Breakthrough Concepts in Clean Energy
As I’ve mentioned, I receive several new clean energy business concepts per week, mostly rooted in proven technology. The scientific mechanisms behind solar, wind, biomass, hydrokinetics and geothermal are all very well-established, and have been for a great period of time. Every day there are improvements, and in some cases, important ones, and that’s a good thing. But with each email I open from an inventor somewhere on the globe, I’m constantly hoping that I’ll get something legitimate but really new – not just a claim at an incremental improvement on an old technology.
Like most people, I judge the legacies of civilization’s finest contributors to the arts and sciences by how far advanced their contributions were from the work of their predecessors. Here’s a quick story on the subject:
I don’t know how much you remember about the pre-Socratic philosophers, but about 600 BCE, a gentleman named Thales (pictured above) wrote that “water is the ‘arche,’” a term we don’t translate from the ancient Greek; it means that it’s the basic, most primordial substance from which all others are derived. Though we learned 2400 years later that the concept was factually incorrect, that’s not the point; rather, we greatly appreciate it for what it was: one of the first scientific propositions, and one that was completely new, not derived from anyone or anything else.
By comparison, we’re relatively unimpressed today with the work of Anaximander, who came along a few years later and said that, no, water’s not the arche; it’s something else (I can’t remember what). Thales had a breakthrough idea, i.e., that the universe is composed fundamentally of a certain substance that was morphed into the multiplicity of different stuff we see around us; the concept was unique and transformative. Anaximander’s idea, i.e., that such a substance existed, but that it was actually rocks, or seaweed or whatever, was a variant on Thales’, and therefore extremely dull by comparison.
I have to believe that humankind is close to a transformative idea with respect to clean energy. Think of all the research that is getting us ever closer to an understanding of the underlying nature of the matter and energy in the universe. Think of how tantalizingly close we are to a cost-effective way of powering our planet with the energy from our local star, which showers us with more than 6000 times more energy each day than all seven billion of us consume.
Sure, we can probably limp across the finish line with a steady stream of incremental improvements, but it sure would be good to have a breakthrough idea. If you know of a modern-day Thales out there, I’m here waiting for you.
