ArborLight startup wins 2014 Next Generation Luminaires (NGL) competition

Congratulations to my co-author Max Shtein! The startup he co-founded won a national competition for innovative energy efficient indoor lighting fixtures.

<blockquote>Arborlight is virtually inventing a new lighting product category: daylight emulation. We all love daylight. It makes us feel good, be more productive, have more energy, the list goes on and on. Yet, the reality for many is that to work, learn, shop and generally go about our daily business, we are forced to spend most of our time indoors with little or no access to daylight. The aim of Arborlight’s Solis is to remedy that situation. The Solis product allows you to create an indoor environment that simulates daylight in where it would be otherwise impossible, literally mimicking the sun. It’s Wi-Fi enabled, has the appearance of a traditional skylight, emulates daylight conditions, and autonomously adjusts color, intensity, and directionality throughout the day to match outdoor illumination. Essentially, it provides people with the ability to experience morning, high noon, and evening light conditions in a windowless space.</blockquote>

Lunch Talk: Is Fusion Energy Real?

Problem: Energy access & climate change

Solution: A 100MW compact fusion reactor that runs on plentiful and cheap deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen).

Breakthrough technology: Charles Chase and his team at Lockheed have developed a high beta configuration, which allows a compact reactor design and speedier development timeline (5 years instead of 30).

 

Proposed fusion energy timeline.

 

tags: lunchtalk, energy, science

Green energy policies produce more greenhouse emissions.

Washington Post: Demand for coal in Germany has been rising since a May 2011 move to phase out nuclear power by 2022. The shutdown was spurred by the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan as well as long-standing German concerns about safety. But nuclear energy, which is low in greenhouse gas emissions, has been partially replaced by brown coal. Lignite supplied 25.6 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2012, up from 22.7 percent in 2010. Hard black coal supplied an additional 19.1 percent last year, and it was also on the rise.

A good illustration of the difference between a problem and a puzzle. Governments thought to solve the greenhouse gas problem as a fixed puzzle, i.e. substitute one of its piece with another (nuclear with renewables).
In reality, the situation is an open-ended problem where consumption, production, and technologies can change over time. A combination of the recession and shale gas discoveries/production in the US created a new situation, dramatically different from the original "puzzle" assumptions. As a result, the puzzle-based green energy solutions made the problem worse.

tags: problem, puzzle, solution, energy, control

GE's Novel Battery to Bolster the Grid

Slowly but surely, the green tech revolution is beginning to bear fruit in places where electric grid cannot support 24/7 access to power.

(7/12/12) MIT Technology Review:

Yesterday GE officially opened a sprawling, $100 million battery factory in Schenectady, New York. The factory, which will eventually employ 450 people, makes a new kind of battery—based on sodium and nickel. GE says the technology, which is more durable and charges more quickly than lead-acid batteries, will make off-grid power generation more efficient and help utilities integrate power from a wide range of sources, including intermittent ones such as wind and solar power.

The first applications will be somewhat less ambitious. GE's first customer is a South African company—Megatron Federal—that will use the batteries to power cell-phone towers in Nigeria. Those are usually powered by diesel generators. Pairing the generators with the new batteries can help them run far more efficiently. "You save 53 percent on fuel, 45 percent on maintenance, and about 60 percent on diesel generator replacements," says Brandon Harcus, division manager for telecommunications for Megatron Federal. "For our Nigerian application, the savings are substantial, about $1.3 million over 20 years per cell tower. You use a lot less fuel and produce a lot less carbon."  

tags: control, storage, energy, distribution, synthesis, 3x3

Lunch Talk: (@Google) Power the World with Wind, Water and Sunlight

Mark Ruffalo, known for his portrayal of Dr. Banner and the Incredible Hulk, will speak with Mark Jacobson of the Stanford Atmosphere/Energy Program and Marco Krapels of Rabobank about powering the world with wind, water and sunlight.

tags: energy, lunchtalk

Germany's emerging electric power infrastructure.

MIT Tech Review discusses Energiewende - an energy revolution designed to put Germany firmly into "green."

This switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the most ambitious ever attempted by a heavily industrialized country: it aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by midcentury.

To help replace nuclear power, they are racing to install huge wind farms far off the German coast in the North Sea; new transmission infrastructure is being planned to get the power to Germany's industrial regions. At the same time, companies such as Siemens, GE, and RWE, Germany's biggest power producer, are looking for ways to keep factories humming during lulls in wind and solar power. They are searching for cheap, large-scale forms of power storage and hoping that computers can intelligently coordinate what could be millions of distributed power sources.

Until large-scale, cheap storage is available, gas power plants, which can start up quickly and efficiently, will be the most practical way to cope with these situations. But there's little incentive to build such plants. Owners of gas plants meant to meet peak power needs can no longer count on running for a certain number of hours, since the need will no longer fall on predictable workday afternoons but come and go with the sun and wind.

Now energy companies are planning to install 10,000 megawatts of wind power as far offshore as 160 kilometers, at depths of up to 70 meters. Several 10,000- to 20,000-ton offshore substations will convert gigawatts of AC output to DC, which can span such distances without large energy losses.

Various economic think tanks predict that the country will spend somewhere between $125 billion and $250 billion on infrastructure expansion and subsidies in the next eight years—between 3.5 and 7 percent of Germany's 2011 GDP.

This is a much better designed economic stimulus than we've seen in the US over the last three years. It invests into a future infrastructure built with new electric grid technologies. Even if the project fails it has a chance to create a industrial base for an export economy that targets fast growing Asian countries.

tags: distribution, control, synthesis, build-up, energy, infrastructure

Will robots kill Tesla Motors?

Robotization may make electric cars viable even if consumer demand doesn't pick up for some time.

Feb 16, MTR -- "The [car] industry is getting very good at making profits on lower volumes of vehicles for niche applications," says Jay Baron, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research. In part, this is because factories are using more robots, and robots that can perform more functions, so they can be quickly reprogrammed to make different vehicles. Some automakers have announced that they will offer three versions of a car—one gasoline-powered, one hybrid, and another electric.

 This means Tesla Motors will have a hard time being an independent car maker. Their best shot at profitability would probably be through technology licensing and/or key component manufacturing. They just don't have the economies of scale to invest in full-blown robotic assembly lines.

tags: process, innovation, transportation, energy

Finally, some good news for solar energy.

Because the electric grid in India is unreliable and solar panels keep getting cheaper,  renewable energy becomes economically competitive with local diesel generators.

Feb 2, 2012. The New Scientist -- A quarter of people in India do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook report. Those who are connected to the national grid experience frequent blackouts. To cope, many homes and factories install diesel generators.

Now the generators could be on their way out. In India, electricity from solar supplied to the grid has fallen to just 8.78 rupees per kilowatt-hour compared with 17 rupees for diesel.

The one thing stopping households buying a solar panel is the initial cost, says Amit Kumar, director of energy-environment technology development at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India. Buying a solar panel is more expensive than buying a diesel generator, but according to Chase's calculations solar becomes cheaper than diesel after seven years.

tags: system, evolution, mousetrap, energy, source, distribution

Sunday biography: Nikola Tesla.

This amazing documentary gives long overdue recognition to a great and misunderstood man of science. The life of Nikola Tesla is an inspiring example of the power of one man to change the world with technology and revolutionary ideas.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was one of the most fascinating scientists of the 20th century. He invented, developed or imagined the technology that brought us electricity, remote control, neon and florescent lighting, radio transmission and much more... all the basic inventions that now connect the world with power and information.

link

tags: lunchtalk, innovation, invention, energy, communications

The best car to steal ever.

 With electric cars less is more.

Jan 25, 2012. CNet -- Spain will begin producing an electric car next year that's about the same size as a Smart, but can collapse itself into an even smaller footprint when parked. The Hiriko, which means "urban car" in Basque, is the brainchild of researchers at the MIT Media Lab, and is designed to meet the needs of increasingly congested and parking challenged urban centers. 

To steal the car, all you need to do is fold it and load it onto your Ford Explorer.

tags: transportation, energy, problem

Remotely controlled brain.

Switching technology from lasers to LEDs lets an MIT startup plant a  light-weight controller right into a lab animal brain.

Jan 23, 2012. MTR -- Optogenetics relies on genetically altering certain cells to make them responsive to light, and then selectively stimulating them with a laser to either turn the cells on or off. Instead of a laser light source, Kendall Research uses creatively packaged LEDs and laser diodes, which are incorporated into a small head-borne device that plugs into an implant in the animal's brain. The device, which weighs only three grams, is powered wirelessly by supercapacitors stationed below the animal's cage or testing area.

The wireless capabilities allow researchers to control the optogenetics equipment remotely, or even schedule experiments in advance. 

Data collection is also seems to be one of their key applications. Maybe when people agree to genetically modify their brains to emit lights, this technology will be invaluable for a new kind of communications.

tags: control, energy, storage, communications, biology, brain, startup

Getting fat just got a whole lot easier!

Jan 23, 2012. Reuters -- Starbucks is planning to add the alcoholic drinks and food such as savory snacks, cheese plates and hot flatbreads to menus in four to six outlets in each market.

Nutrition-wise, beer is largely carbs. A 12oz glass of a decent beer is worth about 150 calories, which should give you the extra energy to ride a horse for almost an hour. And if you add a cheese plate to your Starbucks order, you'll have to ride this horse for the rest of the evening.

tags: health, energy, distribution, payload

Mobile devices will become extremely successful because many industries - communications, IT, IC and hardware manufacturers, software developers and others - are investing capital, time, and effort into making them successful. Here's the latest example of how chip designers work to reduce power consumption and performance of mobile ICs.

Jan 5, 2012. VBeat -- SuVolta, a chip startup that says it can cut power consumption by 50 to 90 percent when coupled with other techniques for lowering voltage said today it has raises $17.6 million in a new round of funding.

“Power is now the biggest design constraint for electronic products,” he[Bruce McWilliams, president and chief executive at SuVolta] said. “This funding demonstrates the excitement surrounding our technology which dramatically reduces power consumption in ICs.”

Intel announced Tri-Gate earlier this year and said it will use 3D structures to pack more (FinFET) transistors into a given space, cutting power consumption by 50 percent and improving performance by 37 percent.

Two additional points from the article:
- the startup's business model is IP licensing;
- VC investment in semiconductors is down dramatically since 1999.

tags: technology, s-curve, innovation, investment, licensing, energy, mobile

Patent rights: breakthrough vs incremental improvements.

Arguably, Watt's steam engine is one of the greatest inventions of the time. For over a century, from the late 1700s till the early 1900s Watt's condenser-based design dominated power generation in a variety of industries, from mining to transportation to electricity generation. Remarkably, the success of Watt's business venture with Boulton was based entirely on the patent:

The profits for Boulton & Watt resulted from the royalties they charged for the use of their engine. Watt’s invention was protected by the patent for the separate condenser he took in 1769, which an Act of Parliament had prolonged until 1800. The pricing policy of the two partners was to charge an annual premium equal to one-third of the savings of the fuel-costs attained by the Watt engine in comparison to the Newcomen engine. This required a number of quite complicated calculations, amounting at identifying the hypothetical coal consumption of a Newcomen engine supplying the same power of that Watt engine installed in the mine. (Alessandro Nuvolari, 2001. doi: 10.1093/cje/beh011 )

As a matter of fact, the enforcement of an almost absolute control on the evolution of the steam technology during the duration of Watt’s patent was a crucial component of Boulton and Watt’s business strategy.

Despite Watt's crucial contribution to the technology, engineers and entrepreneurs who were constrained by his patent rights resented the legal monopoly. Similarly, the mobile industry today resents Apple's attempts to enforce its iPhone/iPad patents.

Once the inventive breakthrough is accomplished, everybody wants a piece of the action. As the result of massive technical attention and investment, engineers create a multitude of incremental improvements, targeting cost reduction and increases in performance.

tags:  patent, example, invention, business, model, energy

Invention of a new type of electric battery will be the most important technology development of the next decade. For the electric car to become practical, we need a 10X drop in price per kilowatt-hour of energy storage.

Dec 29, 2011. MTR - ... even under optimistic assumptions, lithium-ion batteries are likely to cost around $360 per kilowatt-hour in 2030.

The U.S. Department of Energy, however, has far more ambitious goals for electric-vehicle batteries, aiming to bring the cost down to $125 per kilowatt-hour by 2020. For that, radical new technologies will probably be necessary. As part of its effort to encourage battery innovation, the DOE's ARPA-E program has funded 10 projects, most of them involving startup companies, to find "game-changing technologies" that will deliver an electric car with a range of 300 to 500 miles.

At the same time, driverless cars will also become much better. As the result, by mid 2020s we can get to the beginning of a totally new transportation infrastructure. In part, it will be driven by the dominant role of internet commerce, which implies home delivery of goods. Companies, like UPS, FedEx, and others will have huge incentives to reduce fuel costs. By mid-2030, we should expect robotic electric cars dropping off holiday presents just in time for the celebration.

tags: transportation, control, 10x, distribution, energy

Is your toaster watching you?

CNet reports on Siemens buying eMeter, a big data utility metering software startup.

Note how the article confuses cause and effect. Imagine you are a power utility. When you collect user information once a month no big data processing capability is necessary. But when you collect it every 15 minutes - an almost 3,000 increase in frequency - all of a sudden you have a lot of data to process. Therefore, the reason for new challenge is not the need for improved billing, but the new ability to collect and analyze private information that generate an avalanche of data.

(Dec 5, 2011. CNet) - By collecting data such as customer power consumption every 15 minutes, utilities can automatically read meters and get a better understanding of demand trends. Energy usage information can also be presented to consumers through a dashboard or dedicated device to help consumers lower utility bills. 

One of the challenges for utilities is that water, gas, and electricity meters create masses of data that has to be collected over different networks and then integrated into systems. Tying meter data into billing applications, for example, helps utilities streamline their operations. 

Last week, a lot of consumer wrath was directed at Carrier IQ collecting mobile data. The company was even accused of breaking federal wiretap laws. The case shows that the we are still in early stages of system growth, with most basic security issues unresolved. For example, enterprise use of smartphones  with unauthorized third party software is a huge security hole.

I would argue that, privacy-wise, the new big data capabilities of the utility companies is as invasive as Carrier IQ. By correlating your water, electricity, and internet use data, the utilities can figure out why, when, and how you use your home appliances.

tags: 10X, control,detection, energy, privacy, cloud

Can we predict that electric battery technology will be the next big thing? Yes, because it will allow us to harvest free energy from the Sun (and the wind). Unfortunately, we blew the last investment cycle on solar (and wind) without much thinking about the readiness of the infrastructure. Therefore, it will take another 10-15 years to mature the technology. In the meantime, here's another candidate for large-scale grid storage:

(November 22, 2011. MTR) - Researchers at Stanford University have now demonstrated a high-efficiency new nanomaterial battery electrode that lasts for 40,000 charge cycles without significantly losing its charge-holding capacity. The work was led by Yi Cui, a materials science and engineering professor at Stanford University.

The electrodes maintain 83 percent of their charge capacity after 40,000 cycles—in comparison, lead-acid batteries last a few hundred cycles, while lithium-ion batteries typically last for 1,000. The electrodes also show 99 percent energy efficiency.

For completeness, Aquion Energy is developing a competing battery technology.

P.S. From a system perspective, storage solves the same kind of dilemma I described in the post about Odysseus and the Sirens [separation in Time.]

tags: infrastructure, energy, economics, storage, system, dilemma

DARPA: Living Foundries Industry wanted.

DARPA wants something better than 3D printers:

...at the Fifth International Meeting on Synthetic Biology at Stanford University, a representative from the DARPA announced a new program called Living Foundries that will invest in and develop synthetic biology projects.

...in reality, she said, yields are low, synthetic biologists can only use a very constrained group of starting products, and they can't make anything they want, only things that are either natural products or slightly modified versions.


Expanding the possible materials that can be made by engineered cells will require making microbes that can deal with other feedstocks—going beyod sugar and cellulose. DARPA wants to open up the periodic table so that cells can make, for example, efficient semiconductor materials.

 Making semiconductors would probably not be a good idea because conventional technologies are  really good at it already. But producing organic solar cells or some kind of other energy converter/storage "devices" could eventually replace burning fossil fuels.

Green technology and political protest.

This is a real-life test for green technology. Will solar energy save the political action?

NEW YORK, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Anti-Wall Street protesters' plans to camp in a New York park throughout the city's harsh winter were dealt a blow on Friday when the fire department confiscated generators and fuel because they posed a danger.

But Occupy Wall Street spokesman Ed Needham said the removal of the generators was "certainly a directed effort to thwart our situation." He said solar powered generators were being brought in to replace those taken.

Facebook and Twitter proved that social networking technology can help people organize in a totally new different way. Now, it's the green tech's turn to prove itself. If it works out, this might become the Occupy's movement's greatest contribution to the world.

tags: energy, synthesis, s-curve, problem

Technology vs Science vs Steam

Technology appears to be a fairly recent concept: it starts showing up in books about a hundred years. You can also see how science takes away the mindshare from arts, philosophy, and even religion.

It's also interesting how the peak of "steam" coincides with the birth of "technology." Maybe at the time people realized that steam power is just an instance of a bigger trend.

tags: