The Gold at the end of the Rainbow

What makes Greentech such an obvious opportunity for me is (a)knowing that the solutions for today's energy, water and waste management problems are within reach, and (b) a lack of worldwide effort to reach for those solutions. In other words, we could (as citizens of the world) decide that regular (incandescent) bulbs should be phased out and use fluorescent bulbs instead. The numbers make an overwhelming point, using a fluorescent 60 watt bulb would save you:

10 light bulb changes
$40.50 in electricity costs
$1.50 in bulb replacement costs
$42.00 in total
Reduce greenhouse gas produced by power plants by: 691 pounds of carbon dioxide

(source http://www.ajdesigner.com/fl_light_bulb/light_bulb.php)

So why are we not doing this obvious things?. Why are governments not taking steps to regulate towards these solutions?

The answer lies within the business opportunity of greentech. People follow the laws of Newton Physics "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it". Its easier to keep buying the same bulbs, its also easier NOT to make the calculation and decide on the cheaper bulb vs the more expensive one ($0.50 for the regular bulb vs $3.50 for the fluorescent). Another factor is the slow reaction of governments, it takes too much time for them to "enforce" the elimination of incandescent bulbs, perhaps there are many powerful interests involved or its not a law that would generate enough popularity. Either way, my "bet" is that in the near future ALL light bulbs will be fluorescent or some other new technology, because a trend with strong "external forces" is causing the "uniform motion" to change.

We already discussed some of these "external forces" that are bringing greentech about in The Greentech Wave (1-People are changing their attitude, 2-Companies are channeling resources to greentech, 3-Major economic players are influencing the market). All of these are responses to economic or sociopolitical trends that are causing the scales to tip towards greentech. In the case of the light bulb: the cost of electricity has jumped - in the US - by 33% since the year 2000, and is expected to raise even more as fuel costs climb and the electric infrastructure gets older. When those variables become a stronger "external force" then whoever is better positioned to provide these new technology bulbs to the market will benefit immensely. AND THAT IS THE GREENTECH OPPORTUNITY!

In the case of the light bulb, General Electric has already taken the steps to ensure they are also THE manufacturer of fluorescent bulbs. But there are many other areas of greentech where the market leadership is up for grabs. We will talk about these areas of opportunity in the near future. For now, as always I bid you farewell with a cordial "Shalom!".