Serendipity. It seems to strike at the oddest–yet most convenient–times.

This morning, for example. On my slightly less than one-gallon drive in from the suburbs I stopped to take care of a few errands thus getting me to the office later than usual. Having successfully avoided looking at anything work related over the brief one-day holiday I open up my calendar and email to discover I have a major energy strategy meeting coming up in less than an hour. What’s more, I can’t find my notes from the prep session I had last week (which already feels like last month–wait, it was last mont!), and I still haven’t even had a chance for a cup of coffee and a glance at the Financial Times–a work day ritual I look forward to with great relish.

Faced with such a situation, what’s a fellow to do?

Why, pour a cup of coffee and read the FT of course. No sense panicking over being unprepared when there isn’t sufficient time to prepare.

Which, of course, brings me to today’s Financial Times. The juxtaposition of Alison Maitland’s review of a new book called The Triple Bottom Line with the header “every company has a sustainability sweet spot” and Martin Wolf’s column declaring that “coal and open markets are the best hope for energy security” couldn’t be more…serendipitously appropriate. Especially when I notice an email alert in my in-box from the New York Times pointing to an article about how the search for new oil leads to processed coal. All much better preparation for the meeting that starts less than ten minutes from now than any fretting or fussing on my part could have produced. And, on a personal level, at least, a particularly energy-efficient use of time to boot.

First let’s take a look at Wolf’s commentary. (Wolf’s full article is only available to subscribers.) In it, he takes on the Malthusians of all stripes–from the original Thomas Malthus who predicted that population growth would outstrip the earth’s ability to handle human needs to today’s energy Malthusians, both those who claim the end of oil is near as well as those who claim our continued use of fossil fuels will so damage the environment as to bring about apocalyptic and, ultimately for life as we know it, cataclysmic climate change. His data is unassailable: 86% of the world’s commercial energy currently comes from fossil fuels. His thesis is sound: Higher prices and innovation will generate greater extraction from existing fields and open up new unconventional sources for exploitation. What does this mean for renewables or, for that matter, nuclear?

“[R]enewable energy is expensive, nuclear energy is controversial and overall demand is set to grow substantially. Suppose global energy demand were indeed to double my mid-century. Assume, too, thatconsumption of energy from fossil fuels and hydro- and nuclear electricity were to remain constant. Thne the energy output from renewables must grow 70 times. This will not ‘just happen’. It will take enormous efforts by governments.

“Renewables have problems of usabilty, scaleability or cost…. To generate half of all current energy consumption we would need 100m windmills….Use of large portions of the earth’s surface for biomass runs into the constraints imposed by alternative uses (food production and natural habitat). In principle, solar energy should be more than adequate: the quantity falling on the earth’s surface is more than 6000 times current commercial energy consumption.”

But of course our abililty to capture or use this energy at a reasonable cost–as compared to existing fossil fuel sources–still is woefully inadequate. And so, Wolf argues, the best way to address the short term energy security issues is through exploitation of local coal reserves in addition to non-local oil and gas. But, he points out, “this argument ignores the question of climate change…. It will be perfectly possible to run a fossil fuel economy for many decades at prices that are likely to be substantially lower than those of recent times. Even if they remain at current levels, the world economy will almost certainly cope, as its recent performance suggests. The world can afford quite expensive energy. The big question is, instead, whether the environment on which our lives depend can cope with the results.”

The Big Question is at least partially explored in The Triple Bottom Line, the subtitle of which is “How today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social, and environmental success and how you can too.”

Don’t let the title throw you. This is not a “warm fuzzy” do-it-because-its-the-right-thing-to-do manifesto. Instead, according to Maitland, the authors make “a lively and cogent case that no company or manager can afford to ignore theworld around them…. This book is not a tract admonishing business to take its responsibilities seriously. Its central argument is an upbeat one that is gaining currency: it makes financial sense for companies to anticipate and respond to society’s emerging demands…The best run companies find ’sustainability sweet spots’ — areas where shareholders’ long-term interests overlap with those of society. Implausible? Look at General Electric, with its revenue-boosting Ecomagination green technology…or Toyota’s fuel-efficient Prius.”

And so, in the goal-setting meeting for our region’s advanced energy strategy, looking for ways to develop new or enhance existing local businesses in ways that also contribute to the development and use of clean, cheap reliable and secure energy quite easily went together hand-in-glove.

Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll test some of the concepts that came out of that meeting (and the yet-to-be-scheduled follow-ons) with TechFutures’ readers. But one thing is clear: we do have the ability to both improve our environment and create new jobs or even whole new industry clusters in the process–if we put our minds to it.