A quick variety of business models promoting, effecting, and compatible

with sustainability

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James Salsmanjim@talknicer.comSustainability Jam

22-24 November 2013CBi China Bridge, Shanghai

Introduction to James Salsmantalknicer.com/susjam 2

• Carnegie Mellon-trained statistician working since the 1990s on pronunciation assessment using speech recognition for language learning and at EF in Shanghai since May 2013.

• Hobbies include evaluating peer reviewed secondary academic journal literature, which uses statistics to describe the confidence and significance of inferences, and editing Wikipedia.

• http://talknicer.com/about

This is what we must do to survivetalknicer.com/susjam 3

We will do it, because solar and wind power are growing so fast

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Even if solar power did not exist, wind power alone is growing fast enough

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Scope of this talk does not include:

• Any business opportunities that existing companies are likely to be able to address– Traditional forms of renewable energy– Synthetic carbon neutral fuels: require large

chemical engineering infrastructure• Petro-conglomerates already have this

– Batteries: very competitive industry– Pumped hydro storage: constrained by geography– Compressed air storage: too new for likely success

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Shipping container-based wind power

• Makani Power (acquired by Google, 2012)– http://www.makanipower.com/home/– Likely to very rapidly displace traditional tower-

based wind farms, including by scrapping• Because they cost less than half and produce twice as

much per land area, and they can go on ordinary trucks– Logistics of marketing, sales, installation, grid

integration, support and repair services vastly larger than current Makani staffing levels can support.• Google is very likely to outsource these efforts

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Shipping container-based wind power

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Shipping container-based wind power

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Shipping container-based wind power

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Seawater carbon extraction

• Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) owns this:– http://talknicer.com/co2extraction.pdf– These will manifest as likely very large or outright giant

plants on ocean ports– Very opaque commercialization prospects• PARC may be fielding lock-up offers from petroleum

companies who are likely to be severely disrupted• However, their DARPA funding contract almost certainly

requires reasonable and customary licensing terms• Coastal and island jurisdictions may choose to opt out of

patent encumbrance on national security grounds

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Seawater carbon extractiontalknicer.com/susjam 12

Income equality• Very complicated political history, but a mistake by Yale

Professor Arthur Okun is the source of most of the confusion:– http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/berg.htm

• Very profound and wide-ranging implications, especially in China– New unoccupied property transaction tax: 20%– Property tax announced last week– New down-payment for second urban home: 70%

• Likely to cause continued sharp increases in the broad healthcare sectors

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Income equalitytalknicer.com/susjam 14

High-yield bond funds

• Likely destination of most Chinese investment savings as real estate becomes less attractive

• Stock market is far too volatile under command economy

• Chinese bond market has been remarkably stable and consistent, including through crises

• Returns have been about half of investment grade U.S. high-yield bond funds with 30+ constituents

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High-yield bond fundstalknicer.com/susjam 16

Shareholder activism and resolution support services

• As the “1% who stand with the 99%” age and become more active as shareholders, they are likely to become extremely successful– However, pushing shareholder resolutions requires

delegate attendance at shareholder meetings and limited power of attorney actions

– Such actions are easy to outsource to service bureaus, if and only if such services are being offered

– Examples: fossil fuel divestment, CEO pay caps, strengthening social security, etc.

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Questions?

jim@talknicer.com

Thank you!

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