Large Scale Systems Needed
Posted on | April 9, 2011 | No Comments
Global Energy Transformation will require large scale systems that make it easy for the customer to adopt electric vehicles or biofuel cars, and that make it possible for transportation companies to travel across continents without problems.
The development of these large scale systems will demand large investments, and the participation from companies that we don’t primarily see as companies that are active in transportation, vehicles, fuels or other sectors directly connected to energy transformation.
For example, when we develop and implement renewable fuels systems on a large scale, there will be a need for advanced ICT technology, and companies like Ericsson and IBM will be the providers of these intelligent traffic systems and solutions. This is especially true for the large scale implementation of electric vehicles. Consider a situation where 100 000 people own an electric car and they all plug it in to be charged when they come home from work. If all the cars start to charge their batteries at this point there will be an overload on the grids. If there is an intelligent interface between the grid and the electric car system, on the other hand, that phases the charging of different vehicles during the night so that all vehicles can be used for short trips in the evening, but the bulk of charging is done in the middle of the night when the pressure on the grid is low, we will be able to use power that are currently lost. This is only one example of an intelligent application that will become needed as we implement electric car systems on a large scale.
In the future, as more wind power is added to the mix of technologies, there will be excess power as the wind blows during the night, which needs to be stored for use at daytime. A large fleet of electric vehicles will represent a storage resource for this excess power, but intelligent systems will become necessary in order to manage the systems and get optimal efficiency out of them.
This is only one example of a type of business and systems development that will become necessary as we implement renewable fuels systems on a large scale.
We not only need experts who develop electric vehicles and wind power. We need competence and resources in other systems areas as well, such as smart grids, vehicle monitoring, battery charging, development of business models and company structures in these new areas, sales, services etc etc etc.
Tags: business models > electric vehicles > Ericsson > IBM > Mats R Larsson > smart grids
Low probablity
Posted on | April 3, 2011 | No Comments
It is about as probable that a UFO will land on the White House lawn and give us a blue-print of the energy systems of the future, as it is that the market will be able to drive large scale energy transformation with speed and precision.
Planned and managed transformation programs will become necessary in order to run Global Energy Transformation.
Tags: Better place > Global Energy Transformation > organizational learning > President Obama
Path Dependence
Posted on | March 16, 2011 | No Comments
The QWERTY keyboard was originally designed to slow typing down so that the keys on typewriters would not constantly jam. With computers we no longer have that problem, but we keep the same keyboard. Economists call this phenomenon “path dependence.” The term is used when past investments, such as training of a lot of people, a large installed base of machines, etc make us use inefficient solutions instead of developing new ones.
In energy transformation we need to look to new approaches that can speed the transformation to renewable fuels up. We need to drive organized and systematic transformation programs, and we cannot rely on the market forces to initiate and coordinate transformation activities towards ambitious goals. The market works well when incremental and relatively slow change is expected.
The thinking that the market will drive energy systems change is an example of path dependence. Many people have learned that this will be possible and this is how it will be done. Few people realize that we need a new and more effective approach. We have built up organizations and the political debate around market based arguments. Most politicians believe that markets will do the job. Now we need to change this thinking, but there is tremendous inertia in the large systems of market based thinking that we have built.
Tags: Global Energy Transformation > managed transformation programs > market driven change > Mats R Larsson > path dependence
Global Energy Denial
Posted on | March 4, 2011 | No Comments
In the past few years the insight has arisen among an increasing number of energy experts that we are facing a problem with energy supply that had not previously been anticipated. This regards the issue of Peak Oil and the fact that we are not going to easily and inexpensively have access to large volumes of oil in the future. Instead, supply volumes will decline, and we will need to save energy in a structured manner.
Still, for various reasons, the world is in denial about this. Sustainability experts have for many years argued that we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels and the global community via the UN, EU, and other organizations have embarked on projects to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20% by 2020. With Peak Oil this rate of reduction will be inadequate, and the threats that Peak Oil poses are entirely different from those posed by climate change.
This is difficult to accept for most of us and we need to think deep and hard to come up with the solutions for the pressing needs posed by Peak Oil.
Tags: Global Energy Denial > Global Energy Transformation > Mats R Larsson > Peak Oil
Network of Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles Cannot Serve All
Posted on | February 19, 2011 | No Comments
By the end of 2011 the Chicago area will have 73 charging stations of electric vehicles, more than any other region in the world. Sadly these are built to serve mainly Japanese vehicles and many other makes cannot be charged using this rapid-charging technology.
There is a need for standardization of some interface technologies, so that all batteries can be charged using the growing number of charging stations that are available.
Standardization will not hamper development. It is not the technologies that need to be standardized, but the interfaces for charging etc.
PC technologies have adhered to common standards making it possible for users to rely on the fact that computers and programs are compatible with each other over time. This speeds up development, because customers can rely on their pcs being usable for a number of years into the future, and compatible with other pcs and ancillary equipment almost regardless of age.
In the mobile phone industry cell phone companies use different standards for charging equipment. This is not a big problem, since users get new chargers with every new phone and chargers do not have to be compatible across makes or over time.
In order to electric vehicles to grow there are a number of needs that need to be decided upon:
- Standards for interface technologies and probably some other key network technologies, like fleet control systems etc.
- Smart fleet control technologies, and smart grid technologies that make it possible for electric vehicle owners to plug their vehicles into the grid when they arrive home, allowing the fleet management system to time charging of vehicles so that the bulk of charging is done at night or when renewable energy sources produce at their peak.
The electric vehicle services company Better Place will launch national systems in Denmark and Israel in 2011. This company is developing an integrated system of technologies and services that will cater to the full range of customer needs now and into the future. www.betterplace.com
Tags: Better place > Energy Transformation > Global Energy Transformation > Jeff Immelt > Mats R Larsson > organizational learning
Exxon Struggles to Find New Oil
Posted on | February 16, 2011 | No Comments
Exxon says of 100 barrels of oil that it has pumped during the last decade it has replaced only 95. Also, as many of us know, the oil that is found now is more costly to produce than the oil that has been used up until now. Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal:
Tags: Energy Transformation > Global Energy Transformation > large scale technology development and implementation > Mats R Larsson
Saudi Oil Reserves Overstated
Posted on | February 10, 2011 | No Comments
Saudi Arabia, the country that produces some eight to nine per cent of global oil production with more than eight million barrels, and has been hoped to be able to increase production to off-set reductions in the production of other countries, has overstated its reserves.
http://www.newser.com/story/111638/peak-oil-looms-saudi-supply-overstated.html
This makes Global Energy Transformation an even more pressing need.
Only By Setting Ambitious Goals Can Great and Unexpected Things Be Achieved
Posted on | February 3, 2011 | No Comments
An article argues that Obama’s goal of 1 million plug-in electric cars and hybrids by 2015 is doomed, because car manufacturers are not prepared to commit to those numbers. This may be true based on the outlook from today’s horizon, but it is only by setting high-level “stretch-goals” that unexpected events may happen and rapid progress can be made. If global leaders never challenge industry managers by setting ambitious goals we will never know what might have been possible if we had challenged ourselves.
Wanted: Industrialists in Global Energy Transformation
Posted on | January 30, 2011 | No Comments
Over the past decades as sustainability experts have measured pollution, calculated emissions and driven the energy debate a large number of experts have gathered in fields related to sustainability. These experts have spent substantial amounts of time building knowledge about the problems that we are facing: Pollution, climate change, and, more recently, Peak Oil.
We now need to spend more time discussing the solution than the problem. The solution, however, does not lie in the realm of sustainability or pollution. The solution will be found in the systematic and large scale development and implementation of new clean technologies and renewable fuels. It is unlikely that the people who have become experts in areas related to sustainability, and who are now dominating this field, will be able to make the right decisions, or manage and finance the large scale energy systems transformation projects of the near future. From now on we need strong voices, rooted in the principles of business and management of technology at various levels that analyze, forge, and debate the principles that will guide Global Energy Transformation.
The energy transformation challenge is the biggest challenge that mankind is facing right now. We need increasing volumes of energy in order to fuel the global economy and facilitate economic growth and continued affluence on this planet. This issue has emerged over the past few years and it is clearly more pressing than the need to reduce pollution. This is because we will hardly be able to master the huge investments in the development and implementation of clean energy technologies without economic growth and an overall positive trend in the global marketplace.
Despite this extreme challenge we find that business development and technology management related to the energy transformation are given a back-ground position when the future of business and of our economy is discussed in the media. As an example the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer in issue no. four of 2011 has identified 101 young “super talents” in Swedish business. None of them apply their talents in the areas of energy technology management or in energy business. As number five on the list there is a young professor from the Royal Technical University (KTH) in Stockholm. She is portrayed with the quote “The dream is a home robot.” Number 20 produces women’s fashion the style of the classic Swedish “lovikavante,” a glove that has never been out of fashion, but never very fashionable either, and number 28 has started a company selling wigs. Number ten is Lena Bertling a professor at Chalmers Technical University, who is studying sustainable power systems. She is the only person profiled with a link to energy technology. Again, there are no super talents that are working with the immensely important management issues of transforming global energy systems on a large scale!
Starting in the next few years we will experience an annual decline in the oil supply of between one and three million barrels of oil per day, every year. We use, on a global scale, 86 million barrels of oil every day, and by 2015 it is possible that the volumes supplied have decreased to well below 80 barrels per day. A sustained small annual decline in the area of one per cent, representing close to one million barrels per day every year would be a rather pleasant surprise for the people who have studied Peak Oil. More likely we will need to increase production volumes of renewable fuels and reduce our dependence on energy by substantially more than one million barrels per day only to maintain our global economic activity at the present level. It is not that we need to abandon all hope of a good life in the future with household robots, wigs, breast implants, and silly reality shows. It is only that we need to understand that in order to maintain all these hopes and dreams we need to develop and implement huge volumes of renewable fuel technologies, and renewable fuels, in the near future. This, again, will be the big challenge for our business and technology management super talents in the years to come.
We need not only our young business talents, but business talents of all ages, to turn their attention to energy related issues. A positive signal, showing more insight into the developments on the global business scene than the article in Veckans Affärer, comes from President Obama. Last week he appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, to become his chief economic adviser after Paul Volcker. Mr. Immelt has been a strong advocate of the development of clean technology. During his time as CEO of GE he has started the project Ecomagination, which started by investing 400 million dollars annually in the development of green technologies, and accelerated this to an annual investment of 1 billion dollars. He has also, together with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, venture capitalist John Doerr, and a number of other high level managers of large US companies, started the organization American Energy Innovation Council (www.americanenergyinnovation.org). The appointment of Jeffrey Immelt indicates that energy transformation and green technology are high on the political agenda in the United States.
The list of super talents in Veckans Affärer indicates that someone, and probably a lot of people on the eastern shore of the Atlantic Ocean, have got their priorities badly wrong. Most worrying may not be the list itself, but rather the lack of reaction among the readers of Veckans Affärer, and among journalists and people who debate energy and sustainability issues that there is something deeply flawed in the way that the energy transformation is handled in our society at this important point in time. We need to put every effort into energy transformation, and yet we laud the opportunities of household robots, wigs, and fashion based on the ancient patterns of “lovikagloves.” Most of all, we need business people and experts in disciplines related to the management of technology to turn their attention to the management issues related to Global Energy Transformation.
Tags: Better place > Bill Gates > energy business > Global Energy Transformation > Jeffrey Immelt > Management of Technology > President Obama > supertalents
President Obama Sends Pro-GET Signal
Posted on | January 23, 2011 | No Comments
The recent appointment of the GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt has been interpreted as a general pro-business signal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/business/economy/22obama.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Jeff%20Immelt&st=cse
The appointment can also be interpreted as a preparation for large scale energy systems transformation. Mr. Immelt has been one of the key individuals behind the organization American Energy Innovation Council (www.americanenergyinnovation.org) that in mid-2010 published a five point program for large scale transformation of the energy systems of the United States. The first point on the five-point list is the establishment of an independent national energy strategy board.
While Mr. Immelt has been an advocate for the strengthening of American competitiveness, the large scale implementation of renewable energy systems and energy efficient technologies, and the development of a national strategy to achieve this, have been central themes in his communication.
Tags: GET > Global Energy Transformation > Jeffrey Immelt > Mats R Larsson > national strategies for energy transformation > President Obama
