Houston's Next Big Economy Sector (Sugar Land, Katy: mineral rights, home, live in)

[bamba_boy]

Originally Posted by RenaudFR

I'm thinking about solar and wind energy + biofuels.These sectors are booming in Houston and represents 35% of energy companies in the city.Huge potential !

I agree completely. Houston will become the world capital of ALTERNATIVE renewable energy just as it is currently that for fossil fuel-based nonrenewable energy. The same cadre of scientists and engineers that work in the Houston area in identification of resources and construction of fuel to energy conversion projects can easily be re-oriented with their existing skills to the same thing in renewables.

Personally, I've worked in two traditional energy companies and been secondeed to three others. All of them have large "new energy" divisions and realize that their future literally is dependent on providing energy where energy can be obtained during the transition out of fossil-fuel based economies. Some naysayers predict that fossil fuels will be expended within a couple or three decades. I just don't see that. However, it's already apparent that the "easy to locate" and "easy to produce" oil is largely a pleasant memory. More and more oil and gas must be worked in stygian environments at the bottom of the continental slope and abyssal plains in unimaginable pressures; onshore or in shallow water but at 6 miles down at pressures and high temperatures where measuring probes melt, or easy produced conventional accumulations in 3rd world h*llholes with unstable governments, ludicrous or randomly exploding contract terms and random nationalizations, or arctic conditions with moving ice sheets or icebergs requiring super-expensive hardening of exploration rigs and production platforms or artificial islands.

All these worsening factors in fossil fuel development in the future along with the increasingly attractive pricing of alternative energy as technologies improve and economies of scale are employed will bring a day where alternative fuels will just be the logical way to go, even though difficult sources of fossil fuels will still be present but now comparably uneconomic. Houston is very well-prepared to take on the new mantle of Renewable Energy Capital

[KerrTown]

Corporate headquarters. We need to attract them away from Dallas. No wonder Dallas is the first city that most people think of in TEXAS.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

Corporate headquarters. We need to attract them away from Dallas. No wonder Dallas is the first city that most people think of in TEXAS.

You've been saying this for a while. Get over it. Houston needs to attract it's own ompanies. Not take them away from Dallas. Help Texas as a whole.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by Alphalogica

Okay, Houston is the energy capital. We got you. ("Energy" is a VERY broad term, but I'll take your word for it.) My point is from my original post, technology is rapidly advancing and our future is without a doubt going to be much different than it is today. Renewable energy can be produced just about anywhere, from Nantucket Sound to Southern California (not to mention individual backyards and roofs when it becomes viable at the consumer level), so who knows if there is going to even be a "renewable energy" capital. Oil and gas production is much more localized (Canadian tar sands, the Gulf of Mexico, West Texas, etc.)

To say Houston is and will be the energy capital forever to me is like someone in the 60's saying Detroit will dominate in automobile production forever. Industries change and the areas that are associated with them change along with them. (The premise of my first post on this forum)

Also, FWIW of course locally-based business organizations have something nice to say about Houston. It would be against their best interest to not have anything nice to say.

Oh wow, "we got you"? Who is this "we"? Anyway, I hope you realize Detroit is still the center of the automobile industry. It's the fault of American automakers for not keeping up with the automakers from overseas. Detroit also didn't diversify it's economy like Houston has been doing. These energy companies down here are becoming more diverse, also. Oh, and those Houston-based organizations have facts/numbers to back up what they're saying. Do you?

[JL]

Originally Posted by RenaudFR

I'm thinking about solar and wind energy + biofuels.These sectors are booming in Houston and represents 35% of energy companies in the city.Huge potential !

I hope you're right, but i think this sector will boom faster in other parts of the country considering the foothold of oil/gas here.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

You've been saying this for a while. Get over it. Houston needs to attract it's own ompanies. Not take them away from Dallas. Help Texas as a whole.

I didn't mean move established companies away from Dallas; I meant putting out PR to make outside companies moving to Texas to consider Houston. I think that's what you mean by attracting "it's own (c)ompanies"?

And corporate hqs besides "Energy" companies.

[Wonderful Jellal]

Originally Posted by JL

I hope you're right, but i think this sector will boom faster in other parts of the country considering the foothold of oil/gas here.

No, these oil/gas companies can be an advantage you know ? They understand about oil/gas : that won't last !
They invest money in this sector because it's the future, they love to invest in the biofuels

Texas is the wind power leader, and has already 10,000 jobs in the wind sector And it's just the beginning, in 2020 Texas could have between 80,000 and 100,000 jobs in the wind sector.
Don't worry about that, Texas/Houston will be a giant in the green economy

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Grunn

You're judging China by and applying to it Western standards. They aren't following the democratic model of capitalism. This is a completely different paradigm.

Look at their history: they play the long game and currently they are in the process of conquering you (the USA) economically. Sure it might take a couple of hundred years but either way get ready to speak Mandarin.

Look at WORLD history. No country has been able to suppress and censor its population and has come out of it. China can't simply keep censoring it's media, smashing dissidents, etc. Again, China WILL have to deal with wage issues, health care, environmental issues, social security if it really wants to compete with the big boys of America and the EU. China is simply still in the low cost import economy stage of its development.

[Alphalogica]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

These energy companies down here are becoming more diverse, also.

What do you mean by "energy companies becoming diverse?" Houston just can't lay claim to being a leader to renewable energy, yet, and it's fairly unlikely they will be able to. The business model of renewables is radically different than oil and gas. Most people can't produce oil and gas. However, most people (i.e. home/landowners) can produce solar/wind energy. Key difference. Renewable energy technology for consumers is still very much expensive and primitive and that will change. When laypeople can produce their own energy through advanced PV technology and such, how are these companies going to make money? Part of the beauty of renewables is the extremely strong potential for people to be independent of energy companies to produce their own electricity/power needs.

A lot of traditional energy companies' attempts into renewable energy are IMHO more just efforts to appease investors.

The solar PV & wind turbine manufacturers are going to win (of which I don't of a single one based in Houston).


Also, if you read my first post on this thread (and my posts in general), I mention a variety of other factors that could drastically change, if not, eliminate the future human job market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Alphalogica

What do you mean by "energy companies becoming diverse?" Houston just can't lay claim to being a leader to renewable energy, yet, and it's fairly unlikely they will be able to. The business model of renewables is radically different than oil and gas. Most people can't produce oil and gas. However, most people (i.e. home/landowners) can produce solar/wind energy. Key difference.

Just like a lot of the wind farms are being leased on private land in Texas, so can oil and nat gas drilling. In fact my family receives a check every month for gas drilling in Louisiana. Offshore is a whole different game but it's ignorant to say it is a key difference.