Oil’s Twilight

I remember a dream that grew from seeds planted by an article about a miserable Whole Food’s quarterly report. The transporting of food and drink, FIJI Water for example, around the world is not just incredulous, but became financially irresponsible when oil hit $140 per barrel in 2008. In my dream, America had to be rebuilt in order to be energy efficient. Job opportunities would exist for anyone who wanted to help us shift from our world to this one.

We now are discovering about 10% of the oil that we were discovering around 50 years ago. This is not a blip in the chart, but a steadily declining rate of discovery for over five decades. Despite the fact that an enormous amount of oil was on the planet after “two billion years’ accumulated energy reserves”, it is a finite resource and we will consume it in a relatively short period of time.

Despite the fact that we should hold onto every drop of oil in America for the day when it is much more precious, we will continue sadly to just burn this critical resource that has numerous other uses. Economically, the high price of oil brought on by both it’s depletion as well as hopefully legislation defining the true cost of carbon will lead to alternatives. Electric batteries and/or algae-based fuel will propel us in the future.

The first step in electric vehicles (EVs) will be to switch us from burning oil to burning, largely, coal from coal-fired power plants (50% of electricity generation in America). In general, this initial step does not help us from a pollution or climate change perspective, but it will keep our energy dollars at home rather than abroad building cities, like Dubai with the tallest building in the world below, and destroying American interests when our energy dollars end up in the wrong hands, like those of Osama bin Laden (read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright).

The next step will be to charge those EV batteries with renewable energy. Once batteries exist for transportation, we can charge them at battery-switching stations, for example, using wind and solar power. More importantly, we can add more and more renewable generation to the electricity grid increasing the percentage of renewable power used at our homes to charge EVs.

Our automobile manufacturers could also do us an enormous service, in the short term, by producing hybrid vehicles delivering triple digit miles per gallon (mpg). The Honda Insight, below, launched in 2000 gets 75 mpg using off-the-shelf technology. I am sure that ten years later automobile manufacturers could offer triple digit mpg cars. The average vehicle in the U.S. gets around 25 mpg. Shifting our fleet to 100 mpg cars gets us a 75% reduction in CO2 emissions. We could replace our entire car fleet in a decade.

These changes are coming quickly. Building our EV battery and algae-based propulsion industries including research, manufacturing, infrastructure and service will provide jobs in America. We will also be able to keep our dollars in the U.S. to develop our country as opposed to overseas to develop other countries and sometimes harm ours. Finally, these technologies reduce manmade CO2 emissions that scientific evidence indicates, more clearly and overwhelmingly than ever before, is leading to climate change (measured in 40 year time spans, not today’s weather).

I just pinched myself. I guess dreams do come true.

Electric Vehicles

Winter indoor cycling classes are well underway as the hazard of black ice from snow thaw and freeze pulls me off the streets. Despite the “safe” indoor cycling environment, the relentless enthusiasm and intensity of our coach Chris Chiapella can lead to the loss of one’s periphery vision and, without relief, to the loss of one’s consciousness. At the beginning of the class, prior to the point where it gets difficult to talk moving from zone 3 to zone 4, a fellow cyclist asked me about the potential of electric vehicles (EVs).

My very big picture summary is that either EVs or manmade-algae-fueled vehicles will either both propel us or one will win out over the other. One of the reasons for stating this is that we already have a significant amount of infrastructure in place to deliver electrons or algae-based fuel to vehicles. Over 25% of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from oil-based transportation.

If you are a non-believer or interested in leapfrogging toward EV enlightenment read “Strategies for Electric Vehicle Deployment in the San Francisco Bay Area” by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The short story is that electric vehicle batteries can store energy generated from renewables and deliver energy to utilites at peak demand for electricity. Vehicles are idle (not idling) 95% of the time. If EV batteries are connected to the grid while they are idle, electrons can flow in both directions to charge batteries and to provide relief to utilities on those rare occasions each year when spikes in electricity demand occur. Today these spikes in demand are met with billion dollar electricity generating plants (plural) that are largely idling (not idle) most of the time. As more and more renewable electricity generating capacity is added to the grid, electric vehicles will operate cleaner and cleaner.

One home town favorite to supply EV batteries is A123Systems in Watertown, Massachusetts. A123 has been in the news as of late with a $249 million advanced battery research and manufacturing stimulus award to build a manufacturing plant in Michigan followed by a successful $381 million IPO. I plan to write a separate post on A123’s Nanophosphate technology and investigate the availability and recyclability of lithium ion batteries.

Despite the fact that the average distance travelled daily by car is about 35 miles, well within the range of an EV, many people are concerned about their batteries discharging (dying seems like too strong a word). Better Place is addressing this problem by offering EV infrastructure in the form of battery switching stations. Switching stations cost about $500 million as opposed to $1 to $1.5 billion for gas stations. These battery depositories can be connected to renewable energy generation and the grid for charging and discharging purposes respectively.

In order to get a sense of what takes place at a battery switching station, take a look at Better Place’s prototype battery switching station demonstration in Japan. The car releases it’s discharged battery onto a hydraulically raised steel platform and picks up a charged battery from a second raised platform. It takes less time to switch batteries than it takes to fill your tank with gas.

Better Place is actively engaged in building the infrastructure required for EVs in Israel. This is the first of several “islands” of operation for Better Place. Denmark is next in line to adopt this approach.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge to the cleanest vehicle transformation is to simultaneously develop:

– renewable electricity generation on a massive scale
– charging and battery switching station infrastructure
– EV mass production
– two-way smart grid connectivity

Thanksgiving Prayer

I hope you all have the good fortune today to pause and be thankful.

“The first path … is essentially an extrapolation of the recent past. It relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity.”

“The second path combines a prompt and serious commitment to efficient use of energy, rapid development of renewable energy sources matched in scale and in energy quality to end use needs, and special transitional fossil fuel technologies. This path, a whole greater than the sum of its parts, diverges radically from incremental past practices to pursue long-term goals. It does not try to wipe the slate clean, but rather to redirect our future efforts, taking advantage of the big energy systems we already have without multiplying them further.”

I am grateful that we have a second path and pray that we take it this time.

Amory Lovin’s book “Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace” was published in 1977. The two excerpts above were taken from it.

Steven Chu’s Compton Lecture

Steven Chu’s inspiring Compton Lecture at MIT on May 12, 2009 made it viscerally clear to me that this will be an extraordinary time for clean energy and our country. President Susan Hockfield introduced Chu as the “academic black sheep” in his family having received only one PhD (from Berkeley) while most family members had two of them. He is the first working scientist to become Energy Secretary and the only Nobel Laureate to be in a presidential cabinet.

This is change you can believe in.

I took notes during his lecture and have summarized a few major themes, but I encourage you to spend one hour listening to Steven Chu’s Compton Lecture “The Energy Problem and the Interplay between Basic and Applied Research”.

Chu caught our attention by saying that scientists over the last decade have underestimated the damage from climate change. These predictions for the melting arctic ice cap, rising sea levels and dying pine forest in British Columbia were too conservative. Scientists accurately predicted that 40% of our pine forest in British Columbia would be gone, but the arctic ice cap and sea levels are at or worse than their forecasted worst case tolerance.

If this did not leave one feeling unsettled Chu added that we absolutely must prevent the carbon in long term frozen storage in the Canadian and Russian tundra from thawing. He framed the problem by saying that “unacceptable” tundra thawing would create a repetitive thaw, CO2 release, and warming cycle. This potentially released CO2 from the tundra is comparable to the amount of CO2 released by all human activity into the atmosphere.

Science and technology have solved our problems before and Chu provided energy inefficient and efficient refrigerators as an example. Over the last 30-40 years the average refrigerator grew in size from 18 to 22 cubic feet, but now uses 1/4 the energy at 1/2 the cost compared to it’s 18 cubic foot ancestor.

The largest slice of the energy consumption pie chart is residential and commercial buildings at 40%. Chu points out that plane design changes at Boeing recalculate their impact on energy measurables in real time. Construction cost overruns for buildings result in the stripping out of energy efficient measures and commissioning (tuning energy systems). He estimates that energy efficient design and real time usage analysis could reduce energy consumption by as much as 80% for residential and commercial buildings and consequently reduce overall energy consumption by 32%.

Chu was inspired working at Bell Laboratories and is implementing their innovation model. Bell Laboratories Managers were the best practical scientists in their field and had intimate knowledge of the people in their departments. They connected the right people to one another and deployed resources quickly. They hired young scientists and researchers and fostered an idea-rich culture without secrecy. There were so many good ideas that one was happy to see someone else “take” one and run with it.

The U.S. spends $26 billion per year on energy research and development (R&D) and the stimulus adds $37 billion in total to that over two years. President Obama has called for a doubling in basic science expenditures. Chu explains that a corporation spends about 10% of it’s revenue on R&D. The U.S. has a one trillion dollar annual energy expenditure which by comparison should fund a $100 billion investment annually in R&D.

In closing, Chu reminded us of the Apollo 8 photograph that the crew took of the earth when they came around the back side of the moon. They commented “We traveled to explore the moon, but we discovered the earth.”

Chu said “It’s our home. Let’s take care of it.”

… thunderous applause …

Public Capital Event

The British American Business Council of New England’s (BABCNE) Environment and Energy Committee hosts “Public Capital for Cleantech in the U.S. and U.K.: Untangling Public Capital and the Stimulus” on Tuesday evening, November 17, 2009, at the Genzyme Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our first event in September was sold out, but there are still seats available for the “Public Capital” event. Register now and join us at 5:00 pm for a tour of the LEED Platinum rated Genzyme Center. There is a nominal fee to cover costs.

This event is the second in a series of five events to promote Cleantech opportunities. Along with our January 26, 2010 sister event on “Raising Private Capital for Cleantech in the U.S. and U.K.: Which technologies, products and companies are attracting capital?”, these two events cover the full spectrum of Cleantech funding opportunities.

Moderator:

Forrest Small, Director, Navigant Consulting

Panelists:

Nick d’Arbeloff, President, New England Clean Energy Council
Rob Dietel, Vice Consul, UK Trade and Investment
Gideon Gradman, Vice President of Corporate Development, Ze-gen
Vivek Mohta, Director of Energy Markets, Massachusetts DOER

Disclosure: I am a founding member of the BABCNE Environment and Energy Committee.

“America’s Leadership in Clean Energy”

If my earlier post entitled “Economic Prosperity” highlighted economic prosperity and climate change in President Obama’s two clean energy public addresses then this one brings visibility to his commitment to research leadership. Last Friday, I had the honor of attending President Obama’s address entitled “America’s Leadership in Clean Energy” as part of the White House Press Pool at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium.

As I walked along Vassar Street looking for the media entrance, I moved toward a cordoned off area and was immediately stopped by security and told to turn around. The President toured MIT’s research labs and I expect that this area was a research lab perimeter. Security was focused and almost rude to stay so.

MIT President Susan Hockfield and Professor Ernest Moniz introduced the President. President Hockfield stated “we share President Obama’s view that clean energy is the defining challenge of this era.”

President Obama is cool, very funny, extremely smart and a great communicator. After being introduced, he walked gracefully across the stage toward the podium like a basketball superstar in his best street clothes. If the room needed to be warmed up further, he did so with “I will probably be here for a while. I understand a bunch of engineering students put my motorcade on top of building 10” and “This tells you something about MIT … everybody hands out periodic tables … what’s up with that?” as he held one up in his hand.

Please watch his address entitled “America’s Leadership in Clean Energy” from the MIT Libraries.

I believe President Obama is uniquely qualified to lead us through a handful of transformations including Clean Energy. As he points out, “The truth is we have always been about innovation. We have always been about discovery. That’s in our DNA.” I am convinced that as long as President Obama is leading America, America will lead in Clean Energy. Let’s harness and embrace “America’s Leadership”.

Jim Rogers and Duke Energy

I had the privilege of attending the HBS Energy Symposium yesterday and although sobered by Frederick Palmer’s Peabody Energy opening keynote about the necessity of using abundant and cheap coal for our global energy requirements (look for my post later this week), I was inspired by James Rogers and his commitment to the environment. Jim Rogers is the Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy and he measures his success by what his grandchildren will tell their grandchildren about his efforts today to solve our CO2 emissions problem.

Rogers believes that all people deserve access to electricity and he is working at Duke Energy, on Capitol Hill and in Copenhagen to provide it and to reduce emissions at the same time. His afternoon keynote covered a lot of Cleantech categories, but I decided to post it under Smart Grid because Jim Rogers and Duke Energy are doing a lot of Smart Thinking. Duke Energy is operating as if the U.S. and Copenhagen climate change initiatives already had been enacted.

The primary objectives for the company are to modernize and decarbonize their power generation AND to make their communities served as energy efficient as possible. Rogers has added these goals to the historical mandates of economic and reliable energy for customers. Duke Energy produces 96% of it’s power from coal and nuclear generating plants.

From 2010 to 2050, Duke Energy’s entire fleet of generating plants will be replaced since the average plant life is 40 years. What plants should be built to replace their existing fleet? He mentioned coal, nuclear, natural gas and renewables, but emphasized the need for technological solutions to achieve environmental parity. Coal requires carbon capture and storage (CCS), natural gas only halves the CO2 emissions of coal, and renewables require energy storage if used on a large scale due to the intermittent supply of solar and wind power.

In an effort to learn more about distributed generation and support CO2 emissions-reducing capital outlays for their customers who earn, on average, approximately $40,000/year, Duke Energy is funding residential solar panel installations. Rogers wants to shift the company from “generation to the meter to generation to the application” thinking. Duke Energy is working with technology start-ups and he sees the company becoming a distributor of smart technologies to their customers. He also believes that today’s energy efficiency measures will be considered primitive in 5-10 years.

In a recent pilot program conducted with 40 customers, energy consumption was reduced by 20% without customers perceiving any change in usage. A suite of smart ideas were implemented to achieve this reduction.

On the international stage, Rogers believes that ultimately an agreement between the U.S. and China who together are responsible for 50% of CO2 emissions in the world could be a catalyst for significant progress. He also believes that building a “ladder of cooperation” rung by rung between U.S. and Chinese companies will foster a closer relationship between the two countries required for an agreement. Actions speak louder than words and China is or will soon be number one in photovoltaic, battery and wind turbine production.

The time for “half measures” is over. The time for wind, but not eminent domain or for natural gas, but not if it comes from offshore is over. We also need to realize that “every job is a green job”. Everyone can and must do what he or she does every day more energy efficiently. The transition will not be cheap or easy or quick, but it must be fair and it must begin now.

Rogers emphasized the need for “cathedral thinking” where, for example, three generations built Notre Dame over 100 years based on “vision, commitment and faith”. His even better analogy was the Cathedral of Florence which was worked on for over 100 years before anyone knew how to build the massive dome to complete the cathedral. Brunelleschi won the dome competition by inventing the Dome design approximately 100 years after the cathedral was started! Rogers wants us to employ “cathedral thinking” in China time since we don’t have 100 years to solve the problem.

Jim Rogers is a stronger believer in technology to make smart energy decisions for us than in all of us constantly thinking about and making wise decisions about energy use at home.

Introduction

What a beautiful morning. It is September 19, 2009 and I enjoyed a 50 mile bike ride earlier today from my home in the western suburbs of Boston. It was about as abnormally cold this morning and throughout September as July was wet and we can expect more uncertain weather as climate change manifests.

I will consider myself successful if I can make a significant contribution toward a globally sustainable energy and environment balance. This is a heartfelt commitment that I hope many of you will embrace whether you are concerned about global leadership and business development opportunities in clean energy or the health of species, including humans, on our planet.

I do not see Cleantech solely on a high technology perch, but rather as a broad spectrum of approaches including straightforward ideas and innovative technologies that will address our energy and environment imbalance. Cleantech Compass resonated as a way for those interested in Cleantech to find their bearings. My intention is to provide helpful information to those currently looking to find a place for themselves within Cleantech and to those already contributing in the space.

Welcome to Cleantech Compass,

Peter J. Watkinson

LinkedIn Profile

In 2008, I was the business development leader for the Bose team that ushered in a new era in premium audio for the small and electric vehicle markets by introducing the first Bose Energy Efficient Series premium audio system. The system debuts on the Chevrolet Volt and uses 30% less volume, 40% less mass and 50% less power consumption to deliver the Bose experience to customers.

In 2009, I became a founding member of the British American Business Council of New England’s Environment and Energy Committee. The committee, including National Grid and MIT leaders, is fostering Cleantech business opportunities in the U.S. and U.K. I have dual U.S. and British citizenship.