This morning, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. keynoted the BuiltGreen Conference 2009 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. It was not your typical green conference keynote.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Most talks focus on one topic and explore it. At green events, that talk is usually centered around a project, a theory or a problem that we need to fix. This talk was mostly political and discussed everything from the benefits of “true free market capitalism” (many), to how the Bush administration tore down environmental rules and tenets (disastrously), to who was who in Washington, D.C. politics (lobbyists), to how much mercury human beings have in their bodies (a lot), to how the press has covered these issues (very poorly).

Honestly, he spoke about so many different things I don’t really know what to tell you, dear reader. So I’ll start with energy.

Kennedy spoke a lot about the energy grid. The largest technical problem in weaning ourselves off oil, he said, is that we don’t have a grid that can handle new sources of energy like wind or solar. Developing a system that would reach every American home would cost $1 million per mile, he said, or $150 billion. It’s a one-time expenditure, he said, and would benefit national security. He said we’ve done it before with computers and the Internet; all we have to do is make the commitment.

He also said we need to change the way the energy business works. Utilities today, he said, benefit by creating and selling more energy. We need to redevelop it to focus on conservation. “We have to change that incentivized system,” he said, “So that they can make the same money by getting people to conserve, not consume.”

He also spoke a lot about a business he is a part of called Better Place. Better Place is a venture-backed company that seeks to build an electric car network based on today’s technology. Kennedy said the company is beginning with Israel, where it hopes to transform the market over the next three years. The company will give electric cars away for free - made by Renault and Nissan - to anyone who signs a contract with the company. Under the contract, the person owns the car while Better Place owns the car battery (which costs $20,000). The company pays itself back by charging a premium on the power the car needs to run, outlined in the contract. He said the company has similar contracts with Denmark, Australia, Hawaii and north California, and would love for all of North America to follow suit.

“The electric car is the way this country is going to go,” he said.

Kennedy also took a hit at the mainstream media, calling it “negligent” in reporting important stories over the past decade. Instead, he said the media has become entertainment rather than information, which appeals to the prurient interests in the reptilian parts of our brains. Ouch.

Were you there? If so, what did you think was the most interesting thing he said and how would you rate his speech?

P.S. The information Kennedy shared about his personal levels of mercury (if he were a woman, he said a doctor told him his children would have cognitive impairment) was pretty frightening. If you want to test your mercury levels, visit the Waterkeeper Alliance, another organization Kennedy is affiliated with, here.

If you had an energy budget for your meeting today, would you think twice about turning on an extra light? Experts in the field say you would and will in the not-too-distant future.

It’s called smart energy - the idea behind it is the energy used in your home or building will interface with the grid the same way your Internet can interface with a well tuned entertainment system. You tell the Internet what you want - it gets it for you without your worrying about the specifics. At an AeA dinner on smart energy last night, experts said your office or home is going to do the same thing.

Are there business opportunities here? Doug Moore, president of McKinstry, says only if you consider 250 billion square feet of buildings in the United States (most of which will need to be retrofitted) an opportunity. The way it works now, buildings represent about 40 percent of all energy and 68 percent of all electricity used in the U.S. and 38 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (for more info on that, check out the CEC report here). And a lot of that energy is wasted.

If business and utilities were incentivized to conserve energy on a grand scheme, they’d get you to save more energy in your building and those numbers would go down.

Don’t believe it? Pay attention to energy savings from the Kilowatt Crackdown contest in Seattle, sponsored by BOMA. The Vance Corp. has two Seattle buildings entered and will save at least a couple thousand dollars per year, thanks to efficiency information. To read my article about the crackdown, go here.

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