Carbon Intoxication

Scientists are Not Immune

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 ~ I've been formally trained as a computer scientist, and at one time made a very good living from it at a top institution. However, just because I am a "scientist" it does not mean that I am qualified to discourse on scientific subjects at large.

This does not, however, much deter some scientists from fulminating well outside their areas of expertise or qualification. Or spouting their personal beliefs from ideologically aligned platforms. Today we have been treated to another tired retread of an article in the Wall Street Journal by climate change simpleton William Happer. Along with astronaut Harrison Schmidt, he claims, again, that more atmospheric carbon is good for us because we need plants, and plants need carbon dioxide.

Much of the article can be dismissed on factual grounds with reference to what actual climate science and climate scientists can tell us. (I'm no expert—being a computer scientist does not make me a general scientific expert—and I happily defer to those who are.) Happer and Schmidt focus on the tired and discredited trope that carbon concentrations have been higher in geological time (true) but ignore the recent, and utterly unprecedented rate of change in those concentrations. Sure, life flourished, but not human life, and species that cannot adapt to a changing environment not infrequently suffer or become extinct. Evolution does not work well in short time periods of rapid environmental shift.

Pterofin

Renewable Energy Using Biomimicry

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 ~ My friend Wally Kempkey has been working very hard on this for many years.



Not only is it incredibly cool and creative, the concept is very well-suited to slow currents. Faster currents can be harnessed by conventional turbines like those made by Hydrovolts and others, but such currents are comparatively rare. Slower currents can be found all over the world in watercourses both natural and man-made. While the power generated can be small, the Pterofin device would provide huge value in off-grid developing world locations for water pumping or trickle-charging batteries.

Want a scale model for your desk? Give some love on Kickstarter.

Fostering Entrepreneurship

Diversifying Into More Sectors

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 ~ What needs to be done to grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest?

This question was one of the four primary themes of the recent Pacific Northwest Innovation Summit, and the focus of the day's third panel. Everyone is in favor of more innovation leading to more entrepreneurial activity, but the specifics are elusive.

Moderator Luke Timmerman, Seattle editor for Xconomy, asked about barriers to local entrepreneurship. There are several (a few to be subjects of later posts) but one is how concentrated we are in software and life sciences. The Seattle region is an undisputed national, even global leader in those, but we need to expand beyond just two to truly build a stronger innovation-fueled economic engine.

Coal and Wind

Blackouts in India

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 ~ As much as 10% of the world's population is without electricity following the second massive grid outage in India this week.

Blame is being spread around among an outdated, rickety grid, a lack of generation capacity, government inefficiency and corruption, a failure to follow agreed-to consumption limits by various states, poor energy pricing that encourages wasteful consumption, and, as one routinely expects from the corporate cheer-leading quarter, supposedly strangling environmental regulations. All of these are true at least in part, but the bigger cause is a failure to plan and build a stronger commitment to renewable energy.

Startup Moments

Entrepreneur Competition

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~ Customer pain, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Entrepreneurs are drawn to painful needs; if it is urgent, compelling and unmet, one can be sure that there will be entrepreneurs competing to satisfy the need and alleviate the pain. The old adage is true: if you have no competition you probably have no market.

It is through this lens that one might wonder about the growing spate of entrepreneurial contests: challenges, competitions, thus-and-such of the years, opens... The customers are the entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs, but what is the pain they suffer that these contests assuage? Don't entrepreneurs face enough competition in the market for the product or service that they seek to provide? Why compete against other startups with offerings that target different problems and offer different solutions, i.e. against companies that, in a market sense, aren't competitors at all?

The answer lies in another startup truism: the need to carefully define your market, to know who your customer is and what and why they will buy what you offer.

Distributed Generation

Using Globally, Generating Locally

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~ In the developed parts of the world we are all quite familiar with centralized electricity generation. Megawatts of high-voltage electrical power are created by large coal, gas, nuclear, or other installations and sent over the transmission grid to areas of large demand where it is transformed to lower voltage and distributed to individual homes and businesses.

The alternative is distributed or point-of-use energy generation. Water wheels have been used for thousands of years to create mechanical energy for grinding grain, sawing lumber, and pumping water for drinking or irrigation. Windmills have been used similarly. These and other technologies are still in use in much of the developing world today, along with distributed power from less sustainable sources like diesel generators.

Hydrovolts Wins ImagineH2O Contest

Turning Water Into Opportunity

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~ Yesterday Hydrovolts took first place and the 2010 Water Energy-Nexus Prize. The company wins $20,000 and a package of professional services. Awesome!

It's great validation for the concept of distributed microscale hydropower from flowing water. Hydrovolts has identified a diverse collection of market segments each of which could provide real opportunity to fulfill a great need. Several have global scope, and sales could be pretty robust if the company can get a decent product to market before its competitors do.

Some good press on the competition in the past; there should be some more in the coming days.

Off-Grid Africa

Distributed Power is Growing All Over

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Yurt in western China with solar panel

Low-cost, small-scale, simple distributed power generation continues to make gains. It was part of the original business model for the Hydrovolts turbine, the genesis of Clarian Power, and the market power of Nokero light "bulbs."

Now general-purpose solar panels are going up in remote locations around the world, especially Africa, where the sprawling grids of centrally-generated power plants don't reach.

Providing even a small amount of electricity makes an enormous difference in the quality of life for people in the developing world. It provides lighting which allows students to read and study at night, improving education, a key precursor of upward economic mobility. It can replace unhealthful sources of illumination, cooking and heating, especially animal manure, charcoal, and wood, many of which are burned inefficiently and with limited attention to adequate ventilation.

The economics make sense. The cost of charging equipment (particularly cell phones) in both time and direct expense is rapidly recovered by the value of local generation capacity.

The biggest impediment to more distributed generation is the initial capital cost. Traditional lenders prefer large central projects because the due diligence is both familiar and easier--there is only one location to examine, and to subsequently monitor, over the course of the financing. Micro-lending could pick up the slack, but there still needs to be a business model that creates revenue to pay back the investment. While selling a goat may work for some, providing a local charging station may work for others. As remote villages gain dribs of electricity, however, more models will arise. Entrepreneurs exist in rural Africa too, and having a enabling platform technology like electricity opens the way to many kinds of businesses. As costs of solar panels continue to decline, and as other forms of distributed generation become available, the effect on rural areas of the developing world will be transformative.

Hydropower Kinds

Many Approaches to Tap an Underused Resource

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More than a billion people get their electricity from hydropower. Worldwide, hydropower produces 675,000MW, 24% of all electricity generation. In the Unites States there are about 2,000 hydropower plants which together supply about 10% of all electricity to the grid. Here in Washington State nearly 70% of electricity comes from hydropower. Despite the attention given to wind and solar energy, hydropower remains the dominant source of all renewable energy in the US.

Hydropower has many advantages--it is renewable, has relatively low carbon impact, and is fully dispatchable, i.e it can be turned on and off quickly whenever needed. So why aren't we hearing more about hydropower? Why aren't we building more of it?

Hydrovolts Enters GE Ecomagination Challenge

Hydrovolts has entered the GE Ecomagination challenge in the renewable energy category. What is it?

GE’s Ecomagination Challenge is a $200 million call to action for businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges – building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century.

The Challenge is a contest between ideas submitted by the public, which also votes for the best idea. Read the submission and vote for Hydrovolts.

There are some great awards for winning submissions:

Welcome

I was the co-founder in 2007 of Hydrovolts, Inc., a maker of micro-scale hydropower turbines, and, until last week, its COO.

You can find the posts I wrote for the company's blog here.

Now I'm looking for a new challenge, ideally in a leadership role at a small-to-midsized entrepreneurial company. You can learn more about me from my LinkedIn profile, or contact me on Twitter or via Facebook.

I expect to continue posting here about some of the same things I wrote about while at Hydrovolts: renewable energy, climate change, politics, policy, and our energy future. In addition, and unlike at the Hydrovolts blog, I will likely also post about other startups, including Enerdyne Solutions, a provider of thermal management solutions for electronics, and on whose Board of Directors I serve.

There will probably be other things from time to time, including perhaps some observations along the way as I explore what I'll do next.

This will be more fun if you join in. Leave a comment. Make a suggestion. Let's get the conversation started!