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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just got off the plane from Bermuda, and thought I’d write a quick post before bed.  What a reminder this trip was of the reason I got into this subject in the first place: the fascinating confluence of science, business, and politics.

Unfortunatley, renewable energy is something that won’t happen easily on Bermuda — for a combination of each of these three reasons.   Their power source, diesel, is quite dirty — and no one likes it; the smell of the fumes and the residue of the particulate matter sully what would otherwise be an immaculate setting.  But the 90 mW diesel plant does have the merit of ramping up and down nicely according to hour-to-hour demand. And we’re talking about 22 square miles of land — every acre of it quite valuable — so I can’t recommend huge solar farms.

They need offshore wind, but it will be expensive to implement, and politically, it will fly in the teeth of the power company’s monolopy, which is extremely well protected politically.

So the issues militating a switch to clean energy aren’t as straightforward as they may be in a different geography and cultural climate.  But even with all this, electric transportation is a slam dunk.  Even with the world’s dirtiest method power generation method, EVs will represent a significant net improvement in the pollution that befouls their air and contributes to the overall increase in global greenhouse gases.

But again, complicating matters are the business and cultural aspects of the problem.  As we have in the US, there are entrenched corporate interests desperately holding onto the status quo in terms of transportation and energy.  As I obseverved first-hand from my two days of meetings, they won’t be easy to dislodge.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketIt was an incredible day here on Bermuda – seven fast-paced 45-minute-long meetings on electric transportation with senior people in business and government.  Some folks were, perhaps, a bit stand-offish, but most were clearly appreciative of our ideas. 

I may have mentioned that I’m a partner in a consulting company called Island Green, whose purpose is to drive gasoline and diesel from island nations with the same ferocity that the Pied Piper rid Hamelin of its rats.  At issue in today’s talks is a 2010 event in which dozens of different kinds of electric scooters, passenger cars, trucks, ferries, etc. will be featured to approximately 300 participants from Bermuda and the Caribbean. 

Our proposal for sponsorship was received warmly by most of the organizations we met with in this tiring but satisfying day.  As the lady who scheduled the agenda for day told one of my partners and me at breakfast, “The last meeting ends at 5.  You boys’ll probably be ready for a cold beverage.”  She nailed that one. 

More later.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’m in Manhattan this week for several purposes — one of which is to drum up support for an idea that is so obvious to me that I can’t understand why some people in this business regard it as novel. Just like mutual fund managers and venture capitalist hedge their bets with a wide range of portfolio companies, I’m working with a 130-year-old investment banking firm here to set up the first in a series of “unit trusts” — raising a total of about $100 million to launch 15 – 20 of what I believe to be the best start-up companies I’ve come across recently, based on business plan submissions.

I want to take a position in the fund myself. I know this sounds immodest, but I’ve always liked to bet on myself. I know that my focus is limited, in that my viewpoint of renewable energy is, by design, so broad that I don’t have the bandwidth to become an expert in any one discipline. But I like to think that I can weed out ideas — and I see plenty of them — that have little or no merit, and focus on a few select business concepts that truly have something to offer.

I guess we’ll see. If you see a “Make a Donation to Craig” link on the site, I  suppose you can infer that I wasn’t as wise as I thought I was.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Greetings from the Empire Hotel, right across the street from the Lincoln Center on New York’s West Side.

Today’s meeting with rewnable energy legend Bill Paul was amazing.  I’d have to go a long way back to find a time that I learned as much in three short hours.  Hate to use cliche’s, but it was truly like drinking water from a firehose. In brief, we planned a collaboration that will help clean energy investors make better sense of this world that seems to be changing so dramatically every day.

More meetings tomorrow and Wednesday, then off to Bermuda.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

PhotobucketAs I mentioned, I’m spending the week in New York City and Bermuda this week for a string of meetings that I believe will ultimately bring a great deal of additional value to that which 2GreenEnergy offers its readers and clients. 

I landed in Philadelphia last night to spend some time with my parents and brother’s family before these meetings began.  Driving around, listening to the radio, talking to people, and re-acquainting myself with the flavor of the area in which I grew up gave me a renewed appreciation for the scope of the task facing proponents of clean energy — it’s not at the top of the list of things that occupy people’s attention here.  In fact, very few conversations, advertisements — anything — focus on environmental topics.  A traveller’s tip for those wishing a sure winner as a subject of discussion: the terrible danger represented to us all by the recent failed terrorist attack.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketA few months ago I wrote a post about my consulting company’s relationship with the island nation of Bermuda, in which I mentioned how proud I am to be a part of an entire country’s movement away from fossil fuels.  A quick update:

This week, I’m on my way to Bermuda for a series of meetings with governmental agencies and private sector sponsors, each of which will be integral to making this whole thing happen.  And as I just happened to see this morning, this will be occuring in the context of a great number of governmental stimuli affecting this region of the world. 

It seems that virtually no one approves of the exact tack the Obama Administration is taking.  Progressives are disappointed with his pandering to entrenched interests and failing to take a hard line on things like healthcare reform, the war(s), and regulation of the big banks and Wall Street; conservatives, true to form, reject him as a socialist.  But let me tell you this: in terms of confronting the environmental nightmares that lie ahead of us if nothing is done to wean us from our oil addiction, far more has happened in the last few months than happened in the previous three decades.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

During my interview with Matt Simmons on “peak oil” for my book on renewables, I asked about suggestions for averting the imminent disaster he sees associated with maintain the status quo in energy generation and consumption. The response:

Large wind turbines will soon be built at the University of Maine and tested off the Maine coast, made from advanced composites with breakthrough characteristics in strength, weight, and cost. Once put into production, they can be used to produce large quantities of ammonia.

Matt pointed out that anhydrous ammonia (NH3), also known as “the other hydrogen,” is ultra-clean and energy-dense — the closest thing to a perfect transportation fuel.

He laid out a significant list of benefits:

  • Liquid at ambient temperatures and moderate pressures (~125 psi)
  • Has 52% of the energy density of gasoline, more than 50% more energy dense than liquid hydrogen
  • Can be used directly in internal combustion engines, using relatively straightforward conversions of gasoline and diesel ICEs
  • Easy to store and deliver in large quantities
  • Current worldwide annual production of ammonia is ~130 million tons
  • A storage and delivery infrastructure of pipelines, barges, rail and truck already exists for ammonia, with 3000 miles of pipeline in the US heartland; retail ammonia outlets exist in almost every state
  • Can be produced cleanly from coal and natural gas with carbon sequestration, and also from biomass, renewable energy sources and nuclear power, using nitrogen from the air
  • Contains no carbon, so releases no GHGs on combustion; also any NOx is easily neutralized

I propose to conduct a bit more research on this subject, and post my findings when they are available. In the meanwhile, please feel free to comment.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In the talk Dr. David Mills gave recently in on solar thermal, he closed by telling his audience that renewable energy was “a moral issue,” meaning, of course, that we as a species have a series of related ethical obligations regarding our environment. When I put this together with the ideas of some other people I’ve interviewed for my book on renewables, I arrive at a considerable laundry list of clear consequences of pursuing the status quo in terms of power generation and consumption:

Increasing rates of serious diseases directly and indirectly caused by fossil fuel extraction, refinement, distribution and combustion

Suffering of other animals brought about by reduction in habitable areas, food supplies, and accelerated extinction of species

Storms, droughts, and famines associated with global climate change

Destruction of crustaceans and associated ecosystems due to ocean acidification

Increased violence from terrorist groups and rogue states empowered by wealth derived from oil

Reduced quality of life for our descendents

Social chaos engendered by imminent gasoline shortages

In my talk yesterday with Matt Simmons of “peak oil” fame, he pointed out that social chaos will ensue as oil becomes scarce and gasoline becomes unavailable in an increasing number locations over increasingly long periods of time. I asked Matt, not generally known for his rose-colored predictions of the future for an oil-addicted world, for a solution. To my surprise and delight, he provided one without a moment’s hesitation. More on this tomorrow.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

PhotobucketA great number of readers have written in recently asking about raising investment capital. Most are fairly non-specific about this, hoping, I suppose, to find an extremely wealthy angel investor who likes their idea – in terms of both its risk/reward profile and its philanthropic merits – and is willing to roll the dice. This can happen – in fact, is does happen every day.

Yet I want to write a short post on venture capital. By contrast to angel investors, VCs tend to:

1) Use other people’s money rather than their own; they represent large pools of capital that come from pension funds, government entities, endowments, etc., and

2) Be extremely selective about the deals they take on, looking to “swing for the fences,” as I like to say, i.e., embracing deals whose upside potential is enormous, where an occasional success more than compensates them for their many (smaller) failures.

Looking back on my 25-year career as a marketing consultant to high-tech companies, I remember the good old days fondly. Most of our clients were Fortune-sized: Sony, Pioneer, Oracle, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, IBM, 3M, Philips, 3Com, ITT, Fedex, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, as so forth — but many were venture-capitalized start-ups. As one of several examples, I worked for years for a nascent company called etNetworks – a joint venture with IBM that was focused on using satellite technology to deliver IBM courseware to computer resellers worldwide. Representatives of the venture team were in most of our meetings, and I got to know the type of expectations they have and the way they like to interact with the management teams (and consultants) within their portfolio companies.

The upside potential of etNetworks, as I demonstrated in my numerous research presentations, was most definitely there. The numbers penciled out beautifully in terms of the size of the reseller market-base, their disdain for travelling to receive training, and their willingness to pay for training and educational services. Initially, a venture capital giant took a huge position in the company.

And, to a lesser extent, so did I; in exchange for a substantial reduction in billings, I received over $1 million in etNetworks’ stock. I remember my seven-year-old son was so excited when, in an effort to get him to grasp the concept of equity ownership, I explained this all to him. “How many Lamborghinis can we buy if etNetworks goes public at $5 a share?” he’d ask, his eyes as wide as tennis balls. “A whole parking lot full of ’em,” I replied, hugging him close.

Its current value? Zero. It wasn’t the homerun it looked like a few years earlier — more like a ground-out to the shortstop — a disappointment for everyone – including my son and me.  Essentially, the advent of a reliable, ubiquitous, high-bandwidth Internet did the same thing to etNetworks that it’s in the process of doing to the video rental industry.

Of course, new venture deals happen every day — and many create huge rewards for all concerned.  In the process of discussing renewable energy business consulting with 2GreenEnergy readers, I’ve provided my experiences with this process, and offered whatever advice I’m able to.

To add to that, I just came across this truly excellent article on the realities of pitching VCs on an idea; the author explains this process far better than I can from my perspective.   Enjoy, and good luck.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Each week, many people write into us at 2GreenEnergy from all around the globe wanting some sort of assistance with renewable energy ideas. Normally, “assistance” means “funding.” It’s certainly true that we are connected with a small team of carefully chosen boutique investment bankers in NY City, and that we routinely pass along the business plans that seem most solid to them.

But I have to admit that I have a morbid fascination with those business plans that don’t pass muster – that I consider to be fatally flawed (plans that, of course, I do not pass along). I’ve even developed a set of categories for them in my own mind.

First are those that are clearly specious in terms of basic engineering and physics, e.g., a wind turbine that supposedly captures two or three times more energy than the conventional three blades. Wrong. This is impossible, since the existing system already harvests about 60% of wind “flux,” i.e., the wind that passes through the circle defined by the tips of the turning blades.

Along these lines we have the perpetual motions machines, which seem to arrive here at a more-less constant pace. This category is composed, again – in the privacy of my own mind — of two sub-groups: “crackpots” (that is, people who seem to believe their story) and “charlatans” (people who don’t).   I’m never nasty or condescending with anyone, but I DO ask to see a working model.  Strangely, I get this response (uniformly):  No, I don’t have a working model; I just need another few hundred thousand dollars, and I can produce one quickly.  “Gosh, sorry,” I say, “I’m afraid I can’t help.”

The other broad category of “non-starter” plans are those who have obviously bitten off more than they can chew. Here we have inventors who seem to lack a sense for the idea that the hard work is just beginning – maybe a fellow with a legitimate breakthrough who somehow believes that all the R&D, manufacturing marketing, and distribution are simply unimportant afterthoughts.

I sometimes find myself explaining something to someone that I’m quite certain he’d rather not hear, for example, “Your idea could change the world — but there’s a problem. You have a vision …. but you’re neither a seasoned businessman, a financier, a patent attorney, a human resources executive, a manufacturer, nor a distributor. I ask you to consider a basic solution, one that has been employed by smart people all over the world: sell or license your idea. I can help you sell this concept to a fully funded corporate entity that wants to bolster its position technologically and gain an additional competitive advantage. Or maybe we could talk about setting up a meticulously protected licensing relationship with an enterprise that has already established manufacturing practices — along with existing distribution channels.”

In essence, it’s the concept of core competency that became fashionable in the 1980s. Simply do what you’re good at. Don’t rein in your success by converting a personal weakness into a stumbling block toward your company’s progress.

And this rule is even more applicable in the world of clean energy than it is elsewhere, as this industry is destined to soon be measured in the trillions of dollars annually. Cut a licensing deal for your technology that captures a millionth of that market. You’ll be doing just fine.

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