Green Power

Green technology has always been perched on the verge of the big time. Advocates of wind power, solar cells, and hydrogen vehicles promise that any day now, they'll blossom from science-fair projects into major businesses, competing squarely with the cars we drive today and the energy sources we use now.

But trying to disrupt well-established industries such as transportation and utilities is a risky proposition. No one's sure how quickly green tech will be adopted, which puts a premium on astute timing -- and endurance. Some signs, though, indicate that the tipping point could be near. Big companies are placing their bets. "We expect the wind industry to grow at double-digit rates for the next 10-plus years," says Steve Zwolinski, CEO of General Electric's wind-energy division, which employs 1,800 people globally. And around the country, imaginative people are working to expand markets for green technology, building prototypes, cultivating public support, raising money, and collaborating with others interested in fostering its growth. To understand the innovative approaches being applied to reinventing the world's energy economy, Fast Company visited three leaders of green tech's latest charge.

Reaping the Wind

Jim Gordon was only going over to Walter Cronkite's house for coffee and muffins one morning in August 2003. But for Gordon, an entrepreneur trying to build America's first offshore wind farm, this was a high-stakes coffee klatch. The most trusted man in America had recorded a series of radio and TV ads for a group that opposed Gordon's project, and Gordon knew that it would be a tough slog to get the wind farm built with such a respected journalist serving as the public face of his foes.

Gordon, who built and operated a handful of natural-gas-fired power plants around New England in the 1980s and 1990s, knew that he'd have to deal with opponents when he decided to try to build a wind farm in the middle of Nantucket Sound (between Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, where Cronkite had a home). "We've had opposition on all of the projects we've developed," he says. "By nature, energy projects are controversial, and sometimes people don't want to live near them."

Still, Gordon says, "I wasn't prepared for the ferocity." A well-funded group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, cropped up and recruited Cronkite and historian David McCullough as its spokesmen. Senator Ted Kennedy wrote an editorial in the Cape Cod Times opposing the project. His nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had spoken out against it too -- despite serving as the senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports wind power in general. (Though Gordon's wind turbines would be visible from the famous Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Robert Kennedy has said he opposes this plan because "we wouldn't build a wind farm in the middle of Yosemite.")

Even though wind-power technology was finally ready to compete with traditional oil- and gas-burning power plants -- especially with oil prices spiking -- Gordon quickly realized that the technology would be only half the battle. His plan might be innovative and earth-friendly, but if he wanted it to fly, he'd have to battle on an entirely different front. Image making, public relations, advertising, and lobbying would ultimately determine his project's fate.

Gordon sold his natural-gas-fired plants in 1999 and began exploring the possibility of developing a large wind farm. To him, the site in Nantucket Sound made infinite sense. "Over the past 20 years, the technology has made quantum leaps," he says, "and the indigenous renewable energy source we have in New England is wind." Within New England, Nantucket Sound offers some of the most consistently strong winds. It didn't hurt that Gordon's Boston-based company, Cape Wind Associates, could erect its 130 wind turbines, each rising 420 feet from the water, without buying or leasing the land beneath them; it would only have to navigate a complicated permitting process involving 17 state and federal regulatory agencies. (Cape Wind plans to buy its turbines from General Electric.)

At peak capacity, Gordon says his wind farm would produce enough power to supply the entire Cape, plus the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, while emitting zero pollution. It could reduce utility bills for consumers and businesses in Massachusetts. And besides pumping out 23,000 tons of sulfur dioxide every year, the Cape's existing power plant was involved in an oil spill in nearby Buzzards Bay in 2003. The power plant's smokestack rises 500 feet above the Cape Cod canal, higher than Gordon's turbines would. Still, his opponents charge that the wind farm will be unsightly, hurt tourism and fishing in the region, kill migrating birds, and pose a hazard to passing planes and boats.