innovation

Soyuz rocket (Photo by James Duncan, CC 2.0 license)

Following up on my post yesterday about the Detroit bailout, today I wanted to mention Tom Friedman’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times “The Real Generation X.” It is primarily about how Obama’s stimulus package should focus on preparing us, especially our young people, for the future, not saving old dinosaur industries like Detroit:

We not only need to bail out industries of the past but to build up industries of the future — to offer the kind of big thinking and risk-taking that transforms enormous challenges into world-changing opportunities.

But what I thought was both charming and an important call to action was specifically about the auto industry bailout - an audacious challenge to Obama and Detroit:

You want my tax dollars? Then I want to see the precise production plans and timetables for the hybridization of all your cars and trucks within 36 months. I want every bailed-out car company to move to hybrid electric drive trains, because nothing would both improve mileage and emissions more — and also stimulate a whole new 21st-century, job-creating industry: batteries.

I love the audacity of this idea. It’s a big idea, and breaks the commonly held “20 year” rule that says it takes 20 years for a laboratory discovery to make it into industrial production. But we’ve overcome that rule occasionally before, in moments of great crisis, haven’t we? The Manhattan Project and the conversion of U.S. industry to war production during World War II, and the Apollo program both accelerated the 20 year rule significantly.

Do you have other audacious suggestions for Obama, or examples of technologies that broke the 20-year rule? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section!

Arizona sunset

Al Gore and I are in agreement that Obama can kill two birds with one stone by structuring his economic stimulus plan around improving the U.S.’s energy posture - which everyone agrees we need to do, both to achieve energy independence and to mitigate climate change. In his op-ed in today’s New York Times he said:

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

So, following up on my post from Friday, let’s focus the stimulus package on things we know need doing anyway. In particular, a modern transmission grid. The current grid is obsolete even for conventional power, and is completely unsuitable for handling big wind and solar projects that require efficient long-haul capabilities. What can the Feds do? I’m not an economist, but here’s the basics for one initiative: Solicit the top five or ten proposals for new grid projects (a lot of organizations have already put these together), have a six month vetting process, and for the ones that pass the vetting process, provide substantial incentives for investing in those projects, or guarantee the first $100 million of financing for each.

It’s important that the incentives are given to worthy projects, hence the vetting process, but time is clearly of the essence in getting these projects started, hence the six month window. Who does the vetting? Could be a “blue ribbon panel” (assembled very swiftly), or could be an existing industry group that volunteers (again, in response to an incentive of some kind if necessary).

The idea here is that new grid is likely to be cost-effective and pay for itself (that is, investors will get their money back) but in the current financial market and given the curent set of regulations covering conventional energy it’s difficult to actually raise that money. So the Feds can step in and help make sure that these projects, that are desirable for the economy and the nation in the long-term, are able to get off the ground in the short term. You want to avoid the Feds from “choosing the winners” - that will still be done by the market. But you also need to give the market a nudge along the lines of “we’ll give you some incentives to invest in this rather than in a non-productive financial instrument or in conventional energy.”

There are lots of legitimate fears out there about economic stimulus programs - they’re expensive, they’ll have to be paid back eventually, and they solve the wrong problems. So what does Obama and his brain trust need to make sure we avoid?

• Assuming they can “choose the winners”
• Funding something that only benefits the already wealthy and doesn’t create jobs (Paulson bailout, anyone?) or improve the country and its opportunities structurally
• A set of incentives that are too localized

Al’s and my proposals, I think, address all of these concerns:

• My vetting process allows the market to choose the winners
• The project will be of benefit to all of us - we need a new grid, and it will enable new kinds of business opportunities for both large and small entrepreneurs. And the projects demand a huge range of skills, from the electrical engineers who design the grid, to the mechanical engineers and technicians who design the transmission lines, to the blue collar workers who manufacture the equipment and build the grid itself
• The nature of the transmission grid, and in particular the types of problems this grid needs to solve, are inherently non-local - the electricity has to get from rural areas like Arizona and Wyoming to urban centers like San Francisco, Atlanta, and Chicago

I’d love to hear your feedback on this idea, and also your ideas for the initiatives Obama could pursue to address the financial crisis and the energy independence crisis at the same time.

Methanol fuel cell. Image via Wikipedia

I plan to do an in-depth post or series on fuel cells soon, because there is so much breakthrough work going on in this research area. Fuel cells are interesting on so many fronts - for example, they’re probably the best way to use the hydrogen generated by Daniel Nocera’s new hydrogen splitting method, announced in mid-August. And just since August, researchers have announced big improvements or cost reductions in every component of the fuel cell - membrane, catalyst, and electrodes.

This latest story from Technology Review covers a new membrane improvement for methanol fuel cells. As the article points out, methanol fuel cells have some key benefits compared to hydrogen cells, in particular that methanol is a liquid at normal temperatures, but they also have technical challenges. Paula Hammond and her team are addressing one of these:

In her lab at MIT, chemical-engineering professor Paula Hammond pinches a sliver of what looks like thick Saran wrap between tweezers. Though it appears un­remarkable, this polymer membrane can significantly increase the power output of a methanol fuel cell, which could make that technology suitable as a lighter, longer-­lasting, and more environmentally friendly alternative to batteries in consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptops.

Do you have questions about fuel cells that you’d like me to find answers to as I research my upcoming series? Let me know in the comments.

The Sahara Forest project will use seawater and solar power to grow food in greenhouses across the desert. Photograph: Exploration Architecture

The Sahara Forest project represents integrative design at a huge scale. (Integrative design combines multiple design improvements to get an overall improvement that’s bigger than the sum of its components.) As it says on the the Sahara Forest project home page:

The project combines two proven technologies in a new way to create multiple benefits: producing large amounts of renewable energy, food and water as well as reversing desertification.

The two technologies are the Seawater Greenhouse, invented by Charlie Paton, and a concentrating solar energy generation capability. The synergies arise in several ways - the energy generation provides the power to run fans to work the greenhouse, while the greenhouse creates excess fresh water for cleaning the mirrors of the generator, for example. The team that’s come together to create the project also represents some interesting synergies:

An inventor - Charlie Paton, creator of the Seawater Greenhouse; an architect - Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, previously of Grimshaw and the lead architect on the iconic Eden Project; an engineer - Bill Watts of Max Fordham & Partners, an engineering firm that focuses on energy efficient systems for the built environment.

The Sahara Forest post at Treehugger features a long interesting response in the comments by Pawlyn in response to questions raised by other commenters.

This is one of several projects I’ve read about recently that combine energy generation via visible light with use of the excess heat to achieve much higher solar energy conversion efficiencies. For example, this report in Science Daily last year about a prototype PV/Thermal system that was projected to capture 80% of the energy. While it complicates the mechanicals of the system, it certainly seems to make sense to take advantage of the heat created as a side effect of PV energy collection, especially since the PV cells work better - are more efficient - at lower temperatures. The heat needs to be removed anyway!

So far neither the project’s website or news reports about the project have many details about its progress or funding, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

Mission Peak in Fremont, CA. Image via Wikipedia

A roundup of a few stories that came out this week that I found particularly interesting.

• Solyndra, a startup in Fremont, CA (just down the street from my office), is using a new form factor for thin film solar cells:
  

  Unlike conventional solar panels, which are made of flat solar cells, the new panels comprise rows of cylindrical solar cells made of a thin film of semiconductor material. The material is made of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium. To make the cells, the company deposits the semiconductor material on a glass tube. That’s then encapsulated within another glass tube with electrical connections that resemble those on fluorescent lightbulbs. The new shape allows the system to absorb more light over the course of a day than conventional solar panels do, and therefore generate more power.

  Not only do they not need trackers, but because they are mounted with space between each tube, they aren’t susceptible to wind and they can collect light reflected off the building’s roof and ambient light coming in obliquely.

  What I like about this story is that it shows that there’s still a lot more innovation to be done in all areas of alternative energy design - yesterday I saw another report about a new fuel cell membrane made of a cheap material instead of platinum, and there’s practically a new wind energy device every week. They’re not all going to be winners, but it’s the kind of design ferment that’s going to lead to big cost and practicality improvements in every area.

• The EPA provides an interactive analysis (using Google Earth) of marginal and contaminated land that could be used for renewable energy farms - wind and/or solar:
  

  According to the EPA, many lands tracked by the agency, such as large Superfund sites, and mining sites offer thousands of acres of land, and may be situated in areas where the presence of wind and solar structures are less likely to be met with aesthetic, and therefore political, opposition.

  One stumbling block for a massive transition to solar power in the U.S. has been the land use question. I’m not saying we want to build our power on contaminated lands, but it’s interesting to see this as an option.

  Via CleanTechnica.com

• Renault commits to electric vehicles. Saying that:
  

  “EVs are a necessity because hybrids cannot deliver the level of gasoline use and emissions reductions that governments and customers are demanding of automakers”

  Renault unveiled two zero-emission concept cars at the Paris autoshow Mondiale de l’Automobile, both of which are pure electric. The cars have a range of 160-200 kilometers (95-120 miles) and are designed for day-to-day use and short weekend trips, “not vacations” as Renault admits.

  Renault is committing to EVs because they believe that’s the only they’ll be able to deliver the gasoline economy and emissions reductions being demanded by both the market and governments.

These stories caught my eye as not just “more of the same” this week. What green energy stories got your interest up recently?