We have a historic opportunity: crumbling US infrastructure, windfall profits, Saudi price cuts undermining our energy security. Pass an asymmetric fuel tax on gasoline users during low prices and windfall oil company profits during high prices to give us security, stability, competitiveness, and productivity. Here is the idea: Reasonable energy prices are good for the economy. Very low oil prices give temporary consumer benefit but undermine energy security: shale gas, renewable fuels, electric vehicles all become less competitive and as we saw in the 1980s set us back decades in foreign dependence as all alternatives get cut back just in time for prices to snap back. Very high oil prices c
Most of us see the gas bill at the pump and annual registration/insurance. That bill is slightly lower at the moment due to low oil prices gradually flowing through the the pump. But the real costs of car ownership are $11,000 per year for a typical mid-size and much more than that if you own a European import or factor in the total cost of cars as a society which includes 4 deaths per hour in the United States alone plus 111 hours we each waste stuck in congestion every year.
INTRODUCTION Venture Capital can produce spectacularly positive returns.It can also spectacularly disappoint just when returns are most expected.Its seeming lack of predictability allows its highest practitioners to describe it as an art form.But even art has its patterns and the last 40 years of venture capital investing allow us to identify and learn from some of those patterns.More specifically, a closer look at those patterns suggests a new approach to investing in energy and other sustainable technologies. Historically, disruptive new technologies have evolved in identifiable stages: 1) explosive ideation, 2) competitive carnage, 3) adoptive inflection points, 4) insight