New Technologies—Clean or Otherwise—Face Steep Hurdles
A reader mentions a series of meetings he attended on technologies that can be applied to coal plants to clear up their emissions, and, in reference to one of them, notes: This is just one of many potential “cleaner fossil fuel” technologies presented. Like most new technologies, I try to keep an open mind, while accepting that many will never be commercialized.
It’s most certainly true that most new technologies never commercialize, and it may be worth a few minutes to discuss some of the many reasons that this is true.
Non-Competitive Technologies
Here at 2GreenEnergy, we’re on the receiving end of cleantech business plans at the rate of two or three per week, most of which simply won’t work because they purport to build something that, even on a good day, is not going to scale and compete against ideas that are already commercially available, or those that I happen to know are soon to become so. I commonly refer to these concepts as “asinine,” but that’s really an unnecessarily unkind word; perhaps “nice try but no cigar” would be better.
Poor Marketing
Anyone who harbors the notion that the best product ultimately prevails in the market can immediately disprove his hypothesis, simply by looking at the operating system of the computer he’s (probably) using to read this post: Microsoft Windows. If there has been another product over the last 35 years that generated as much anger and frustration, as well as wasted time and money on the personal and corporate level, I certainly can’t think of it. Microsoft engineers would routinely launch products knowing GD well that they were loaded with bugs. At the same time, Microsoft executives were traveling the globe, pressuring the entire computer hardware supply chain, from OEMs to distributors to value-added resellers, often with tactics that violate federal antitrust and international trade laws, to embed these products at the exclusion of their competitors.
Now, I’m obviously not suggesting that criminal activity is a good solution to marketing problems; I only point out that effective marketing can turn a dog product into a superstar, and that good products do not sell themselves. “If you build it they will come” only works in fantasy movies.
Popular music is another great example. The next time you have the ill-fortune to hear what kids of today are listening to, ask yourself: How much talent does that “artist” have? The answer: very little. The reason: success in the music industry is 99% marketing and 1% musical ability.
The Convergence of Money and Politics, aka “Corruption”
The main reason that the coal industry still exists in any form in the U.S. is that 60 of our 100 senators come from states that mine coal. To use the words of Ray Lane, former H-P chairman and partner emeritus at venture capital behemoth Kleiner Perkins (pictured above) when I interviewed him in his office for my first book (Renewable Energy—Facts and Fantasies), “When asked to vote against coal, these 60 people don’t say No; they say Hell No.”
Missing the Long View
The Earth receives 6000 times more energy each day from the sun than all 7.4 billion of us are consuming. It’s only a matter of a couple of decades until this planet figures out a way to harvest the tiny fraction that is necessary for our activities, and we can all forget we ever heard of mercury, cadmium, selenium, arsenic, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, and all the other poisonous chemicals in the effluent stream from our coal-fired power plants. The bad news is that there are numerous malicious and corrupt agencies on our planet. The good news is that there is no force on Earth, regardless of how greedy and evil, that can prevent this transition from happening. Companies on the wrong side of the curve here are doomed to bankruptcy, both financial and moral.
I’m Here To Help
Want to draw on my 37 years’ experience as a marketing consultant to the tech industry? You know where to reach me.
Craig,
I was very interested in your comments on why some products commercialize while others fail.
Some of what you outline is very true. A great many new products are simply non-competitive.
While it’s true that good, clever and effective marketing is a big factor in commercializing any product, even the best marketing will fail if the product doesn’t fulfill a genuine need.
The “need” doesn’t have to fulfill everyone’s concept of value just the target audience to be successful.
As we get older some of us find ourselves locked out and unable to appreciate the genius of a younger generation. I’m afraid your comment on the music of today’s youth puts you firmly in the “oldie Curmudgeon” grouping. (don’t worry, it was ever thus! Each generation condemns the next generation’s music as ‘rubbish”). 🙂
Not all technologies are “perfect”. It’s true large corporations defend their market share vigorously, or disappear. Competitors and disgruntled consumers often invent ‘conspiracy’ theories claiming corruption for imperfections and products that don’t realize unrealistic expectation.
A lot of frustration is created when ideologically driven promoters of products discover consumers don’t like the product or the ideology.
Successful marketers know when to reappraise the situation and promote new products. Those continuing to stubbornly swim against the tide with unwanted ideologically unsound products are doomed to irrelevance.
Depending on where you live, nearly all industrialized economies rely upon coal for 30-60 % of base load electricity.
The energy released from burning coal created the industrial revolution. Coal is still a very important, and essential source of energy.
Like most sources of energy, Coal has draw backs and disadvantages. These disadvantages have produceed three mindsets :
1) Ignore the disadvantages and potential environmental problems and continue using coal without concern.
2) Ban all Coal production immediately and rely on renewable energy.
3) Invest in new technologies to mitigate, remove and sequestrate the dangers and disadvantages of Coal, while retaining it’s role as an energy transition fuel until other economically viable cleaner technologies can replace it’s generating capacity.
Craig, the majority of people are starting to appreciate the wisdom of option(3). Option (1)is not acceptable to any anyone rational, even the majority of the coal industry and option (2) isn’t practical or realistic.
Craig, IMHO where we seem to have diverged in recent years, is you no longer seem capable, or willing, to separate ideology from practicality when promoting clean(er) technology.
You demand products must be ideologically ‘pure’ and conform to a predetermined concept of good and ‘evil’, black or while. I still see everything in shades and degrees.
You now dismiss, even refuse to discuss, any defects or concerns about your chosen technologies. You now immerse yourself in the warm comfort of supporters and fellow travelers, instead of seeking out and studying dissent and diverse opinion.
I have yet to hear you address the negatives associated with Solar energy. I’ve never heard you contemplate the potential pollution of billion of tones of “mercury, cadmium, selenium, arsenic, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, and all the other poisonous chemicals” created by solar waste (or are these toxins magically transformed by the word solar ?).
When choosing new technology investments, I always study the motives of the inventor/promoter, convenience, market share, competitors, economics, supporting technology and compatibility.
Unlike you, I see nothing wrong with politicians (Senators) voting in accordance with the wishes of their constituents.
Unlike you, I’ll settle for clean(er) viable technology with the potential to improve the environment right now. I’ll leave the crusading for perfection that will never happen to you and your fellow believers.
I’m always willing to acknowledge and discuss the defects and deficiencies of the clean(er) tech I endorse of support. In fact, I encourage critical analysis.
Like you, I want a cleaner, healthier environment for my children and grandchildren. I believe the only way this can be achieved is by identifying achievable targets and promoting new technology, while maintaining the support of as many people and organizations as possible.
Perhaps you should join me on my American odyssey. You may find yourself amazed by how kind, intelligent, concerned and thoughtful are those who work in the US coal industry.
These folk are considerably more open minded and environmentally concerned than their contemporaries in the UK or Australia.
We all have a vested interest in making clean(er) coal technology work. The newer emerging technologies are showing real potential, but real task is producing technology that can rival natural gas economically.
Rodney Allam’s process using super-critical CO₂, may be the beginning of a whole suite of new technologies to lower the environmental impact of coal fired generation, or it may prove uneconomic, but it’s worth exploring.
Today, I met with a Lithuanian fan of President Trump !
Apparently, Trump is highly regarded in this former Soviet republic. Lithuania has a long history of resistance to Russian and Soviet domination and recent coal shipments from the US to Lithuania are seen as tangible American support for Lithuania independence by lessening reliance on Russian supplied energy.
I’m not yet willing to reject the possibility of better coal technology. Coal will be an increasingly used resource for many, many decades , especially in the developing world.
To be like the German green-left and fail to develop clean(er) coal technology on the basis of some mad fantasy, is environmentally irresponsible.
@Craig
We all have our strengths and weaknesses, no one is exempt of this rule.
Ultimately though it will be our weaknesses that define our individual relevance in general as we move forward in life.
Some might call this the generation gap.
In your case Craig you have totally abandoned any hope of continued relevance in the global energy generation technologies discussion because you have repeatedly shown that you are not at all interested in that specific and very important subject. You are only intetested in Solar PV and other current renewable energy topics, which have been appropriately consigned to another (important but different) subject area.
Ideolgy and dogma simply wont stand up to professionally detached objective analysis and this is particularly true in high end science which is what the global energy discussion should be and is all about.
So in accordance with para 1, your weaknesses have prevailed over your strengths, and your relevance will quickly diminish as you become marginalised and sidelined.
Dont despair though, you are not alone, and I expect to join you on the sidelines in due course.
But at the moment I am prepared to set ideology and dogma aside and focus on what the worlds best and brightest physicists, scientists and others can bring to the discussion.
But the world definately should reject totally, bring beguiled by energy marketing consultants etc etc even if they do have 37 years in that role, which in this important subject, is an irrelevant qualification.
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence,
While I endorse many of your observations, I can understand how difficult it’s become for passionate crusaders. like Craig.
It must be very hard to suddenly realize the world has moved on from those heady days of the new century when solving global warming and renewable energy seemed simple and immediately achievable.
It’s also very hard for passionate activists (they remind me a little of the despair folk fans felt watching the Beatles and Rolling Stones phenomenon change youth culture and even Bob Dylan went electric ) to understand they’re no longer where it’s at !
Today Solar and Wind power lobby’s dominated by huge corporations hungrily compete for government and consumer subsidies.
Governments in turn are equally hungry for political support from a combination of green-left and corporate political machines.
(Trump is an anomaly)
The mainstream media and social media has been very well exploited by these forces to rally public opinion.
So why are the old true believers like Craig, feeling insecure ?
The explanation is redolent with irony. The Green-left, like all Leftist movements, believes in education. Although they don’t realize it, the more successful they are in educating the population to challenge old idea’s and adopt there doctrines, the seeds of their own destruction are sown !
Having opened Pandora’s box, they now discover people will continue to learn and question all doctrines, without exception. Despite their best effort to direct the inquiry process, they find themselves and their beliefs increasingly the target of examination.
This is the point the schisms begin. By withdrawing from debate and attempting to stifle challenge, doubt grows. Sooner or later, the old guard lose the confidence of youth. The become irrelevant, even threatened, by the very revolution they unleashed.
This results in the old guard’s inevitable retreat into small gatherings of aging ‘true believers’ desperately trying to pretend they understand or even recognize the gathering storm.
In some ways it’s a sad process. It’s to avoid this sort of irrelevance, I’m undertaking my current ‘American Odyssey’. I want to be part of, and observe, all the dynamics occurring. I want to experience, and participate in every side of the great debate.
I read with increasing despair of the bizarre antics occurring back home as the Australian Parliament obsesses over the completely irrelevant issue of section 44c.
Australian governance has sunk to a new low when petty minded mischief makers like Tony Windsor can waste so much time and public money on obscure, archaic anomalies which a more serious Parliament would solve as a bi-partisan issue in a single day.
It’s good to read your observations, especially since the usual regulars like Frank and ol’ Silent seem to have gone absent since Craig stop send out alerts.
All the best,
I’m still waiting for someone who reads this BS to step forward and take a serious look at the innovation I’ve created and try to get their head around it. It does have the scalability and it can meet nearly all our repowering needs from residential scale to the many distributed energy needs and smart grid needs. Send me an email at LBlevins@aaecorp dot com with the words Position Paper in the subject line and I’ll forward that. And while you are at it mention your greatest objection to a fully disruptive 3E approach and I’ll be sure to address that issue for you.
“We may need to solve some problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.”
~ Edward de Bono
Les Blevins points out that the term “problem solving” implies that there is a single problem to respond to, and that it can be resolved. That doesn’t take into account situations where there is really no problem at all, where a large and/or complex problem exists that cannot be completely resolved no matter what is done (like global warming and climate change) and situations where many problems exist that could all be dealt with at once but progress is being stalled because many still perceive themselves to be benefitting from the old order.
“Because many of the best solutions to society’s most pressing problems can be found at the local level, we support community-led efforts to drive transformational change that can be adapted, scaled and replicated”
~ a quote from the Kendeda Fund’s website.
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
Les,
Les ol’boy, I hate being impolite, but as you’ve been told many times sometimes you must step back and take an honest appraisal of why you are not fulfilling your dream.
Such an appraisal should include why others don’t believe in your vision (or at least invest).
There are usually two main reasons;
1) The Song . Either the product isn’t sufficiently attractive, practical or useful or it’s poorly described.
2) The Singer. The promoter/inventor/advocate lacks the sort of personality, vision and rationality that inspires trust.
I suspect that you combine both these defects. (I’m not meaning to be impolite, just helpful). When seeking an investor, it has to be about the investor’s interests, not yours.
It your job to explain your concept in easy to understand terms,not the obligation of a potential investor to “get his head around your vision” !
My advice is lose the ego, just talk about the advantages of how you vision can help others.
Genuine success in any worthy endeavor requires these five elements prominently in the mix…
Truth — Non-Violence — Cooperation — Direct Action — Perseverance
I can state from my personal and direct experience, over more than a decade, that you’ve long displayed all five of these key factors, Craig. They’re visible in what you write and how you write, in the way you conduct your business affairs, and in the way you live your life.
Those supportive of sustainability can be certain of ridicule and derision both subtle and bald-faced – and the more visible and influential the support, the more certain.
The potent interests extracting largess from the suicidal status quo have long exercised increasing undue influence – over our leadership and over a tightly consolidated media. This unfair advantage allows the propagation of folly and the restraint of competitive ideas.
For generations, poisonous and obsolete interests have waged ‘public relations’ campaigns to weave lethal business models more deeply into the fabric of human society.
A pioneering example was Edward Bernays’ “Freedom Torch” campaign encouraging women to smoke cigarettes. The ethical concept of ‘truth in advertising’ has long become a vicious joke in the face of a deepening lack of respect for truth in any sense.
Regrettably, built on cunning psychology and careful deceit, such campaigns bear bitter fruit in the form of fervent champions of this or that aspect of the desired paradigm. In recent decades, we heard the cry that people ought to have the freedom to smoke anywhere, despite the harms and risks to others in any public space.
A significant degree of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance often attends such champions. Examples are legion but here’s a few from a panoply of public debates…
…”Human Climate Disruption” must be greedy scientists lying to get more grant money, but bribery is Free Speech and it won’t corrupt our “Public Servants” at all…
…Our Constitution is sacred, but it’s not a problem when politicians shred big sections of it to keep us “safer” from the terrorists our oil-thirsty militant foreign policy helps recruit…
…Making religion into law is dangerous oppression in foreign countries, but it’s a fine idea here at home, as long as it’s my religion…
…Personal freedom for all humans is the highest ideal, except when it comes to your bedroom, your body, and your birth control…
…and so it goes.
What far too many of us have not yet realized or accepted is that the issue of sustainability is not a philosophical question up for debate. It’s an urgent matter well described by hard data long gathered, involving the demonstrated impacts of obsolete technology and wasteful practices spreading out across 7.5 billion people and counting.
You’ve shown yourself to be a highly rational and wakeful person, Craig, armed with a significant education in science and logic, with enduring hope for the future, and a deep awareness of the changing requirements of business success.
My respect for you and your work continues undiminished.
Hey Cameron,
Well done ! You always cheer me up!
It’s really good to encounter an old fashioned, tub thumping, rant.
You’ve missed your calling. You would have made a great acolyte for some old fashioned cult leader, or Party political commissar eulogizing to the ranks of faithful at a school or party rally.
I’m afraid unless you can speak fluent Chinese or passable Korean, the opportunities outside some Californian Universities are very limited and supporters of Bernie Saunders seem to have filled any vacancies.
My goodness, what a corrupt, evil world you see when you peer out your window ! blessed How righteous you must feel when you gloomily contemplate the wickedness of your fellow citizens.
How secure you must feel in the knowledge that your beliefs are immutable, with no room for error or debate.
How superior you must feel to be among the company of “True believers” .
During my American odyssey, I recently had the honour of being invited to attend a church service in a small mining town. I was delighted to discover the Preacher was a real, live, old testament ‘fire and brimstone’ orator.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and was grateful to share a meal after the service with members of the congregation. I found the hospitality warm and sincere. I also was fascinated by the background of these folk and how their culture had developed within the American experience.
I also was astonished to discover how open-minded and tolerant these folk were in comparison to many Californian “progressive Liberal’s”.
@Marco Polo
I admire Craig’s passion for communicating. I believe he is a law abiding peace loving person and I have nothing but admiration and respect for good people everywhere like Craig.
I also believe he is a disappointing stumbling block for the ordinary vulnerable people of the world who he continues to influence due to his notoriety; wrestling with trying to educate themselves to understand better the necessary attributes of the clean energy generation technology imperatives that will shape their future and their genuine prospects for improving their life and community and nation, in the rapidly emerging global energy-centric modern era.
For that lamentable issue alone Craig deserves to be called out (with extreme prejudice – and at every opportunity) and in doing so be reminded of his social obligations as an influential global commentator, to explain his relentless misinformation strategy about this most critical of global subjects.
But Craig has little wriggle room left – he is so ensconced in the now discredited (everywhere) ideological global “renewable energy generation ONLY” rhetoric, and his support base are all similarly misguided ideologues egging him on, no amount of clever word-smithing will allow him a dignified under the radar exit from further criticism.
Like a noble skipper – he should commit to go down with the ship.
It is a shame that Craig finds himself “tied to the mast” like this, but I have detected over a few years now that it is all his own doing, and underpinned I believe by his own renewable energy consultancy business aspirations. Craig has ridden the wave of renewable hysteria and fantasy, promoted it aggressively with scant regard to objective analysis and professional detachment, benefited by it financially and socially, and obviously wants the illusion to continue irrespective of real world imperatives and realities regarding endurable energy dense clean energy generation technologies of the future.
Lawrence Coomber
LOL. Holy cow, man. Are you MarcoPolo’s little brother who (for obvious reasons) didn’t get into law school? There are school kids following this blog who have a far better understanding of my various positions than you do. You could pick a 15-year-old 2GE reader at random, and he/she could tell you all about my stance on smart grid, efficiency, demand response, advanced nuclear, the phasing out of coal and oil, the use of natural gas, the integration of electric transportation, smart cities, energy storage, peak-shaving, load balancing, and high voltage transmission.
Why not leave the attack-dog criticism to your older brother? At least he (generally) knows what he’s talking about.
LOL.
Well you are correct Craig I didn’t get into law school because I never applied, and chose engineering instead in the Navy.
I recommended engineering to my only daughter but she instead chose law, and is now a highly regarded double degree (honors) lawyer running her own practice in Queensland.
My only son however chose engineering and now runs his own very successful renewable energy engineering company in Queensland also.
Individually and as a family we seem to be able to figure a few simple things out though meandering through life, which might come as a surprise to you; and I can’t recall the last time being so flummoxed that we needed to call on “big brother” Marcopolo’s astute guidance to get us back on track; but I am not opposed to that idea, and perhaps you might find it useful also from time to time.
LOL
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence and Craig,
ROFL, that would appear ‘ touche ‘! Match point to Lawrence…..:)