Lots of people seem to think that if we just pass the right laws and regulations we can solve the climate change problem. If we're willing to give up our 21st century lifestyle, and all the conveniences that go with that, maybe so.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to do that. If you think very long about it, you probably don't want to either.
We do need to solve the problem of greenhouse gases, but if laws and regulations won't do it, what will?
As I have said before, the answer is what you might call "The Shark Tank Solution", named after the very popular TV show. The good news is, lots of very smart people are investing huge amounts of time and money to create the new technology we'll need. In my last post I profiled several such companies that are backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund created by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and a number of other highly successful technology entrepreneurs.
This week I'd like to profile three more companies in the Breakthrough portfolio. Each is pursuing a very different strategy.
It would be wonderful if there were some type of "magic bullet" solution to the problem of burning fossil fuels. A potential one of these solutions is being developed by Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the first company profiled in this post.
Nuclear energy can be generated in one of two ways. The traditional approach is called fission, where atoms are split apart to release energy. The nuclear power plant operated by your local utility, as well as hydrogen bombs, both operate based upon fissive splitting of atoms. Some people think we should have lots more fission-based nuclear power plants because they do produce lots of clean energy. They do produce lots of clean energy. The only problem is that fission-based nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive build, they generate lots of extremely hard to handle nuclear waste, and the waste can occasionally be used to build nuclear bombs. Other than that, splitting atoms is a great solution!
Alternatively, physicists tell us huge amounts of energy could be generated by a fusion reaction. All we have to do is look at our own Sun as Exhibit A for nuclear fusion. Instead of splitting atoms apart, in a fusion reactor atoms are fused together, resulting in a potentially huge release of energy. Scientists use a device called a tokamak, a donut-shaped container that has a vacuum, hot plasma, and a giant magnet. Tokamaks were first created by the Russians in the 1940's and 1950's.
The idea is to get the magnet in the tokamak to cause atoms in the hot plasma to fuse together. It takes a lot of energy to operate today's tokamaks. Right now, it still takes more energy to set up the reaction than is yielded by the reaction, making fusion impractical.
To get the tokamak to generate more energy than it uses, many researchers are looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of the magnets. Several years ago, researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Lab at Florida State University in Tallahassee made a magnet more effective by using what's called rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO).
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is trying to improve upon the REBCO technology to create a tokamak that generates more energy than it uses. If it succeeds, the heart of the typical electric generation plant could change from a boiler to a tokamak. In theory, a fusion power system could generate huge amounts of energy at low cost without either nuclear waste, greenhouse gas emissions, or the risk of terrorists stealing material to create a nuclear weapon.
Commonwealth Fusion's quest for economic fusion power may be in vain, and fusion energy may remain elusive for many years, yet there's an immediate need to generate more clean energy. At present, the best ways to generate clean, renewable energy are solar, wind, and hydropower. There's a fourth way that doesn't get very much attention, unless you happen to live in a place such as Iceland. That fourth way is geothermal energy.
At the moment the US has about 3.7 gigawatts of geothermal energy, representing about 0.4% of total usage in the country. Experts say that the US has the potential to increase geothermal up to about 10%, and there's lots of potential for geothermal energy in other parts of the world. While that won't solve all of our clean energy problems, it could be an important component in a clean energy portfolio, both in the US and in foreign countries.
One company that wants to create the necessary technology to grow geothermal is called Fervo Energy, another company in the Breakthrough Energy Ventures portfolio.
So just what do you need to do to make geothermal a more attractive alternative? Fervo's team believes there should be a two part strategy. The first part is to expand production at existing geothermal sites in the US, then implement technology for new sites that presently aren't economic. The new technology Fervo is betting on is called mixed mechanism stimulation (MMS).
Fervo is led by Tim Latimer, an oil and gas drilling engineer from Texas, and Jack Norbeck, a PhD in geothermal engineering from Stanford. They're using a tried and true innovation strategy: bring ideas from another field and adapt them to a problem. In this case, Latimer and Norbeck believe they can take technology created for oil and gas fracking and apply it to geothermal. At first glance, that makes lots of sense. After all, the idea that powered oil and gas fracking was to go back and employ new drilling techniques to increase the yield from existing oil and gas reservoirs. The fracking strategy has utterly transformed the oil and gas business. Oil and gas fields long ago abandoned have been made economic again based upon the adoption of fracking technology.
Why not apply fracking techniques to increase geothermal yields, thus making uneconomic fields economic? Latimer and Norbeck are betting that mixed mechanism stimulation will do just that. The dream is to utilize mixed mechanism stimulation to make existing geothermal sites more valuable, as well as make previously uneconomic site worth utilizing.
Fusion power may still remain a dream, but clean renewable power from solar, wind, hydro and geothermal continue to grow. The dream, of course, is to eliminate all fossil fuel vehicles and electric power generation. Technology is now being developed to accomplish that, but there remains an important problem: how do you "load level" all this renewable power? After all, solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal all depend upon Nature. Unfortunately, sometimes the sun doesn't shine, the wind doesn't blow, the river dries up, and the geothermal is inconsistent.
The solution is some form of battery storage. Unfortunately, despite lots of new technology from companies such as Tesla, existing battery storage technology probably won't be adequate to meet future needs. Enter Form Energy, another company in Breakthrough Energy's portfolio.
Form Energy seeks nothing less than to reinvent battery storage. The company wants to create what's called a bi-directional power plant. Such a plant could store energy for fairly long periods of time, then distribute that power when needed. Such bi-directional plants would replace the power plants utilities presently have to handle peak load power requirements.
Form Energy is another example of a company taking technology developed at a university research lab and attempting to commercialize it. In this case, it's technology originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Professor Yet-Ming Chiang. Also on Form's team are Mateo Jaramillo, a key player in helping Tesla develop its battery storage technology, as well as Ted Wiley, Marco Ferrara, and Billy Woodford.
Form Energy's technology is interesting, but there's something else notable about the company. Usually when angel investors and venture capitalists put money in a development stage company such as Form, the company is relatively close to commercializing a technology. That isn't the case with Form. In fact, the company may not have a practical technology ready to deploy for at least a decade. Can you imagine Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank saying that he'll invest money in a company, but not expect to get a possible payout for more than a decade? No way! That kind of timetable normally gets venture investors headed for the exit, but not in the the case of Form Energy. Investors in the company are definitely playing a long game. The moniker "patient capital" is truly well deserved here. Of course, the company in fact may never succeed in developing its bi-directional power plant.
One other very interesting thing about Form Energy is one of its "patient capital investors": Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company. Many will wonder, why is a company that is entirely built upon oil and gas interested in a technology that could replace fossil fuels?
In the long run, this is what's called a cannibalization strategy. In the short run, it doesn't seem to make sense, but in the long run it does. After all, Saudi Aramco drives the economy of Saudi Arabia. If today's worldwide oil and gas economy is replaced by renewables, the country will start to look the way it did 100 years ago at the time of T.E. Lawrence. Given the possibility of such an unappealing future, it actually makes lots of sense for big oil and gas companies to invest in technologies that could replace their current business. In fact, lots of companies like Saudi Aramco are making such investments.
Like many start up companies, Commonwealth Fusion, Fervo, and Form may all fail, ending up as mere footnotes in business history. However, other companies, and possibly other technologies, will be successful. They'll create the technologies that will make it ever more valuable to generate and store clean electric power. As I've said many times before, laws and regulations won't solve the greenhouse gas problem. New technology, properly deployed, will. We definitely need a Shark Tank style solution.
