About Harry Braun                 

 Founder, Chairman, CEO and Talk Show Host

Harry Braun is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Sustainable Partners International (SPI).  SPI was the original developer of a $250 million 185 MW Mesa Wind project in New Mexico, and the controlling interest in the project has been acquired by Edison International. Mr. Braun has been working as an energy and environmental analyst for the past 30 years, and is the author of The Phoenix Project: Shifting from Oil to Hydrogen, a 360-page book that documents how a renewable hydrogen economy can be implemented with wartime-speed.  The book reviews both the positive and negative aspects of exponential growth, which explains why humanity is on the threshold of both a utopia of molecular medicine and nanotechnology as well as an ecological oblivion where major food productions will fail due to humanities increasing dependence on fossil fuels.  Although hydrogen is often mentioned as the “Holy Grail” of all energy sources, Harry is one of the few technical analysts who has documented how a renewable hydrogen economy can be implemented before 2020 by mass-producing renewable wind and wave powered hydrogen production systems, and modifying every existing vehicle, appliance and power plant to use solar-sourced hydrogen fuel. 

Prior to his involvement with wind projects, Mr. Braun was the founder, Chairman and CEO of Stirling Energy Systems, Inc., which was focused on commercializing solar Stirling technology that was developed by McDonnell Douglas and Kockums during the 1980s.  Braun was responsible for acquiring the rights to the technology in 1990 and then negotiated an agreement with Boeing for them to serve as the prime contractor in a Department of Energy solar Stirling contract.  The technical team Braun assembled also included Kockums, the major Swedish defense contractor who developed the Stirling engine for non-nuclear submarines, and AlliedSignal, which was considering manufacturing the Stirling engine.  Although the solar Stirling system was proven to be three times more efficient than photovoltaic cells, it’s size (it is 40 feet tall), many moving parts and noise levels made it impractical for remote power applications.  Moreover, even in centralized multi-megawatt utility applications, its cost of electricity was projected to be five times more expensive than that generated by wind systems, which meant the Stirling systems would not be practical for hydrogen production.  As such, Braun left SES in 2000 in order to focus on wind projects and systems. 

Mr. Braun received a Bachelors degree from Arizona State University in 1971.  His undergraduate work was in general science, while his graduate work focused on molecular biology and protein evolution.  Harry has been an Advisory Board Member of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy (iahe.org) since 1981.  This international peer-review professional society is composed of hundreds of scientists, chemists and engineers from over 82 countries.  Braun served as the Democratic Candidate for Arizona’s First Congressional District in 1984.  His opponent was John McCain.  Mr. Braun founded the Phoenix Project Foundation (ProjectFoundation.US) in 2004, a non-profit, scientific educational organization that is focused on educating the American public about the critical interrelationships of exponential growth, energy, the economy, the environment, and U.S. foreign policy.  He is also the founder of the non-profit, non-partisan, Phoenix Project Political Action Committee (PhoenixProjectPac.US), which is focused on passing a number of constitutional amendments, including a Fair Accounting Act that will phase out the use of fossil and nuclear fuels by factoring in the environmental, healthcare and military costs of using such fuels.