Developing the first advanced nuclear venture fund Valerie Gardner, a TIA cofounder and principal, and Rod Adams, former founder of Adams Atomic Engines (one of the first advanced nuclear ventures) and current host of Atomic Insights, one of the longest-lived blogs on atomic energy, have been exploring how to make investing in advanced nuclear accessible for more investors. They have [...]
Talking about Advanced Nuclear's emergence into the private sector and what that means for its funding Valerie Gardner, TIA's cofounder and principal, was invited to speak at the US Nuclear Infrastructure Council's first-ever New Nuclear Capital Conference, held July 16th and 17th in Washington, DC. In a talk entitled "Why Advanced Nuclear is Changing the Nuclear Energy Financing Paradigm," Ms. [...]
By Valerie Gardner Since our founding in 2002, we have seen it as our job to help our clients invest prudently in the market, in order to participate in the overall market growth and returns generated by business. We have always known that our clients will do best if we reduce their unnecessary costs and uncompensated risks, while providing [...]
Dr. Jonathan Tiemann Would it really be possible to replace our existing energy system with renewables? Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford, thinks we can do so by 2050.1 Prof. Jacobson has done an impressive job of synthesizing demographic, economic, and engineering data to develop a formula that seems to show a path toward a fully [...]
In a special 132-page report published in August 2015 entitled "ENERGY DARWINISM II: Why a Low Carbon Future Doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth," Citigroup, one of the world's largest financial insitutions, reported that it had studied the financial impacts and feasibility of whether we could afford to address climate change. It found that, in fact, opting to address climate [...]
Is it time to think about how climate change might impact your portfolio? Apparently, some 120 CEOs and investment managers representing more than $12 trillion in assets think so. They were worried enough to send an open letter on May 25, 2015 to the Group of Seven (G-7) Finance Ministers to urge them to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [...]
The price of oil has fallen by more than 50% since June, 2014 when it was hovering around $110 a barrel. It is now below $50. This comes after nearly five years of relatively steady price growth and supply stability. However, at the November 27th meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls nearly 40% of the world [...]
Lore has it, according to Thomas Friedman, that a Chinese emporor was so enthralled with the invention of the game of chess that he offered to fulfill any wish for the inventor. The simple wish: place 1 grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, then place 2 grains of rice on the second square, 4 grains on the third square, 8 grains on the fourth and continuing doubling the grains across the entire board. The emporer granted the wish happily, only to discover that by the 64th square, he owed his kingdom in rice. Thomas Friedman included this among many brilliant observations and points made in a talk that he gave to Stanford's Precourt Institute last year. His point here being that trends that seem small and insignificat at the outset, can have huge and uncontrolled impacts if they maintain their incremental growth over time. He posits that we are on the second half of the chessboard in the way the markets work, the impacts we are having on Mother Nature and in the operation of Moore's Law on technology.
There is much irony to ponder in the news released last week that the Rockefeller heirs have chosen to divest from oil investments. As reported by John Schwartz in and article in the New York Times entitled Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortun, Will Divest Charity of Fossil Fuels, "John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels."
The news, coming as it did in advance of the start of the United Nations Climate Summit, nearly trumped financial news reporting of the fact that some 400,000 people representing over 3,000 organizations had turned out in New York City to protest inaction on climate change by marching across Manhattan in the People's Climate March. Additionally, massive supporting marches were held in major cities around the world, including Paris, London, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. Unofficial counts put the total number of marchers worldwide at over half a million. Well, these numbers are staggering and record-breaking but, gosh (snark alert), it just can't be news since readers can already assume that those folks marching are tree-huggers.
A January, 2013 article in the FT about Sir George Buckley, entitled "Retired 3M chief finds a new life in sustainability" has quoted him bemoaning the fact that analysts overlooked the hard work he did during his tenure at 3M to "prevent pollution." Sir George expresses a degree of frustration that the good ESG work he says 3M did, both [...]