Whenever I speak on renewable energy, I’m careful to leave my audience with a sense of the “tough realities.”  We all want simple answers to our questions, but in the case of clean energy, none exist.

There are dozens of different flavors of solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal, each improving in terms of cost and efficiency, but at different rates.  There are economic issues, as none of these flavors can compete with the dirtiest form of coal, if we don’t take into account the “externalities” like lung disease and environmental damage.  And Lord knows there are political issues, where we have serious candidates for president of the U.S. who, if elected, boldly pledge to dismantle our Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.  If this occurs, it would effectively end the efforts of the largest economy on Earth to migrate away from fossil fuels and nuclear. 

Here’s another in a series of infographics that attempts to put all this into perspective. Hope you enjoy.

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I’m working on another in our series of renewable energy infographics, to present the basic concepts in a way that’s immediately understandable for newcomers to the subject.  My current project is writing up “The Pros and Cons of Renewables.” The main point: all forms of energy, clean or dirty, come with a certain financial and ecological cost.

One of the main challenges associated with the migration to “new energy” is infrastructure, as unfortunately, renewable resources tend to exist far from our population centers, which requires an expensive build-out of our electrical grid. This article on Hydrokinetics in Alaska is a case in point. They have 350,000 miles of roaring rivers and tides that are incredible. Southern California, whose population is 40 times that of Alaska, is as hungry for those resources as a bear, fresh out of hibernation, fishing for a salmon.

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Does this scale to the point that it can replace terawatts of fossil fuels? Nope. But in the right conditions, it’s a wonderful solution, and thus, in my opinion, the company represents an interesting investment opportunity.

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But what struck me hardest about our talk was Paul’s background; he came to this place from many years as a commercial fisherman, a business he had pursued until he had a realization. “It wasn’t sustainable,” he told me, without any need to elaborate. Of course, one has to like anyone who makes a career change because he perceives that the path of his life’s work is unsustainable.

But perhaps the neatest aspect of our talk came clear when Paul said, “I came to know those currents very well, like the Gulf Stream and the Mozambique Current (between Madagascar and Mozambique). I had been fighting them for years.” That’s cool, I thought to myself; he’s gone from fighting something to turning it into an assistant; he’s turned an enemy into a friend. May we all be so lucky.

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In this interview, I discuss a radical new approach to run-of-river hydrokinetics where the water is falling far over a short distance, e.g., a waterfall. The company’s solution is extremely straightforward and would be easy for a wily competitor to steal; it is for this reason that they play their cards very close to their vests, and have gone to an almost unimaginable extent to patent their IP internationally. Will anyone win here – besides the patent attorneys, that is? I believe so.

There are many sites around the world where this solution is perfect, and will produce totally clean power, 24/7/365 at an incredibly attractive rate in terms of levelized cost of energy (LCOE), meaning the average cost per kilowatt-hour when all factors are taken into consideration: the construction, the fuel, operations and maintenance, and decommissioning.

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Until I received a call from a fellow in Northwestern Spain the other day, I had never considered the hydrokinetic potential represented by waterfalls and steep rapids. Obviously, here’s a case where a great deal of energy is released in a concentrated space; that’s certainly a good thing. But how can one extract that energy in an inexpensive, eco-friendly, and aesthetic manner?

Well, sadly, the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) I signed prohibits me from answering that question publicly. But I am convinced that there is, in fact, a way to do it, and I encourage potential investors to write in, sign the same NDA I did, and determine for themselves if they think this thing has legs. I believe most of them will agree with me, that this idea has great potential if it’s pursued diligently and professionally.

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Here’ s a short presentation on hydrokinetics, in particular, a few clean energy business plans that are based on run-of-river, ocean current, wave, tidal, ocean thermal, etc.  This is of particular interest to me as I go about recommending a solution for my friends in Bermuda, which doesn’t really have the land mass to support some of the other renewable energy technolgies. 

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