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California Energy Commissioner Anthony Eggert spent some time with The Real Story at last month’s West Coast Green Conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco. What did he see at the conference that he found exciting? The amount of innovation in product development—and the relative speed with which new products can now enter the mainstream of the consumer marketplace, where the REAL market research takes place. Will new products cause consumers to change behaviors? Will consumers pay more for products that are easier on the earth?

He points to the example of hybrid vehicles, saying that roughly one in four hybrids driven today are purchased in California. He also surprised us with the statistic that 400,000 – 500,000 Californians own flex-fuel vehicles, which use gas or 85 percent biofuel in the form of ethanol. The state is supporting the flex-fuel vehicle users by investing in new stations. Anthony shares that there is emerging a new generation of biofuels—the first used food products like corn; the next generation is looking at agricultural and municipal waste. He talks today about algae that can produce a synthetic petroleum product.  There is so much experimentation and research, and so much of it happening right here.