For some reason these things remind me of the night time scenes of Avatar, might be geeky but it does. Gionata Gatto and Mike Thompson unveiled these new pendant lamps at the Milan Furniture Fair. These lamps absorb light energy from ambient sources. I woldn’t mind trying one of these puppies our for myself.

Source: Gorgeous Energy-Absorbing Trap Light Never Needs to be Plugged In | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

A new Center for American Progress (CAP) report by Sean Pool presents the “network lifecycle” approach to clean energy innovation. The paper shows how the innovation lifecycle of clean energy technology can be divided into five phases, each involving a different an evolving network of participants with its own challenges and policy needs.

Freeing our economy from its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and averting the calamitous risks of climate change will require a major technological transformation in the way we produce, transmit, and consume energy. Inventing, developing, building, and deploying these new technologies will require a new era of American technological innovation. The result will be new industries and jobs, along with more clean energy and less pollution.

The good news is that we know that innovation is a fundamental driver of economic growth, and America has led the world in innovation for the past two centuries—from the mechanization of textile manufacturing in the late 18th century to the invention of the Internet in the late 20th century. Innovation is America’s first and greatest competitive advantage—or, as President Obama said “it’s in our DNA.” Twenty-first century clean energy technologies are already being designed, built, marketed, and installed to replace more than a century’s worth of entrenched fossil fuel infrastructure, and a recent report by the Department of Commerce indicates that there are nearly 2 million clean energy jobs in our economy today, with more on the way.

The bad news, however, is this: the United States lags behind many other countries in these emerging technology sectors because our public policy does not fully recognize the central role that innovation plays in sustaining quality economic growth and job creation. Part of the problem is a lack of understanding about exactly what innovation is, how it works, and more importantly who is involved. Policymakers in particular need to understand how different public and private sector players interact to form innovation networks, and how these networks change over time, which is why we’ve put together this primer on the energy innovation lifecycle.

We’ll first define the different stages of the innovation lifecycle, then describe the network of players engaged at each stage of the process. This “network lifecycle” approach can help us better understand who does innovation, the processes that drive it, and the opportunities for public policy to aid it at various points in the process. As you’ll see, our innovation economy in the energy arena needs some key reforms to perform at its peak again.

Defining Innovation: New Ideas that Create Value

“Innovation” is a broad and often vague term, and its meaning varies in different policy circles. But no matter what the context, innovation is fundamentally the process of inventing, introducing, and adopting a new product, practice, system, or behavior.

An innovation can be a new product, machine, policy, business model, administrative structure, managerial system, or even a new cultural or social norm that benefits society. But regardless of whether an innovation affects social processes, economic process, or physical and technological processes, what distinguishes an innovation from an idea or a principle is that it creates value and improves society.

This paper focuses on clean energy technology innovation—the invention and propagation of new machines that generate, save, or transmit energy. But as we will show, producing these new devices also requires the use of new modes of manufacturing, which can be thought of as technologies themselves, as well as new business models that can finance, produce, market, and sell these new machines.

Creating a clean energy economy is just as much about “process innovation”—incremental improvements to the materials and manufacturing process of technologies we already know about—as it is about finding new or undiscovered “breakthrough technologies.” Understanding the five phases of energy “innovation lifecycles” and the five kinds of participants in “innovation networks” will help show how these seemingly separate goals are actually related.
Five phases of the energy “innovation lifecycle”

Energy innovation is not just the process of inventing new technologies and doing research and development in government or university labs. Innovation is actually a set of interrelated processes that can be broken down into five basic phases:

• Discovery
• Development
• Demonstration
• Commercialization
• Maturation

Each phase is undertaken by a different and evolving network of participants, and each has its own distinct policy needs.

The five-phase summary below is a synthesis of numerous academic innovation lifecycle models dating back to Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian economist born in the late 19th century. It is important to note that rather than discrete or entirely separate categories, the different phases in this generalized model take place along a continuum and sometimes may overlap.

Discovery

Discovery is the process of researching a basic idea or scientific principle that may one day lead to a useful technology, and is done mostly by researchers in universities. This process also goes by the names “basic science,” “blue skies research,” or “pure research,” and the first goal of the process is to expand the store of scientific knowledge. Technologies at this stage in life are not fully formed, and most will never graduate to the next stage of development due to technical or cost-related constraints. Nevertheless, the goal of public policy at this stage is to empower smart researchers to cast as wide a net as possible in the hopes that one idea in a hundred could one day revolutionize industry. Government grants for university research and funding of federal labs are the primary sources of funding for this early phase of innovation, since there is not yet a functional technology that can produce profits for private investors. The Energy Frontier Research Centers are an excellent example of recent Department of Energy policy that is supporting discovery by putting money in the hands of able researchers with promising ideas on a competitive basis. The discovery phase creates science research and administrative jobs.

Development

Development is the process of linking the basic science of a discovery with functional technology, also sometimes known as “applied research.” Universities and government labs often continue to play a lead role during development, although promising technologies may begin to attract the attention of potential entrepreneurs, who seek out “seed funding” to help create startup companies to work on
developing the technology or even building functional prototypes.

Because the risks are too great for typical investors, this early jolt of private capital most often comes from angel investors—wealthy individuals who support entrepreneurs with personal funding—or venture capital firms, which do the same with larger pools of funding. Because funding for development is often very scarce, inventors and entrepreneurs themselves sometimes must tap into their personal savings—this is known as “boot-strapping.” This phase is also sometimes referred to as the “seed stage,” as the potential business generally has not developed a full grown and profitable business plan.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, was designed on the same model as its older brother, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. ARPA-E is an initiative of the DOE initially funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and is an excellent example of support for development- phase technology innovation. Job creation during development includes both public and private research and administrative jobs, as well as the possibility for business, management, finance, and perhaps small-scale fabrication jobs.

Demonstration

Demonstration is the process of finalizing prototypes and testing them under real-world conditions to assess operability, technical performance, profitability, and in some cases even regulatory issues. This may also be referred to as “proof of concept” or “technology transfer” because this is the phase when technology must begin to move from labs and research institutions to assembly lines and
businesses. Both demonstration and early commercialization are sometimes also referred to as “deployment.”

Examples might include the construction and operation of a first-of-its-kind advanced nuclear reactor, a demonstration scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery, or a coal-fired power plant with carbon capture-and-storage technology. All of these are scientifically understood technologies that are undergoing small-sale demonstration as a precursor to wider commercialization. Manufacturers who build, contractors who install, and utilities that operate and monitor the technology become essential parts of the innovation network at this stage, and their interactions with researchers and financiers promote an important kind of real-world knowledge creation called “learning by doing.”

Although demonstration projects are rarely profitable in isolation, the primary goal of demonstration is to indicate to the public, potential investors, and the business community that production processes now exist and that the technology is nearing market. As this takes place, the burden of financing begins to shift from basic government research grants to much smaller “proof of concept” development grants and on toward private financing from angel investors and venture capital firms, though the risks are still very high. For capital-intensive, industrial scale technologies, such as a commercial-scale carbon capture-and-storage coal plant, financing for demonstration may flow directly from established industry players or other large companies.

But private investors need to see a clear path to profitability before investing, and demonstration projects on their own can rarely provide this without public support. In the highly regulated and capital intensive energy industry, the path to profitability often depends on significant government incentives and assurances. This is especially problematic for capital-intensive clean energy technologies that require a lot of upfront investment to develop land, build power lines, and construct and install equipment. The scarcity of private finance is why many in the business and policy community refer to the process of carrying a promising technology from proof of concept through commercialization as crossing the “valley of death.”

Commercialization

The commercialization phase is when new technologies must meet the market test. Entrepreneurs must prove that they can produce and sell the new products profitably to early adopters and niche markets. This generally involves finalizing production processes, building a factory, obtaining manufacturing equipment, developing relationships with component suppliers, and finding enough potential buyers to make it all a worthwhile investment.

The “valley of death” private financing problem is acute at this stage, too, as new funding is critical to this cash-intensive and often capital-intensive phase of the innovation cycle. Follow-on rounds of venture capital, private equity, and/or debt financing (that is, borrowing from a bank or selling bonds) become increasingly prominent sources of money, as small- to medium- scale manufacturing and services operations are established. Startup companies at this phase are expected to generate some cash flow from sales of the technology, although profitability for the first few years may still depend on government incentives such as tax credits or cash grants for investment and electricity production, loan guarantees, or the sale of Renewable Energy Certificates to utilities who need them to meet state renewable electricity standards.

Commercialization is a critical bottleneck in current U.S. innovation policy because entrepreneurs have a growing backlog of technically proven technologies for which they cannot find affordable financing to grow their operations and achieve the economies of scale necessary to compete with conventional incumbent technologies. A Clean Energy Deployment Administration or “Green Bank” that can provide loan guarantees and other credit enhancements is one potential policy response to this market pitfall. The creation of a public-private equity investment partnership could be another way to break this financing bottleneck.

Commercialization creates more permanent manufacturing and construction jobs, as companies increase profitability and invest in and operate new manufacturing facilities, and as clean energy technologies are deployed, installed, and operated.

Maturation

Maturation occurs when new technologies graduate from niche to mainstream markets by scaling up manufacturing, gaining market share, increasing efficiency, and showing that they can compete on cost with incumbent sources of energy. In the case of renewable energy, this often occurs once technologies reach “grid parity”—the point at which the renewable energy is equal to or cheaper in price than existing power sources.

As new technologies become commercially competitive, they gain market share and gradually begin to displace incumbent technologies. This process is sometimes also called “diffusion.” Mature innovation networks should ideally become profitable for all participants independent of government incentive programs, although in the case of the incumbent fossil fuel industry, many wasteful subsidies continue to persist due to political pressure. As profitability becomes positive, seed-stage investors, angel investors, and venture capitalists are able to “exit” their investments and make a profit, either by selling their shares at an initial public offering or by selling the entire company to another larger corporation.

The innovation cycle begins anew at this stage as increasingly self-sufficient clean energy manufacturers begin to reinvest their own profits in new research toward incremental improvements to their technology and production process, or seek to acquire smaller companies with promising ideas for how to continue to improve quality or reduce costs. Continuing process innovation remains critical, even for mature technologies, but policymakers all too often ignore this aspect of innovation policy. The bailout of the U.S. auto industry, for example, can be seen as a failure of a mature industry to continue to innovate.

A major goal of public policy at this stage is to ensure that cutting-edge researchers and manufacturers continue to collaborate effectively to organically develop and commercialize the next generation of clean energy manufacturing technologies. But direct government incentives for investment and production of the original technology should begin to sunset on a reliable path.

Finally, finding a price for carbon that finally holds polluters accountable for the damages they cause would be the largest and most important long-term driver of private sector finance for clean energy activities. It would signal to the investment community that the clean energy sector is ripe for long-term growth, and unleash billions of dollars of in private, profitable investment in new businesses, new infrastructure, and new jobs.

For those of you interested in charging your phone through solar power and are willing to pay a little more there are some great products that provide less charging time and are quite stylish as well.

Power Monkey

The power monkey will put you back about $100 but can hold up to 96 hours of charge and is the size of a regular mans wallet. I have one of these and they’re easily transportable and can charge a variety of your geeky gadgets.

iPhone Solar Glove

The SG-5700 iPhone Solar Glove has a Lithium-ion polymer rechargeable battery that can store up to 1100 mAh of power. It comes standard with a USB cord to charge the internal battery through any USB port. The SG-5700 draws UV rays as opposed to light itself, therefore it thrives throughout even the worst of conditions.

Sunlinq USB Mini 400mA 5 Volt Solar Charger

Folding solar panel definitely provide the biggest bang for the buck however, they’re a little bit more clunky than the other solar chargers. The SUNLINQ USB Mini is designed to charge cell phones, PDA’s, MP3/MP4 players, GPS, digital cameras, batteries and basically any device that is able to connect and charge via USB (Universal Serial Bus). The SUNLINQ USB Mini weighs 4 ounces and when folded is compact, lightweight, easily stored and transported.

With the catastrofy of the gulf the UK is opening the largest area since 1964 for drilling in the North Sea

“The North Sea remains an important hub for investment and will continue to be at the heart of the UK’s energy security for years to come.”
Charles Hendry, Energy Minister

The vital role of North Sea oil and gas in securing the UK’s future energy supplies was underlined today in Aberdeen by Energy Minister Charles Hendry, as he approved the development of a new oil and gas field. Charles Hendry also announced record levels of interest in new developments in the North Sea as 356 blocks have been applied for in the latest licensing round. The largest number of blocks applied for since the first licensing round was launched in 1964. Hendry approved the development of Apache’s Bacchus oil field, as he visited Aberdeen and ExxonMobil’s Beryl oil platform in the North Sea.

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said:

“The North Sea remains an important hub for investment and will continue to be at the heart of the UK’s energy security for years to come.

“This approval is in accordance with the UK’s stringent safety and environmental regimes in the North Sea, and shows that there are still plenty of opportunities for developments in UK waters.”

Energy Minister Charles Hendry at ExxonMobil’s Beryl Alpha oil platform in the North Sea.
Courtesy of KTImages and Exxon Mobil.
28 June 2010  (DECC’s Flickr Channel)

Apache North Sea Managing Director James L. House said:

“We are pleased that the minister has approved Apache’s plan to develop the Bacchus discovery. Bacchus, along with our Maule discovery, are examples of fields that can be developed economically, utilizing existing infrastructure at Apache’s Forties Field. These projects also demonstrate that the government’s incentives are encouraging development of smaller fields in the UK sector of the North Sea.”

The Bacchus oil field, located in the Central North Sea, has estimated reserves of 18 million barrels of oil equivalent .

It’s interesting to see what kind of precautions they take for this off shore drilling after the wake of the gulf oil spill, or if they do make any modifications to safety protocol. Do you think the Gulf Oil Spill has really changed anything?

Notes -
The Bacchus field is operated by Apache with 70%, partnered by Shell UK with 20% and Endeavour Energy with 10% equity.

The UK oil and gas industry supports around 350,000 jobs directly and indirectly and attracts about £12 billion in annual expenditure a year.

Today we had a really exciting launch at Hohm today revealing a new site design and the ability to compare your home to 60 million others across the country.

Simply by entering an address, you’ll get a personalized page that’s filled with information on that home. This page includes the Hohm Score for that home, an estimate of how much that home could be saving annually on energy, a comparison chart that shows how this home’s energy use measures up to other homes in the area, and an energy-cost breakdown for the home. Want to see how your home compares to other homes? You can either use our drop down comparison tool that lets you compare to other homes in your zip, state, and nationally, or you can enter in another address to see how your home compares to that home. Want to see how much you could be saving every year on energy? We’ve got that for you as well.

You can fine-tune the accuracy of your Hohm Score and your personalized savings recommendations by creating a free Hohm account and entering some basic information about your home such as the type of appliances and systems you have. You can also update your home facts and enter your actual energy usage from your utility bills. This personal information will not be shared publicly unless you optionally and explicitly choose to do so.

We’ve also launched a widget that you can embed into your blog or share with other to check their Hohm score on your own site.

<div>

<iframe src=”www.microsoft-hohm.com/Widget.aspx” width=”300″ height=”250″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

</div>

You have to do nothing special for IE6. Our code above can determine whether the request is coming from ie6 and if so auto redirect to www.microsoft-hohm.com/StaticWidget.aspx.

Be aware that your customers on IE6 will see a static widget page.

Note: if you don’t want the dynamic behavior they can always use www.microsoft-hohm.com/StaticWidget.aspx.

If you have any other questions et me know – Elliott

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The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine posted articles on how Boulder, CO, a relatively progressive environmental city, is trying to stop their citizens from being armchair activists.

“Since 2006, Boulder has subsidized about 750 home energy audits. Even after the subsidy, the audits cost each homeowner up to $200, so only the most committed signed up. Still, follow-up surveys found half didn’t implement even the simplest recommendations, despite incentives such as discounts on energy-efficient bulbs and rebates for attic insulation.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Now taxpayers have supported a bill pushing a new program dubbed “Two Techs In A Truck” to literally go door to door, caulking windows, replacing light bulbs, and even installing low flow showerheads.

Which approach is better in reaching for energy efficiency – traditional tactics / door-to-door ‘do it for them’ or energy innovation? Top thinkers in this space, such as Thomas Friedman and Bill Gates are definitely pushing for innovation. “Why we need innovation, not just insulation” (Bill Gates) and “I’ve long believed there are two basic strategies for dealing with climate change — the “Earth Day” strategy and the “Earth Race” strategy… I leave here feeling more strongly than ever that America needs to focus on its own Earth Race strategy instead. Let me explain.” (Tom Friedman) Innovative thought needs to be applied to help Boulder hit their goals and help set a standard for other cities around the nation.

Personally I believe the real question is more about providing a platform for communities to decide what makes them motivate one another to take progressive action in saving energy. Transparency is the missing piece of the Boulder story. If used cleanly and simply, transparency and its simple psychology enable communities to hold each other accountable, and provide for some great motivation. While over-used by politicians these days, the word transparency has been parallel with the growth of the social computing revolution, and I’m sure will be synonymous with the smart grid.

Imagine walking down the street and knowing exactly how much energy each home or business is consuming? Or knowing that your home is consuming 3X as much as your neighbor (and that your neighbor knows you know). Could pulling back the curtain on this information enable communities to collaborate in new ways, support one another, and provide help when others are stumbling?

Google even announced that only a few thousand users after their big announcement with Google Powermeter. With the announcement of view energy consumption by zip code today by Microsoft Hohm could Microsoft be outwitting Google in the green race?

Scoring:
Give yourself 1 point for each of the following where you can agree with the statement made.

1. You use cloth wipes instead of toilet paper and dream of getting a composting toilet

2. You line dry your clothes even though you own a brand new dryer

3. When your family visits your house they claim that you can hang meat in there it’s so cold

4. You spend your free time fantasizing about getting solar panels

5. You’d rather live in a small cabin off the grid with no plumbing than in a mega-mansion on the beach

6. You know all about raising chickens even if you’ve never even seen a live one

7. You have a huge stash of gardening porn that you hide from your significant other

8. You think that sweating over a hot canner for hours on end is super fun!

9. You follow everyone around the house, turning off lights

10. Greenpa’s suggestions sound totally reasonable

If your total is:

0 – 3:  What are you doing reading this post? You better start from the beginning.
4 – 6:  Not a bad start. Review the Low Impact Week suggestions to increase your score.
7 – 8:  You are a nut job in training!
9 – 10:  Congratulations! You are a hard-core environmentalist!

We’ve all heard about the Cash for Clunkers campaign that took the auto industry by storm but have you heard about the Cash for Caulkers program? This new campaign announced by the White House yesterday proposes to reimburse homeowners for energy efficient appliances and insulation, part of a broader plan to stimulate the economy.

The details of the plan haven’t been released yet as the administration is still working with Congress to develop the legislation, although leaked details include rebates up to $12,000 for homeowners. So what does this all mean? More green jobs? A more energy efficient America? Hopefully all of the above, but the main driver behind this program is to persuade consumers to spend money in a way that benefits the environment as well as the economy.

We’ll keep our ear to the ground to give you updates on any developments with this proposal. In the meantime, make sure your Hohm profile is complete and find out what improvements you can make to conserve energy in your home and be ready to take advantage of the rebates as soon as they’re available. 

Check the video below to see one man’s opinion – it might bring a smile to your face.

Well let’s take a look at the Prius. Prius owners and many throughout the green industry have praised Toyota’s efforts to make drivers more effective in their driving habits. This want and need for real-time data has trickled down into the housing market where homeowners want to have the same real-time interaction with their homes as they would with a Prius. This is a very important goal and will be coming in the future. J .ust look at the data feeds that we’ve set up with Seattle City Lights and some of the other energy providers with Microsoft Hohm. However are we jumping ahead of ourselves, are we looking for instant gratification rather than addressing the real issues?

So here is where the question lies. Even through the Prius effect makes the driver very effective, is the car itself as efficient as it could be? Are homeowners wanting real-time monitoring for instant gratification rather than taking the time and money to make their home as efficient as possible? A person can be effective as much as they want, but if they’re not efficient, it becomes a self-defeating process. For example if I have a house that isn’t insulated, has poor windows and doors, and I haven’t changed the lights out to more efficient lights, no matter how effective I am, my home will not be running at optimal levels. Environmental education should address the need for the balance of efficiency and effectiveness. Alone, neither one is a silver bullet,: however if homeowners, car manufactures, agriculture and much more could find this balance within their ecosystem, we could see massive changes in how we consume energy.

So take another look at Microsoft hohm and ask the question: Is my house as efficient as it can be? So when the time comes where the Prius effect enters your home, you’ve already made sure that your efforts to be effective is not being held back by your home;s efficiency.

City Light was one of four launch partners when Microsoft Hohm debuted in Beta version in June and is the first utility to announce its customers can connect with a convenient, automatic data feed. Hohm users who do not have a data feed can enter their energy use information manually.

Nadia and I continued with our show to make the annoucement, give us some feedback on how we can improve the show.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Ydtf9hqKs&hl=en&fs=1&]