Burning Man takes on green tech

If you head to Burning Man this summer and see an 80-foot slug belching plumes of fire as it inches across the desert, don't worry: it's not an environmental disaster.

It's quite the opposite. The slug, named Mechabolic, will be converting the festival's garbage into clean energy as people walk around inside it to see the process in action. Artist Jim Mason's Mechabolic is a centerpiece of this year's Burning Man theme, "Green Man," which celebrates clean energy, green technology and environmental responsibility. The theme also provides an opportunity for organizers to show they are serious about using the festival to help make the world a better place.

"It felt to me that the time had come to do the first overtly political theme" in Burning Man's 22-year history, said founder and director Larry Harvey. "Not political as in party or ideology, but something that would inspire people to do in the world what they do at Burning Man."

For years, Burning Man organizers have espoused a mission to "leave no trace." And many participants say that goal has, in fact, made their conscientiousness about cleaning up after themselves continue after returning from northern Nevada's Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man is held late each summer.

Even as that philosophy has spread to the more than 80 Burning Man-esque regional events around the country and the world, however, the event has been seen by some as a poster child for hypocrisy. Creating hundreds of pieces of fire art that spew smoke and ashes into the desert air, and bringing millions of dollars worth of food and drink in non-recyclable packaging, participants have hardly been leaving no trace.

Last year, however, a group calling itself Cooling Man, decided to raise the money to buy carbon offsets for the environmental impact of the burning of "The Man," the wooden effigy that serves as Burning Man's central art piece and is immolated near the end of the event each year.

This year, Cooling Man is taking that goal a step further by trying to raise money to buy enough offsets to compensate for the event's entire carbon emissions, according to Tom Price, coordinator of Burning Man's green efforts. Price said it will cost an estimated $7 per participant to achieve that goal, which he admitted was ambitious.

When Burning Man attendees arrive in the desert this summer, they will find no shortage of art pieces and installations focused on the green theme. The most visible of all of these will be the so-called green pavilion, on top of which the Man will be installed.

According to Price, the pavilion will be tantamount to a world's fair of green technology, brought to the desert by companies doing some of the most advanced work in the field.

Yet, in keeping with Burning Man's anticommercial ethos--there is no buying or selling of anything at the event except for coffee and ice--the companies who install their technology in the pavilion will not be allowed to display their brands or logos.

A related installation is a clean technology conversation dome, organized by Melody Haller, a Burning Man veteran and president of San Francisco public relations firm Antenna Group. The project will bring together many other Antenna clients for public discussions, lectures, films, demonstrations, donations of green technology and clean energy, and opportunities to meet and talk to some of the world's most accomplished scientists.

"I encouraged my clients to do this with the idea that this setting, in the middle of the desert, is a situation that makes you very aware of the real cost of your lifestyle," Haller said. "Things you take for granted when you walk in a room and flip on a switch, you don't take for granted when you're in the Black Rock Desert."

One of Haller's participating clients is B.J. Stanbery, CEO of Austin, Texas-based solar energy firm HelioVolt. For Stanbery, who has never been to Burning Man, being part of Haller's project is something he couldn't pass up.

"I personally see it as an opportunity to build a bridge between artists and technology," Stanbery said. "When I put on my corporate hat, I realize that there may be some risk. I also recognize that as an entrepreneur, it's unreasonable to expect reward without risk."

Price is also excited about some of this year's less artistic projects involving clean technology, including the donation of a solar array to power the lights on the Man throughout festival. After the event, Price explained, all the solar equipment, donated by San Francisco-based MMA Renewable Ventures, will be given to the town of Gerlach, which borders the Black Rock desert.

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