Talk like an incumbent
When Roger Saillant, a 30-year veteran and expatriate of the U.S. auto industry, drives a hybrid car and keeps bees as a hobby. But when he talks technical and economic matters, he means business. Saillant is president and CEO of Albany-based Plug Power Inc., which develops clean, reliable, on-site fuel cells. He is also this year’s guest lecturer at the second annual William J. O’Brien lecture, which is free and open to the public and takes place Nov. 8 at the College of the Holy Cross. Here, he shares ideas on what it will take to move the nation’s techno-political complex to develop a renewable economy.
WBJ: You predict it will be 20 years before hydrogen fuel cells catch on in the auto market, and 30 to 50 years to replace the U.S. auto fleet. Will government regulation or market acceptance bring this about?
Saillant: I think it’s going to take a long time for fuel cell vehicles to become commercial. So to say it may not start for 20 years, I think is pretty reasonable. ...
We are very sloppy on fuel efficient auto design because we convert opportunities for fuel efficiency into opportunities for quick pickup and power. [Federal] CAFÉ, Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, have been stagnant since 1987. We’ve gone from small cars to SUVs and then people argue that small cars are unsafe. Matter of fact, as soon as you put an SUV on the highway, you’ve made everybody else unsafe.
WBJ: I agree. Where’s Mr. ‘Unsafe at any Speed’ – Ralph Nader – when we need him?
Saillant: I think [Nader]’s still trying to figure out whether he’s going to be a guru or an activist ... I think he isolated himself from the incumbent, so his voice isn’t very profound any more.
To be effective in the world you have to speak in the language of the incumbent. If they can push you away by saying you’re a tree-hugger or some impractical radical visionary, that’s all they need to discount you. You have to get inside their decision cycle, and learn to talk a little bit like they do. I don’t talk about fuel cells, although I have that on my agenda. I talk about loss of jobs and technology to foreign countries, and importing technology rather than importing oil. Once politicians are concerned about that, they recognize votes, and then you can suggest passing a tax credit to help [develop] fuel cells. Or, if we put pressure on the U.S. to get CAFÉ standard improvement, that would lead to technological development.
WBJ: How much of the troubles of U.S. automakers are really due to rising labor and health-care costs compared to foreign competitors?
Saillant: It doesn’t matter what U.S. automakers say today. Their decision-making was in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. The outcome of their arguments today is immaterial. The only way out of this for the U.S. automakers is to consolidate with foreign automakers much like Chrysler did with Daimler. I have no illusion about the single-stroke play that’s going to save the U.S. automakers. They promote clean renewables; meanwhile they lobby against CAFÉ standards.
WBJ: Having to talk like the incumbent becomes more of an understanding of mass psychology than selling a new technology idea.
Saillant: I’m saying more than that. To go against the incumbent, is really about regulation. In California and Pennsylvania, you had smog in the ‘50s. So we had to create organizations like the EPA and [a state] equivalent in California which passed regulations requiring emissions-control devices on cars. The automakers fought back, saying it would ruin the cost and the fuel economy.
The cars that we produced by 1987 were cleaner, more fuel efficient, and in terms of capability, far less costly than what we were producing in the late ‘60s. ... The customers wanted clean air, and they had to use their voting power to get it.
Today, customers are going to want clean air, which means no CO2, because that leads to global warming. And they’re going to force things to happen. State by state, and in cities and counties, they’re beginning to pass equivalents of the Kyoto Protocols because they want whatever actions are required, to prevent global warming inflicting unquantifiable punishment on our children 100 years from now.
WBJ:As China and India develop into economic powerhouses, their atmosphere is suffering. What do we tell developing nations that want to have their good life, too?
Saillant: First of all, we don’t tell the developing nations anything. We start speaking to ourselves. We represent 5 percent of the population but contribute 25 percent of the global warming gases today. If we learn how to control it here, then other countries would have a way to copy something that is much, much better than what we used to get to where we are.
We have to have a value system built around those words in order to drive the technology, to drive the mindset that we can, in fact, export.
This interview was conducted and edited for length by Editor Christina P. O’Neill
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