Seven lessons about the green economy

    At Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference, experts talked of environmentalist-capitalist collaboration; a smart-grid future; and the end of individual car ownership.

    By Adam Lashinsky

    The best thing about being a non-expert at a conference like Fortune's second annual "green" meeting is all you can learn from the experts. We've got some big brains walking around a gorgeous hotel near Laguna Beach. Here's what I've learned so far:

    1. Cap-and-trade is a foregone conclusion. Marc Gunther hosted a heavyweight panel Monday night that included industry heavyweights like lawyer Bill Bumpers, enviro honcho Fred Krupp, NRG Energy chief David Crane and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy. To a man, they think the U.S. will have a carbon-trading scheme passed by Congress and signed by President Obama by the first quarter of 2010 at the latest. That expert opinion surprised this non-expert. I thought the overwhelming conventional wisdom was that the Obama administration has downgraded its ambitions for the so-called cap-and-trade plan. I left the panel unsure if the panelists are engaging in wishful thinking or if the conventional wisdom is wrong.

    2. One day all cars will be electric. At least that's how I heard Tesla and Better Place investor Alan Salzman say it. It struck me as odd that in our lifetimes we'll replace the 100-year-old, inexpensive gasoline infrastructure. I also wonder if we'll run out of coal if we try to go all-electric. Salzman's response: I'm not forward-thinking enough. Solar, wind and even nuclear will supply plenty of electricity to replace coal, he said.

    3. Ford's potentially winning strategy: Make lots of bets. Executive Chairman Bill Ford presented the face of a Detroit survivor in an interview with Fortune Managing Editor Andy Serwer. He explained that Ford's approach to all the competing forms of alternative-energy vehicles is to pursue them all -- electric, hybrid, biofuels -- but to do it on a single global platform to avoid expensive duplication in multiple markets. It may sound like a wishy-washy "platform agnostic" approach, but to hear Ford describe it, it gives his company badly needed flexibility. Given that Ford is the sole unbailed-out auto maker with the least likelihood of going bankrupt, Bill Ford had a lot of credibility right now.

    4. Radical environmentalists are working with corporate America. Author Paul Hawken gave Marc Gunther a fascinating dinner under the stars over dinner. He said he's a "slut for change," giving a compelling explanation of how he consults with companies like Walmart and Ford. This guy is interesting. For those of us unfamiliar with "bio-mimicry," it's a whole new topic worth checking out. He said given the problems facing the earth it's too late to be "right or righteous," and that's why he's willing to sit down with (and, apparently, take money from) just about anyone if they're sincere about solving problems.

    5. Your electric bill will look like your cell-phone bill. A smart-grid breakfast panel providing a neat window into how startups, like Silver Spring Networks, and utilities, like PG&E, are developing systems that will help electric networks communicate better with their customers. The real opportunity here is for electricity generators to get a better sense of where their power is being used and adjust accordingly to produce less and therefore to lower costs. A byproduct will be that consumers will be able to monitor and adjust their behavior according to pricing information they receive from utilities, much the same way we currently monitor and adjust our cell-phone usage. "Smart grid" is one of those buzzy topics that industry people buzz about but the rest of us don't get. That will change when utilities stop talking and start delivering services, which they seem set to do. A good primer on the smart grid concept, by the way, is Jeffrey O'Brien's IBM story in the current issue of Fortune.

    6. Shai Agassi has it all figured out. If you don't know about Shai, then you haven't read any of the many profiles of his electric-car-charging-infrastructure company, Better Place. He presented at our conference, and he said that at just one million cars the total price of an electric car will be below a car with a gasoline engine. Hmm. About 9 million cars will get sold in the U.S. this year. And will all one million need to be part of Better Place's network? Incidentally, a bevy of auto-industry experts politely disparaged Better Place in a subsequent panel, most convincingly Bill Reinert of Toyota who said car batteries need to be weather tight and that they mix extremely poorly with weather. (Battery changing stations are a key component of the Better Place idea.) This topic will only get more interesting.

    7. Toyota sees a future where cars aren't made for individuals. Yes, Reinert also said that. He's thinking way into the future, but he's talking about issues like urban congestion, pollution and other reasons why it's unrealistic that individuals will buy their own cars. It's wild that Toyota is thinking about that. By the way, Henrik Fisker sees a different future. His Fisker Automotive is building a gorgeous $87,000 plug-in electric hybrid car that will get 100 miles per gallon. He figures all his customers will have a garage to plug in their cars, something Toyota knows isn't feasible for all Prius owners. For $87,000 it's a fair bet a buyer will have a garage. All this, and we're just getting started.