Ramez Naam_E21: Our Exponential Future [12/21/2020]
Ramez Naam, Angel, CleanEnergy Advocate, and Author based in Seattle [12/21/2020]
https://anchor.fm/posi2ive/episodes/Ramez-Naam_E21-Our-Exponential-Future-12212020-eom6b6/a-a49uada
Note: References with links are listed at the end of the show notes.
INTRO:
1:00 Shares his background as an early employee at Microsoft in the 90’s, along with shared patents with Bill Gates. Got into Climate Change for personal reasons, and looks at innovation as a great solution to innovate our way out of the problems. Tells us about his books in CleanEnergy and BioTech (both Non-Fiction and Fiction: See links below).
4:00 Highlights technology as a way to positively impact billions of people. And talks about the influence his early days at Microsoft opened his mind to this type of thinking.
SECTION1: Exponential Technologies
4:30 We break out into Singularity University’s discussion surrounding Exponential Tech — compounding price performance. He compares Moore’s Law to bandwidth, memory, and storage. Extends Wright’s Law as a special case, and looks at it under the lens of CleanEnergy.
6:00 Talks about Santa Fe Institute’s study of Wright’s Law applied to various technologies. Talks about solar power doubling of solar power deployed, is associated with a 30% decrease in constant dollars. The summary, as you scale the industry, the efficiency and price all improve.
8:00 Discusses modular technological learning, to make new components smaller, faster, and cheaper with less cost and less resource use. We talk about Clayton Christiansen and his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, and how it may relate to Wright’s Law. Discusses the advancement of photography as a prime example of Wright’s Law in action.
Host’s note: Prior to his recent passing, I once attended a conference where Mr. Christiansenwas the start guest — circa 2009. I approached him at the end of his talk, and asked “how would you disrupt the oil industry?”. His immediate answer, was to start by build wind farms in Mongolia.
12:00 Talks about the watt output per dollar at $100 in the 1970’s, and today it’s less than $1.
SECTION2: Three Drivers of CleanEnergy
13:00 Talks about the long held expectation that CleanEnergy was the more expensive option, but now we’re seeing this paradigm shift. Also points to simplicity of the consumer, in caring about why we choose one versus the other. Projects that EVs will be cheaper than conventional cars in 2–3 years.
15:00 Raam is excited about companies in electric mobility, networks, data, ai in CleanEnergy space. We also briefly go over Perovskite solar cells and the possible superiority of this new technology. We break out into materials science, and why Perovskite may be superior.
17:30 We talk about the tradeoffs of Lithium Ion duration storage. Decoupling the power-output from duration is a problem. Talks about dozens of companies researching alternatives; Raam is an investor in a few. He also mentions ESS, who he’s an investor in — an iron & salt flow battery, without toxic materials.
22:00 Decentralization of power, with decoupling and microgrids discussed.
SECTION3: ClimateTech + VC
25:00 Talk about the Renewable Portfolio Standards, and how some surprising states (out of 23 states) have the standards: Oklahoma, Iowa, and Texas. The cost competitive aspect may drive the federal government to adopt similar standards.
27:00 Ramaz sees orchestration as a very important area of investment, with the mass scale adoption of EV, smart homes, and renewable energy. Sees ClimateTech as a huge opportunity space for software — given zero marginal costs. Also sees a need for industrial processes, hardtech, and vital needs of VCs to participate.
29:00 We talk about non-grant opportunies, and how Angel rounds / PreSeed rounds are starting to appear surrounding ClimateTech — gives example of 3rd Derivative, with a Venture Parnter example “Cohort 417” with C02 concentration in air.
32:00 Discusses his excitement for the space, and the few deals he plans to do in ClimateTech per year.
SOURCES:
-Ramez Naam [Website]: https://rameznaam.com/
-Ramez Naam [Twitter]: https://twitter.com/ramez
-Ramez’ Syndicate: https://angel.co/ramez-1/syndicate
- The Infinite Resource [Ramez’ 2013 book]: https://smile.amazon.com/Infinite-Resource-Power-Finite-Planet/dp/161168255X
-Ramez Naam — Investing in the Energy Transition [ SingularityU ExFin South Africa Summit]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl0VtxAbt40
-Singularity University: https://su.org/
-Wright’s Law Study [Santa Fe Institute]: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/test-and-measurement/wrights-law-edges-out-moores-law-in-predicting-technology-development
-Moore’s Law vs. Wright’s Law: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2013/03/25/moores-law-vs-wrights-law/?sh=2c495ec677d2
-The Innovator’s Dilemma [Clayton Christiansen’s Book]: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244
-History of Photography [Britannica]: https://www.britannica.com/technology/photography
-Perovskite Solar Cells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell
-Life Cycle of Perovskite: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/31/eabb0055
-Flow Batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_batter
-ESS startup [flow batteries]: https://essinc.com/
-Battery Cell Types: https://www.epectec.com/batteries/cell-comparison.html
-Third Derivative [Venture Partners]: https://third-derivative.org/portfolio/
-The State of ClimateTech in 2020 [PWC]: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/sustainability/assets/pwc-the-state-of-climate-tech-2020.pdf
-Energy Environment Nexus: https://www.nae.edu/7554/TheEnergy-EnvironmentNexus
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Song Credit: The Croft — By Joakim Karud
[ No Copyright on Music and Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 ]
