A article by Alexa Schirtzinger in the recend issue of SEED magazine “Carbon Computing” perk my interest and faith in our human ability to maintain our ability to scale. It seems that Graphene‘s promise is soon to come to fruition. While SEED’s article is subscription only, check out another article “Graphene Holds Promise for Spintronics” in Science Daily. It has a good link out of Graphene articles.
New “green” technologies and business models needed to save the Planet – TED Conference 5th February 2009
Day 2 of the TED conference was as stimulating as Day 1. There were so many artists, musicians, neurologists, actors, and technology revolutionists, all presenting so many exciting new developments. The common theme that was my takeaway, is that often it is our apparent success that holds us back from looking for new solutions. We need to rethink old technology and business models. We need to strive for creative, bold and audacious solutions to address the urgent needs of society. The solutions are here if we can think out of the box! There were many examples shared, new ways of doing surgery, new ways of removing bone marrow, new types of architecture, observing geckos to learn how to make better robots, etc.
I will share three examples, which relates to the interest of this blog, i.e. the “Green Technology” issue.
1) Having listened to Al Gore’s speech on Climate Change, Kevin Surase and his friends decided to see what they could do to help. They investigated and realized that “dirty” construction of building materials and buildings, and inefficient energy use in building contributes to 52% of C02 emissions! They also found that we were actually using age-old technology from the 1800s in construction. So he started with drywall (we are still making it the way we did back in the 1800s) and invented a new drywall material that takes 80% less energy to produce hence reducing carbon footprint by 80%. He has built a “Green” factory in China (Serious Materials) and is going for mass production to make his mark, and looking at windows next (we are using old technology there too).
2) Another keen entrepreneur found that we were still making circuit breakers as we did back in 1879. There are 10 billion electrical sockets in the United States alone that still use this old technology, and thus 83% of homes are below the safety level. Electrical sockets today are the main causes of fires, child accidents and inefficient use of energy. So he worked on putting in microchips into at the plug end and the socket receiver. These are called “EFCI” or Intelligent Electrical Outlet. These sockets and other similar developments will help reduce energy consumption and increase efficiencies dramatically (not to mention fires and child safety).
3) Shai Agassi, the genius behind the networked electric car, pointed out that car manufacturers tends to focus inwardly to find solutions for electric cars. They try to put the solution within the car rather than on the infrastructure. They focus on making better batteries to store energy, thus making the car the mini crude oil well or storage tank. Consumers have then to pay for the whole well rather than just what they use, making electric cars too expensive for them to buy. This is a very old business model and so he decided to learn from the cellular phone model to create a new business model and infrastructure that creates new possibilities.
He separates the car ownership from the batter ownership, and created the concept of battery swap stations (which in turn use Green energy to charge the batteries at these stations). So now we can make cheaper electric cars (can even be commoditized to be free as we do with cell phones i.e. tied with a battery use plan), and the consumers pay for battery power as they use. We are talking about 8cents per mile by 2010, 4 cents per mile by 2015 and 2cts a mile by 2020 (as battery lifecycle improves).
He challenges us to move away from small steps i.e. saying that we will reduce C02 by 20% by 2020, to thinking in terms of just two numbers. 0 and infinity. 0 for zero carbon footprint and scale to infinity. If we don’t change this mindset, we will loose our economy right after we loose our morality.
Israel, Denmark, Australia, Hawaii and San Francisco Bay Area will be some places that this model will be launched over the coming years.
Green is “the better business model” – from TED Conference in Long Beach on 4th February 2009.
For those of you who may not be as familiar with TED, it is a very intellectually stimulating thought provoking conference. It throws in artists, musicians, scientists, inventors, neurologists, anthropologists, writers, digital imaging experts, etc in a series of short talks that could seem very unrelated but yet very vividly portrays how the best innovations come from a multidisciplinary approach to intellectual curiousity. Some speakers are very dramatic (e.g. Bill Gates released mosquitos into the audience so they could experience what most poor people in the world experience – to make a point about malaria eradication as a urgent goal).
One of the key themes touched upon in the conference is the environment.
Al Gore, the key proponent of this message gave a quick update from his TED talk last year and very dramatically using visual animation showed how the poles are being depleted of size and thickness. He emphasized that there is a need to see this problem as urgent. There were also photographer Yan Arthus-Betrand who showed vivid pictures of how the world is affected. Another visual dramatic of the issue was done by a movie maker Jake Eberts who will be releasing a movie (free of copyright) in June called “Oceans”, which hopes using high tech cameras to follow motion and life of the ocean to create an emotive link between us and why we should care for life in the oceans. Meanwhile, inventor of Makinapower.com, showed how wind turbines are a limiting way of taping into wind power. Instead, we should use crosswind kite power at 1,200 feet and higher and we can easily within 2 years fly machines that can generate Megawatt of power each to help meet the power needs of the world. Amazing!
What struck me the most though was the message from Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Global, a company that makes carpets (often known as the greatest culprit of C02 emissions). He spoke about how he read the book “Ecology of Business” and felt very bad to be part of an industry that was a major plunderer of nature. For him to speak right after Al Gore and talk about being a recovering plunderer was very impactful indeed! He has experimented with and found that the old model of business of take, make and waste can be replaced with a more sustainable cyclical mode of production. He has tried it and made great success (better product, better market, better employees)- Flor Carpets. He says “It is indeed a better business model!” Besides making more profits than before, he also found that his Green products helped him ride out the dotcom crash when global markets were down by 36% and his revenues were only down by 17%.
He discussed how the current industrial model is I=PxAxT (I= Environmental Impact, P=Population, A=Affluence and T=Technology). He explored and was able to prove that Technology can be used to reduce I or Environmental Impact. He now sees that the formula can be I=PxA/T (although he feels if we collect less as affluent people, we can reduce it by even more). To me, this formula makes a lot of sense, and clearly why we should think about how ICT can be used to reduce the carbon footprint for all other sectors. And if ICT itself is clean, then we have made that much more progress in our battle to combat greenhouse gases.
He concluded by pointing out that the bottom line is we live in a finite world, and we have to live in it sustainably. The way we are doing it today, we are robbing tomorrows child of their future. He thinks that this theft will someday be considered a crime. But for now, he emphasizes that it makes good business sense, so why not do what is right!
Panel discussion notes from Stanford launch of the $100 million funding for the Precourt Institute for Energy Eficiency
On January 12th 2009, President John L. Hennessy of Stanford, launched a $100 million initiative to fund the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency (PIEE). This supplements the $30 million Stanford already spends on Energy Research, for example through the Woods Institute, the Global Climate and Energy Project and other such initiatives. The initiative will be headed by Lynn Or, Professor of Energy and Resource Engineering and brings together more than 130 faculty members working in 21 departments.
The Institute will focus research relating to improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, studying national energy policy and developing renewable energy power sources such as wind, solar and biomass. In addition to adding 6-8 new faculty, there will be fellowships for graduate students and postgraduates, as well as an “energy innovation fund” to finance promising research projects.
Here are some of my very rough notes from the fascinating panel discussion between Lynn Or and the following panelists:
Sally Benson, director, Global Climate and Energy Project
John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer, Google Inc.
Jim Sweeney, director, Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency
Jane Woodward, chief executive officer, MAP and consulting professor, Stanford University
New breakthroughs in Energy Technology
For starters, both Lyn Or and Sally Benson stressed that the issue is not that we will run out of energy resources but whether we can convert renewable energy efficiently and cost effectively (i.e. at a cost less than burning of fossil fuels). They pointed out for example that there is 6,000 times more energy that hits the earth than we use. Sally noted that what is promising today, is that working on nanomaterials and electronic transport, we can get solar to 45% efficiency. Today, we also have developments that allow us to print solar cells with an inkjet printer and even make liquid fuels with solar (e.g. hydrogen). The question really then is how to commercialize these technologies to the point they make good business sense. She however stressed that we needed the combination of all types of renewable energy to meet our energy needs (not to write off fossil fuels, but rather focus on how we can use it cleanly e.g. capture Co2, etc). She felt that what is exciting is that today, nanoscience, communication technologies and biotech come together to offer us with so many more options and potential breakthroughs.
Green makes good business sense
On the point of the business case, Eric Schmidt of Google emphasized that going Green already makes good business sense. He showed how Google started off when he asked his operations person why they were not going Green. He was told that the capital expenditure would be about $2-3 million, but when he inquired about payback, it appeared that payback was within 18 months only. Hence they started down that path. Payback is so quick even if you start with energy efficiency alone e.g. insulation, LED lights, etc, The Google Energy Plan predicts that in 22 years implemented, they can save $3 trillion. Today, in addition to their own Green efforts, Google invests in Energy Research and business models, and their aim is to make renewable energy cheaper than the burning of fossil fuels.
Decarbonizing the grid
As the issue of going Green using electric vehicles, Sally pointed out that it does not make sense calling this Green unless you also talk about the decarbonisation of the grid. 50% of electricity in the US still comes from coal, so we also need to talk about putting more renewables on the grid and about considering carbon capture and storage of C02. Another important issue she felt relates to the grid itself. The grid today is very centralized and unable to handle micro-grids of decentralized production facilities of renewable energy. There is a need for more distributed grids, for smarter grids and for grids to be able to handle intermittent sources of energy such as from wind and solar.
US lags behind the rest of the world
On that note, Jane Woodard and John Doer, both stressed that not enough research is being done. Jane pointed out that there was is a coming Energy Revolution as we become more concerned with how we use energy but more needs to be done. John felt that Energy is a $6 trillion economy. Since energy is the mother of all other markets, there is an opportunity for it to be THE biggest market. Yet for now he felt the US is lagging behind the rest of the world. He gave an example of how the US is not even in the race for the battery industry, which is the Holy Grail of Green Technology (the US currently buys from Asia).
There is much the US can do to change. Jim Sweeney felt that we could easily reduce by 30% our energy usage just by being more efficient. Yet he points that even if we had the technology, the economics and regulations, behavioral issues continue to be the major block for change. Cities, transportation, living conditions are all currently designed around cheap oil, and there is little incentive to change. Leadership is required for change, as clearly seen in Google’s case. Carbon tax and incentives, and other behavior changing methods may be required for more to happen.
Leadership needed to drive the Green Revolution in the US
There is clearly a need for Leadership in America on this Green Revolution. Government will clearly have a role to play in leadership and regulation. I was particularly taken with Eric’s clear call for action.
He says there is an opportunity now for the US to create Energy Banks much like the Foreign Credit Bureau’s back in the 70s. The US should also take the unemployed and reemploy them into the Energy Economy, for example take the unemployed construction workers and get them trained to insulate and make homes more energy efficient. When pressed about details of his advise to President Obama, he mentioned a few (these are my notes so it is not verbatim):
-To use the Economic Recovery Act to unify a national smart grid (rather than focus on highways only)
-To use carbon tax or clear cap regimes (or do both)
-To have national renewable energy portfolio standards (e.g. 20% of grid from renewable energy)
-To utilize regulation and incentives to drive zero carbon efficiency (using the utility monopoly i.e., the captured market to make changes)
-To put more dollars to fund research in Green technology (last year less than $1 billion was spent, which is less than 1 day of revenue to Exxon)
-To focus all efforts on the Green Energy Revolution even in education
Overall, it was indeed a very enlightening session and I hope I was able to share with you some key highlights of the sessions that I took away with me.