Mar 29 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rob Varnon Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Global warming and limited resources are forcing humanity to change how it gets energy, but in that change could lie a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for businesses and individuals to make money and reshape the world.

This according to a panel of business and government representatives speaking at a recent forum about green energy at Fairfield University's Dolan School of Business. With more than 65 people in the audience, the Wednesday evening event attracted a strong mix of students, area residents and professors. Two managers from General Electric Co. spelled out why the conglomerate is investing so heavily in wind and solar energy plants across the globe.

"A lot has changed in the world," said Kevin Walsh, renewable energy managing director for GE Energy Financial Services.

Walsh, a Fairfield University alumnus, said global population growth and over-dependence on oil and other fossil fuels requires the United States and other nations diversify their fuel sources. That's why GE has been so aggressive in its investment in wind and solar energy projects around the globe, he said.

His GE EFS colleague, Jerry Eyster, went into more detail to show the audience how big the mission of curbing global warming is and, therefore, how much potential there is for students and visionaries to carve out solid careers.

Eyster, a senior vice president of strategic marketing, said in order to stabilize the temperature of the planet, the world will have to cut 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide -- which is one of the "green-house gases" blamed for thickening the atmosphere around the planet so heat cannot escape -- in the next 50 years to keep the temperature to only a 1-to-2 degree increase.

While green-house gases are not the only reason for rising temperatures, Eyster said the consensus feeling is that carbon dioxide does contribute to warming and, therefore, reducing this gas could help stabilize the Earth's temperature.

But the magnitude of cuts needed is daunting.

One gigaton is more than all the potential solar energy on the planet, he said, or all the potential wind energy. "It is a big problem and it's going to take a lot of people with a lot of skills," Eyster said.

One tough issue is how to deal with the emerging industrial nations, he said. From 1900 to 1999, America, Europe and the other industrialized areas of the world produced almost all the world's greenhouse gases. That's changed, but Eyster said world leaders have to consider whether it's fair to tell developing nations they can't have TVs or refrigerators, or whether industrialized nations should have to pay some sort of price for putting the planet in this situation.

Eyster said most of the green-house gases in the U.S. come from transportation and the production of electricity. Dealing with this problem means finding alternative sources of energy that don't generate pollution and finding ways to trim our energy consumption, according to the panelists.

This need doesn't just mean the world needs engineers with new ideas -- it also needs financiers with vision.

Martin Whittaker, director of Norwalk-based Mission Point Capital Partners, said his firm specializes in investing in green technology.

The company, founded in 2006, invests in fledgling companies and helps build them up to the point where they can be sold to larger corporations or taken public, he said.

Whittaker said his firm invests in some basic areas, including in companies that create systems that produce energy from fossil fuel more efficiently or from fuels that release no green house gases.

Frank Wolak, vice president of business development at Danbury-based Fuel Cell Energy, said technical careers also abound.

His company has been installing fuel cells, which generate electricity through a highly efficient system, throughout the world and country. He highlighted several examples of how the technology was being used, including the Sierra Nevada Brewery project. The brewery's fuel cells run partially on a beer byproduct, reducing the amount of natural gas the brewery consumes to make electricity, he said.

While the panel was generally confident in the future of green technology, all said these devices still need government support through subsidies or by placing taxes on the emissions generated by older technologies, such as coal-burning plants.

Robert Wall, director of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund's market initiatives, said the state is doing its part in this arena.

For example, Wall said, the CCEF has helped GE and Bigelow Tea in Fairfield fund solar panel installation on their buildings to reduce their consumption of fossil-fuel-produced energy.

Rob Varnon, who covers business, can be reached at 330-6216.