Onward! Sustainable Energy: Part 2
Our Pale Blue Dot
Read Part 1: Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Let’s look forward a few years and imagine the possibilities in sustainability and clean energy. In just a few years, many more American families can live in an 100% sustainable way without making economic sacrifices. Here are three things we are working towards to make that a reality:
- More affordable personal electric vehicles.
- Higher efficiency and cheaper solar energy.
- Energy storage for the home competitive to grid prices.
Tesla, one of the most innovative companies in the world today, has stated their goal of starting deliveries of a $35,000—$40,000 car with a range of 200 miles by 2017. (Disclosure: GSV owns shares of Tesla)
Let’s start with the $40,000 sticker price. With a tax credit of $7,500 and taking gas savings into account, the true cost of ownership of a Tesla is actually less than $20,000.
Using the true cost of ownership calculator provided on Tesla’s website, I assume miles driven per year of 15,000, the average price of premium gasoline of $4.50 per gallon, the average gas sedan fuel economy of 25 mpg and the price of electricity at $0.11 per kWH. With these assumptions, a driver stands to save $180 per month or $2,160 per year — or $12,960 over a 6-year period — which I assume is the period to fully pay down the car while clearly the life of the car is longer than 6 years.
With all the factors accounted for, the true cost of ownership of a $40,000 sticker-price Tesla is actually $19,540. Would you buy a $19,540 Tesla with its quiet, smooth driving, 200-mile range, and no need to ever stop at the pump again?
Now with Tesla open sourcing all of their patents, we will likely see other fully electric vehicles at a true cost of ownership that a median income family in the U.S. can digest.
Solexel, a solar photovoltaic maker based in Silicon Valley just hit a NREL-certified 21.2% cell efficiency, which is a world record for thin-film crystalline silicon cells (NREL is the National Renewable Energy Lab). (Disclosure: GSV owns shares of Solexel)
I’m excited about the significant progress of solar energy and while there is already a meaningful amount of solar installed in homes, the next generation of solar panels will be at over 20% compared to the existing installations at mid-teen efficiency levels.
Solar financing from SolarCity and others continues to play a significant role and a variety of companies have proven the model which allows homeowners to pay little to nothing up front to get a solar system for their houses.
Lightsail, a startup based in Berkeley, is working on energy storage that is competitive with fossil fuels.
The company uses a next-generation air compression system that targets 90% thermal efficiency. If their technology works as outlined, it would have a levelized cost of energy that is lower than traditional fuel. Solving the energy storage problem is critical to addressing the intermittence of solar and other renewable energy.
These companies are just a sample set of potential breakthrough players that we will see in this decade.
Levelized Cost of Energy
(Cents / kWh)
With high efficiency solar energy systems charging energy storage systems in homes and the ability to drive affordable and awesome Tesla and other electric vehicles, many American families could live 100% sustainable day to day lives. While this is still a far cry from getting the entire country to 100%, my point is to demonstrate that a median income American family can choose to be 100% sustainable without economic sacrifices.
Why is creating a sustainable world so fundamental to humanity?
We are living in a climate bubble and we cannot have business as usual as Secretary Hank Paulson articulated in his New York Times op-ed this week.
Also, we should be reminded that we live on a small pale blue dot that make up an infinitesimally small part of the known universe. This is the only planet we’ve ever called home and without serious efforts in technology innovation and economic innovation to arrest climate change, we are destroying our own home and our future. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Like one of my heroes Neil deGrasse Tyson said, the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you choose to believe it or not.
As President Kennedy set a bold goal for the nation in his 1962 speech at Rice University, today, we have a daring goal in front of us:
Building an 100% sustainable world through technological and business model innovation.
But why, some say, a 100% sustainable world? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 45 years ago, plant our flag on the Moon? Why does Stanford play Cal?
We choose to build a 100% sustainable world, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win!
Want to chat more about building a 100% sustainable world? Find me on Twitter @li_x_jiang.
