Summer 2012: Business 297D
Strategic Management in Green Energy
Last modified
April 26, 2012
Instructor: Joel West, Ph.D.
Lucas Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University.
Summer Session A, 2012
Course Title:
Business 297D: Strategic Management in Green Energy
Section:
09
Class Hours & Location:
Thursdays: 6:00-10:00pm, April 26-June 14
Saturdays: 9:00am-1:00pm, May 5 and June 2Office Hours:
Before and after class at Tech Mart or by appointment
Office Location:
n/a
Office Phone:
408-335-0115
E-mail:
joel.west@sjsu.edu
Preferred Contact:
There are two ways to enroll in the course:
The course emphasizes analytical and communication skills, as well as a basic understanding of profit and loss statements. The instructor can work with any student to provide supplemental background or training necessary to fully participate in the class.
After Week 1, students are responsible for obtaining all assignments from the course home page on Desire2Learn. For non-SJSU students, a D2L login will be provided.
From 2002-2009, Professor Joel West was an associate professor and then professor of innovation & entrepreneurship at the SJSU College of Business. Today he is a full-time faculty member at the Keck Graduate Institute, one of the seven Claremont Colleges in the Los Angeles Area.
While at SJSU, he founded the Silicon Valley Open Source Research Project and the SJSU Solar Workforce Project. His research on clean technologies has focused on California’s solar and biofuels industries. He also is the author of the Cleantech Business web log and is syndicated by Seeking Alpha. For more information, see his website.
Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and energy security have prompted calls to shift America’s energy strategy from fossil fuels to one based on renewable energy sources. The Bay Area is at the center of the entrepreneurial opportunities created by this shift, accounting for the majority of the US cleantech venture capital investments in each of the past six years. At the same time, the new unproven green energy technologies must compete with the proven (and entrenched) commodity technologies.
This courses examines the economic drivers and business opportunities created by this shift towards renewable energy. It considers the key factors both inside and outside the firm, and also covers a broad range of technologies in renewable energy and energy efficiency. It focuses on how these opportunities apply to California and particularly Silicon Valley firms, both inside and outside the cleantech sector.
The following book is required:
i. The required course reader is an online reader produced by Harvard Business Publishing. This is not optional — every student must buy a copy.
ii. Other reading materials are provided online via Desire2Learn.
As with all ESMBA courses, the pace of the course is accelerated, particularly on weeks where there are both Thursday and Saturday sessions. Please review the schedule and plan ahead.
This is a case-based class, and case writeups are due every week. Students are required to turn in four graded cases, one every two sessions (e.g. #2 or #3, #4 or #5, #6 or #7, #8 or #9); the submission should say “graded” at the top of the first page. If students submit a 5th case writeup (any week), the lowest of the 5 scores will be dropped. Specific guidelines are provided for the case writeups.
The remaining case writeups are “check” graded (pass/fail). For these assignments, submit a one-page memo on the assigned discussion questions at the beginning of class.
Students will be evaluated on their quantity and quality of their contribution to our weekly discussions. These discussions will be on the assigned readings, as well as the discussion of the weekly assigned case. Students are expected to be ready for discussion each week.
Silicon Valley is the hotbed of clean technology innovation, with exciting seminars being held every week. To encourage students to access these opportunities, students are required to attend and write up a report on one local seminar on a topic related to the course, in the month of April, May or June 2012. With instructor permission, students may substitute a second seminar writeup for one graded case homework.
The seminar writeup must be submitted within 14 days of the seminar date.(The format of the writeup will be supplied).
This article lists various cleantech speaker programs in the Bay Area. For students who are unable to attend a session, students will have the option of viewing an online video of the May 8 biofuels panel hosted by Prof. West. The deadline for writing up this session will be 14 days after the video is posted.
Students will do a strategic analysis of a publicly traded company whose primary focus is renewable energy or a related industry (alternative fuel vehicles, battery storage). Guidelines will be discussed during the second class session.
Grades will be calculated based on total points. The weighting is as follows
Graded case assignments Check graded assignments Class participation Seminar writeup Term paper Total
100%
The draft course calendar is given below
Session Date Topic Technology Case 1 Apr. 26 Drivers of green energy demand - n/a 2 May 3 Global warming: economics and policy - AB32 3 May 5 Distributed generation solar Verengo Solar May 8 Biofuels executive panel (not in class) biomass 4 May 10 Trade, jobs and competitive advantage wind, solar Suntech Power 5 May 17 Government and regulation solar, wind Cape Wind 6 May 24 Growing fuel biomass Amyris 7 May 31 Transportation alternative fuel vehicles Nissan Leaf; Fuel Cells 8 June 7 Energy policy and fossil fuels† oil, gas, carbon capture Suncor Energy 9 June 9 Efficiency and conservation energy efficiency Cree 10 June 14 Raising capital - Khosla Ventures
† On June 7, we will have as our guest speaker Dr. David Steele, dean of the Lucas School of Business and a 30-year Chevron veteran.
“Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at San JoséŽ State University and the University’s Academic Integrity Policy requires you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty are required to report all infractions to the Office of Judicial Affairs.” The policy on academic integrity can be found at http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf
Academic dishonesty defrauds all those who depend upon the integrity of the University, its courses, and its degrees. Such dishonesty includes both cheating and plagiarism. Any suspected case of academic dishonesty will be vigorously pursued, with possible consequences including a failing grade for the specific assignment that you cheated on, failure in the course, and further disciplinary action.
This has two specific implications:
In particular, Internet Plagiarism will be harshly dealt with. Do not copy and paste any text from the Internet, unless it’s a direct quotation — footnoted to a source — that is either indented in the body of the text, or a sentence surrounded by quotation marks.
If you have not previously done so, you are expected to review the SJSU library tutorial on plagiarism.
Necessary course accommodations will be made for students who notify the instructor of their requirements at the beginning of the semester. University policy (under Presidential Directive 97-03) requires all students with disabilities register their disability with the SJSU Disability Resource Center.
You are assumed to understand and comply with all relevant college policies. These can be reviewed at http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/cob/5_STUDENT%20SERVICES/cobpolicy.htm