Peter: I have not visited or lived in some of the places you have. But I do know something about one place you visited. My office / studio at North Lake Cluster in the Fair Lakes Neighborhood of the North Village in Fairfax Center, VA.

Was that place “Urban” or less than urban?

To refresh your memory the residents of North Lake Cluster live at 30 persons per acre – yes even with that great view of the lake and the Openspace from the windowns and decks. You may recall the Four Seasons photos of the very large Swamp Maple from the front porch that could have been taken in Sherwood Forest.

It turns out that if one half the Clusters in an Alpha Community were at that 30 pn acre density, then 25 percent could be Multi-Household dwellings (at 40 to 60 per acre) and 25 percent could be Single Household Detached Dwellings on quarter to half acre lots (at 10 persons per acre) and achieve 10 persons per acre at the Alpha Community Scale.

That distribution of dwelling unit types was the original plan for the almost Alpha Community of Greater Reston. The ratio could have been 30 / 40 / 30 as it is in Village-scale Burke Centre and in the still Beta Community of Columbia, MD, Peachtree City GA, etc.

The density of the Cluster of Single Household Attached Dwellings listed above is just what our current dwelling is, here in Menlough Cluster next to the Clear Edge (the Town and County leaders word, not just EMRs) around Greater Warrenton-Fauquier.

Fairfax Center was designed to have a relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A and 55,000 residents on 5,500 acres. Given its context it has not done badly but for some unfortunate rezonings that undermined the Neighborhood Center service idea -- everyone could walk to get weekly necessities in a 100,000 sq ft Neighborhood center, etc. Today it would have lots of live-work units...

Fairfax Center is still not that bad even with traffic from US Route 50, I - 66 and Fairfax Parkway running through the middle and is one of the three Beta Communities we choose to visit inside the Clear Edge. The worst “development” in Fairfax Center? The Fairfax Government Center, hands down.

During the Blueprint process, the Coalition for Smarter Growth came up with some good ideas to evolve Fairfax Center into a great Alpha Community: Fairfax “City” would become the third Village and the Fair Oaks Mall would be reconfigured to span both US Route 50 and I-66 and both the Core of Fairfax City and the new Core Village would be served by an extension of METRO.

But no, the economic activity was scattered across the R = 20 to R = 40 Radius Band and at far greater TOTAL cost.

Oh yes one other thing: Larry do you have no shame?

“...and it occurred to me that even after a gazillion tomes from EMR - I still don't have a feel for what he thinks is an optimal density level for a balanced community.”

First, EMR has written one Tome and working on a second.

But more important, when reading this post do you not recall seeing the 10 Person Rule [10 Persons per Acre at the Alpha Community scale] at least 50 times in last two years? If TJI had not screwed up the BR archive, EMR could cite you the number of times it was mentioned.

Look, there are only Five Natural Laws of Human Settlement Pattern. You can write them on your arm with a Sharpie and refer to them when you get confused.

And on the Tysons issue. How many times has EMR suggested you read Column # 25, “The Shape of Richmond’s Future,” 16 Feb 2004 for the overall regional evolution process? And while you are at it # 65 “Balanced Communities,” 23 Aug 2005 which Jim Bacon’s header describes as “... Herewith is a primer on what they are and how to create them.”

EMR

Bacon's Rebellion E-zine

The Jan. 19, 2009, edition of the Bacon's Rebellion e-zine has been published.

Virginia and the Employee Free Choice Act
The panic over the Employee Free Choice Act is overwrought. Here's why it isn't as big a deal as partisans on both sides would have you believe.
by Lawrence H. Framme III

Lowering the Costs of Virginia's Prison System
Has the time come where conservatives need to cast the same wary eye at our prison budget that they do at every other item in the state budget?
by Pat Nolan

Virginia Needs More Charter Schools
Overall, Virginia does a good job with public education, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the failure of public schools in some parts of our state. Instead of more bureaucracy we need to give parents what they want, more choice in what school their kids go to.
by Christian Braunlich

Stimulating Job Creation
Obama's stimulus bill may help the economy, but only if we make sure that it doesn't let the government try to compete against the private sector.
by John Palatiello

Presentism in Virginia Politics
When Virginians recoil in horror from a Southern symbol like Lee-Jackson Day, just as a vampire shrieks at the Cross, they engage in "presentism." This affliction of the mind pollutes the spirit and poisons the body politic.
by James Atticus Bowden

This Holiday Means Help for the Economy
America's small businesses are hurting. Here's how we can help them get back on their feet.
by Todd Stottlemyer

The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing

Saturday night my wife and I went to see the movie “Revolutionary Road” starring the Titanic team of Leonardo and Kate. It’s sharp, intelligent and deeply depressing fare by the same director of that gem “American Beauty” but without much of the satiric humor.

The film brought to mind the concept of suburbs and just how intellectuals despise them, often for good reason. This is true at Bacons Rebellion (at least the original one) where such keen-eyed observers as EMR and Jim Bacon and Larry Gross take apart the problems of the car-centric suburbs that have overwhelmed Virginia since about the 1930s when the New Deal brought lots of new federal workers to Washington and many flocked to the cheap housing in Arlington.

I, too, have done my dissing of suburbs, although I lived in some as a child and some of my earliest memories are not of cities, but of station wagons on Rockville Pike north of Bethesda and Congressional Shopping Center, a converted civil airport, where I used to buy my plastic models. Later, I lived in true small towns and in the country. During my adult life, I tended towards residing near the centers of cities, including Norfolk, Richmond, Washington, Chicago, Moscow and New York.

Like Frank and April in the movie, marriage and two children brought me to the suburbs which are where I am now. But I start to wonder, why does everyone hate the suburbs so much? Is it really fair, since suburbs have been a huge part of the American experience since at least the 1950s? Are we really the worse for it as the EMRs and Baconators would have us believe? I mean, Ed and Jim, are we all really so worthless?

There is a certain pretension in ‘burb-bashing. Consider this excerpt from the New York Times which was riffing off the upcoming release of “Revolutionary Road:

“In the last couple of decades, the antisuburban film has become as much a staple of Hollywood as the Serious Crime Drama With an Incomprehensible Plot. A few prominent examples: Todd Haynes’s “Safe” (which has suburban people inexplicably bleeding from every pore of their bodies); the 2004 remake of “The Stepford Wives” (where Viking range + Sub-Zero refrigerator = robotic wife, death of feminism and extinction of human rights); “The Ice Storm” (just in case you ignored the urgent alarm sounded by the antisuburban novel by Rick Moody on which the film is based and moved to Larchmont); the British Sam Mendes’s very own “American Beauty” (of which “Revolutionary Road” is simply a reiteration — take a sprinkler, add a dollop of anomie, and presto! you’re an authentic American filmmaker).”

So, let me see if I am getting this right. The “autonomobile” + “dysfunctional settlement patterns” + boredom = hopelessness + self-abortion (see the movie). But I think that is terribly harsh and negates such much of what has been good about U.S. culture at least when I have been alive (I turned 56 last week).

The fact is that for years hardly anyone has lived in the extremely-densely packed neighborhoods where I resided in Brooklyn for four years when I worked at a magazine in Manhattan. I spent fascinating weekends inspecting brownstones and redbricks, studying the sub-society on tenement roofs and on fire escapes and marveling at the incredible ethnic diversity of the place. My Soviet-born wife loved New York with a passion and was disappointed when we ended up in a nice suburb. She ought to know -- she teaches the children of suburban families and knows their issues very well.

Suburbs are alien worlds to her so her viewing of "Revolutionary Road" was a bit clinical. As a child, she lived for a while in a city in a “kommunalka” or apartment where as many as a dozen families lived on one floor and shared one kitchen and bathroom. Talk about properly dense housing patterns! Think of it as Risse’s ideal world on steroids with a vodka chaser!

It wasn’t that her family was poor – everyone was. Her mother worked at a partly-underground factory that made, among other things, surface-to-air missiles of the type used against U.S. aircraft in Vietnam. Back then in the Urals, such housing wasn’t so much a factor of far-sighted urban planning, Rather, it was because the nation was still getting over the effects of World War II which killed millions of Russians.

Anyway, back to the movie. Leonardo and Kate do a fine job of playing out their enormous frustrations at being alive in the 1950s suburbs and they really seem to want to get on to Paris and make like Kerouac or Ginsberg. I liked the movie but really admired “American Beauty,” another gutting of suburbia, but more of a satire thanks to Kevin Spacey’s wry and brilliant humor.

I guess I subscribe to the intellectual pretension of ‘burb-bashing because I am so much a product of it.


Peter Galuszka

WHO IS IN CONTROL?

There seems to be an intentional attempt on this blog to distort EMR’s views of governance and the achievement of Fundamental Transformation in human settlement pattern, governance structure and the global economic structure.

Darrell – Chesapeake dismisses EMR as just another socialist.

Larry Gross somewhere got the idea that it will require a philosopher king to manage society. He has not bothered to read THE ESTATES MATRIX.

Nova Middle Man recently said:

“EMR and You (Jim Bacon) seem to have similar goals but totally different ways of getting there. EMR's plans only work with massive government regulation. Am I missing something?”

Yes!

“EMR probably would want 100% control in the typical liberal elite I know best mentality. In reality what would this look like.”

Where does this foolishness come from?

Not from anything we have written. Not from any lecture we have delivered. The primary source of this foolishness appears to stem from readers not understanding the Fundamental Transformation means FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION.

Since inquiry is part of a chapter we will be editing soon and we have not specifically addressed this issue before in this forum we will try to summarize:

Management at the Cluster scale is critically important since the Cluster is largest organic component with realistic potential to have effective direct democracy. This observation is base on years of Community management experience and on the study of group dynamics as well as the physical constraints of meeting space that is available at times and in locations when all the citizens of a Cluster can assemble.

So that means at least 2-million “leaders” and if there is any delegation of responsibility about 10-million.

The New Urban Region is the smallest Organic Component of human settlement that can achieve sustainability (and may also be the largest but that is another issue). To lead New Urban Regions, citizens need thousands of “leaders.” There are also Subregions and Urban Support Regions so let us say there is a need another 250,000 to manage at the Regional scale.

Above the New Urban Region – MegaRegions, nation-states, trading-blocks, continental and global scales there are many who would like the have roles. These are the one now hears about as “leaders” but they should have worked up through to ranks and they should be among those already tabulated.

Of course there are more than just Agencies in need of leadership. Many Enterprises and Institutions will be managed by those who also participate in the governance structure. The difference between now and a sustainable future is that in 24-7 Sunlight, everyone will know of the multiple roles and the conflicts can be eliminated.

At the other end of the spectrum of Organic Components is the Unit occupied by the Household. It is clear that to be a functional Household there must be at least one informed “leader.” If part of Household activity is to raise children there need to be at least two. So there is another 130-million more or less leaders.

The Dooryard, Neighborhood, Village scales components need leaders too but almost all will also be among those already identified.

So far we are up to 140,250,000 leaders. In a true democracy everyone has a vote so even those who are not in a leadership position at any given time role have a say.

So where is the central committee, the philosopher king or the liberal elite? Pure fantasy on the part of those who do not want to understand Fundamental Transformation.

Will such a system work? So far the field tests say yes – if citizens understand their role and take responsibility for their actions.

There need be no central committee and no philosopher king. No liberal elite, no pseud-conservative Belief Tank, no Tri-lateral commission, no messiah, no caliph, no dictator, no Darth Vader. Just citizens making informed decision in the market and in the voting booth.

As we suggest in posts over the last three months that focused on achieving a sustainable trajectory for civilization, creating an AntiParty and the upcoming change of administration – for example “Thanksgiving Perspective”:

The problem citizens face is massive over expectation that any one person or the team any one person assembles can “solve the problem.”

Larry Gross again:

“But EMR has failed repeatedly and miserably IMHO to lay out a clear and articulate path for citizens to understand what a Balanced Community is (and is not) - and what changes they should support via elections and referendum and current development proposals (like Tysons) to move in that direction.”

No, Larry, you have failed “repeatedly and miserably” to bother to read what EMR has written on these topics. For some reason you expect that every time a question occurs (or reoccurs) to you, that EMR has the obligation to drop everything and try to again answer it. That is especially a problem when you appear to only listen / read / understand what supports you preconceived notions which lack a comprehensive Conceptual Framework or a Vocabulary to articulate that framework.

That is why a sustainable trajectory requires hundreds of millions of citizens who are ‘responsible’ and informed so democracy and the market can work.

So far Jim Bacon is the only one who has grasp just how profound “Fundamental Transformation” – in settlement patterns, governance structure and economic systems – must be to obtain a sustainable trajectory.

The central tragedy is that the market and the vast majority of citizens indicated that they WANT that change but are thwarted by those who now benefit from special privileges under the existing system.

That is exactly what Niccolo M. said thwarted change...

EMR

Kaine's "Green Jobs" Initiative

In a Jan. 12 release, and again in his state of the Commonwealth speech, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine outlined the details of his “green jobs” initiative. For the most part, it is a worthy policy thrust, containing some very good ideas, some inoffensive ones, and only one worrisome proposal. The package is modest in scope, constrained by Virginia’s budget straightjacket, but considered as a whole, it would nudge the Commonwealth in the right direction.

Let’s be clear about what the green jobs initiative is not. While there are strong conservation components, the Kaine initiative is not a comprehensive approach to reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. “Green jobs” does not address key drivers of energy intensity in Virginia’s economy, such as the auto-centric system of transportation and land use. But provisions of the program, if enacted, would get us closer to creating sustainable, energy-efficient regions.

The most far-reaching – and laudable -- provisions would promote energy conservation in two ways: (1) raising energy-efficiency standards for state buildings, and (2) promoting electric utility investments in conservation.

In his state of the Commonwealth address, Kaine cited the top recommendation of his Climate Change Commission: to reduce electricity consumption in Virginia by 19 percent of current levels by 2025 (with adjustments for population growth). That goal won’t reduce total consumption by 19 percent, but it would reduce per capita consumption. It’s an ambitious goal but an achievable one.

Kaine has already issued an executive order requiring all new state buildings be constructed to high energy-efficiency standards. This year, the governor proposes extending that idea by amending the Code of Virginia to require “all state and local government buildings meet either LEED or Green Globes standards for efficiency.”

He’s not talking about new buildings only. He’s talking about retrofitting existing buildings. Retrofits, he notes, would put a lot of carpenters, electricians and installers back to work – a good thing in a recession. Fair enough. What he didn’t do in the speech was say how he intends to pay for the retrofits.

If the plan relies upon the routine allowances for building maintenance and improvements in the state budget, the sums available to pay for the energy-efficiency retrofits will be meager indeed, and the impact on jobs would be minimal. This strikes me as an instance in which the state should exercise its AAA bond rating to borrow money.

Let’s say, for purposes of illustration, that the Department of General Administration has identified $250 million worth of worthy energy-efficiency projects in public buildings, including only projects that generate a payback of 20 percent per year or more. The Commonwealth could borrow that $250 million, paying 5 percent or so on its bonds. Not only would the expenditure of those funds create work for the construction industry at a time it desperately needs it, the expenditures would more than pay their way. Every dollar the state devotes to debt payment, it makes back through a reduction in energy costs -- with an ample "profit" to spare. That’s just good business, and a good tactic for addressing the state's long-term budget challenges.

Of course, state and local government account for only a tenth or so of Virginia’s economy, so these measures leave 90 percent of the economy untouched. Kaine’s proposed changes to utility rate structuring would address that problem. Said Kaine:

Under current law, we guarantee a rate of return for a utility building a new coal plant, but not for investments that promote conservation. That just makes no sense. Our long-term planning should recognize that conservation is just as important an energy source as new construction. We should treat conservation investments at least as favorably as new generation investments, and my bill will do that.

This measure would address a fundamental flaw in Virginia rate-setting policy. (I haven’t read the bill, so I cannot comment on the specifics, but the broad idea behind it is sound.) Despite the many opportunities available, Dominion, Appalachian Power and the smaller power companies have little incentive to invest in energy efficiency and conservation. One idea currently under consideration is Dominion’s proposal to install smart meters in every home. Smart meters would give consumers the means to carefully monitor their electricity consumption. Pilot programs around the world have demonstrated that people utilize electricity more efficiently when they can measure the impact of their activities.

These proposals are "slam dunks" and warrant the full and fair consideration of the General Assembly. Gov. Kaine proposed some other measures, which don’t seem like the “slam dunks” that may require more thought. I will address them in a future post.