Thomas Casten Bio

Thomas R. Casten has spent 30 years developing decentralized energy recycling projects as founding President and CEO of Trigen Energy Corporation, a New York Stock Exchange corporation and its predecessors from 1977 through 2000, as founding Chair & CEO of Primary Energy Ventures LLC, an Oak Brook, Illinois based firm with a Toronto Stock Exchange traded subsidiary, Primary Energy Recycling Corp through 2006, and currently as founding Chairman of Recycled Energy Development, LLC located in Westmont, Illinois. Mr. Casten has served as the President of the International District Energy Association, has received the Normal R. Taylor Award for distinguished achievement and contributions to the industry, and has been named a “CHP Champion” by the US Combined Heat and Power Association. He is the co-founder and former Chairman of the World Alliance for Distributed Energy (WADE), an umbrella organization of national CHP and distributed energy associations, equipment vendors, government agencies and foundations that promote distributed generation to optimize the world's power system. In 2006, the WADE board inducted Tom as the first member of the WADE Hall of Fame.

Mr. Casten serves on the Board of Directors/Advisory Boards of the Carnegie Melon Electric Industry Center, the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE), the Ontario Alliance for Clean Technology (ACT), the Climate Institute, and the Center for Inquiry, and is an internationally recognized expert on energy and related environment issues. His articles have been widely published and he has testified on numerous occasions before U.S. Senate and House Energy committees and has advised Canadian, Indian, Chinese and Brazilian government officials on power industry governance. In 2006, Mr. Casten presented his views at the Clinton Global Initiative about profitably mitigating climate change. Tom’s book, “Turning off the Heat,” published by Prometheus Press in 1998, explains how the world can save money and pollution. He recently co-authored a chapter in “Energy and American Society, Thirteen Myths,” Sovacool & Brown, challenging the myth that the central electric systems are optimal.

About Energy Efficiency and Traditional Generation: The Elephant in the Room

Ken's post on Energy Efficency and Traditional Generation of 5/5/08 ignores the elephant in the room, the 50-year stagnant 33%efficiency of the U.S. electric industry. There are profitable ways to solve the problem but not with traditional electric-only generation.