Last night I had the dubious distinction of being the guy sitting next to former director of the CIA, Ambassador, and Undersecretary of the Navy (a post he held before I was born), and current Senior Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton and partner at Vantage Point Venture Partners, R. James Woolsey.
He has a fairly clear message that he is happy to share with anyone that will listen:
The United States is at grave risk to both “malignant” and “malevolent” disruptions to the grid and that threat can be addressed through distributed renewable generation which can simultaneously reduce the importance of oil to the ignominious fall from grace of salt.
I have had the pleasure of hearing him speak and spending some time with him before moderating last night’s event, and despite how highly I thought of him before, he did not disappoint. His is a decidedly aggressive approach to the US’ energy future, and like the well trained litigator he is, he presents his case very well. Electric vehicles and distributed renewables are the hallmarks of an utopian (utopic?) energy future, that would leave OPEC states reeling with the need to find, as he puts it, honest work, and reducing the disposable cash reserves some currently use to fund terrorist activities.
Shai Agassi, Founder and CEO of Better Place, the electric car infrastructure start-up, was named today to the