Clean tech
To See The Future Of The Western Canadian Economy Look To Texas
UPDATE: May 21, 2015. Goldman Sachs has just released an oil price forecast suggesting that North…
Europe
More on Utility Industry Myopia: Utilities are Dinosaurs Waiting to Die
As if to underscore my previous posts on the extraordinary rapidity of disruptive change for the utility industry, This is turning out to be potentially more significant than the smart mobile phone revolution. Issues here include the utility industry’s failure to recognize a strategic change caused by disruptive technological change, and to respond to it, and the rapid acceleration in Adizes’ corporate life cycle model. Citibank is now predicting severe consequences for utility companies if they do not grasp the massive changes confronting them.
Smart meter
Industry Analysis: Utilities Dig In Against Distributed Rooftop Solar
This is another of my Industry Analysis discussions for UBC students. This time it is perhaps as big an industry issue and clash of competing values as big as the smart mobile phone market, which I call the Mega Market War of Titans. It is about the intersection between two industries, which has recently morphed into a contentious clash. This is about disruptive new technology and strategic inflection points. So what has happened?
Silicon Valley Culture
Stanford B School Guest Lecturer Tony Seba, October 10th, 2:30PM EME 2181
Stanford Graduate School of Business Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Tony Seba, will be our MGMT 450 Guest Lecturer, Thursday, October 10th, at 2:30PM in EME 2181, speaking on “Entrepreneurship Opportunities in Clean Tech.” Tony Seba is also an entrepreneur, author, speaker, executive, management consultant and business architect. Tony will be appearing via live video conference from Stanford University to the MGMT 450 classroom.
Europe
Investment Strategist Warns About Climate Change, Food Supplies, and Natural Resources
JEREMY GRANTHAM’S GOT A TRACK RECORD that’s impossible to ignore—he called the Internet bubble, then the housing bubble. While moves like those have earned the famed forecaster the nickname “perma-bear,” in early 2009 he also told clients at GMO, his $100 billion, Boston-based money-management firm, to jump back into the market. It was the same week that stocks hit their post-Lehman low. Now, however, the outspoken Yorkshireman, who is chief investment strategist at GMO, is making headlines with a new prediction: Dire, Malthusian warnings about environmental catastrophe. To hear him tell it, the world is running out of food. Resources will only keep getting more expensive. And climate change looms over it all. Indeed, at times he sounds like someone Greenpeace would send door-to-door with a clipboard. (He’s not above likening the coal-industry spin to the handiwork of Goebbels.) If it were anyone else, Wall Street would probably laugh him off. But because it’s Jeremy Grantham, they just might listen.
Canada
Industry Analysis: Norway Deals With It's "Natural Resource Curse" While Canada Does Nothing
In my earlier post on March 11th , “Alberta Bitumen Bubble and the Canadian Economy: An Industry Analysis Case Study,” I reported the stark facts of Canada’s current economic crisis as announced by Canada’s Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, and Alberta Premier Allison Redford, directly resulting from pricing forecasts for “Western Canada Select” (WCS) from the oil sands. In that post I also explored the now well-established economic conundrum known as the “natural resource curse.” This simply means that economies that rely heavily on natural resource exploitation, have historically underperformed more diverse economies. This is now most certainly the case in Canada.
Canada
Industry Analysis: High Anxiety Harper Gov't Now Openly Denies Climate Change Science
This is another post in my Industry Analysis series on the Alberta Bitumen Bubble and The Canadian Economy, and Canada’s strategic options. In a clear sign that the Harper government’s anxiety over the tars sands is increasing exponentially, the rhetoric from the Conservative government has become ever more shrill and less rational in tone. Rumors have abounded for some time that Harper himself is in fervent denial of climate change, but his PR handlers have cautioned him not to personally come “out of the proverbial closet” on climate change because it would cost Conservatives votes, the thing they care most about. But this stance appears to be changing, as Canada’s “natural resource curse”, consequent economic downturn, Canada’s failure to invest in innovation, and national productivity crisis converge on the Harper government. An ominous parallel can be drawn with South African President Thabo Mbeki’s official denial that HIV did not cause AIDS, which became an international embarrassment for South Africa. implications for all Canadians are immense.
Earth Hour
Celebrate Earth Hour Tonight March 23rd @ 8:30PM: Lights Out For One Hour
Celebrate Earth Hour tonight @ 8:30PM. Turn off all lights for one hour.
United States
Alberta Bitumen Bubble And The Canadian Economy: Industry Analysis Case Study
The Canadian media (CBC, Globe & Mail, Canadian Business) have been buzzing with analyses of Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s pronouncement last month that the “Bitumen Bubble,” is now crashing down on the Alberta economy, and potentially the entire Canadian economy. The Alberta budget released last Thursday, March 7, acknowledged a $6.2 Billion deficit from this year, and “even larger declines in the next several years,” due to forecasts for significant price decreases for “Western Canada Select” (WCS), the market term for Alberta oil sands oil. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty echoed the impact of reduced oil sands revenue on the federal budget, by warning of significant cutbacks in federal spending as well. The impact of this sudden change in the prospects for the Canadian petroleum industry and for government oil tax revenues, will likely also have serious implications for the BC economy, jobs growth, business investment, consumer spending: essentially the Canadian economy as a whole will suffer.
