The Blockchain Tackles Climate Change
What happens when two high paid execs in the energy industry feel driven to do something about climate change? They start and run a new company that enables energy customers to choose which renewable electricity plants they want their money to go to. And they build the next generation blockchain to do it!
Richard Lohwasser and Kyung-Hun Ha were both highly paid executives at large energy utility companies in Germany, enjoying the good life after their 9–5 jobs but very discouraged at what they saw within the industry. Believing that mage corps would never solve the burgeoning problem of climate change with a true commitment to renewable energy, they formed a startup, Liteon.io to help accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.
In much of Europe and parts of the U.S., energy companies earn “green energy certificates” as they generate renewable energy. In typical conglomerate corporation fashion, these companies soon figured out that they could sell those green certificates to other non-renewable energy companies for a tidy profit. Rather than buying the “clean energy” the companies merely bought the certificates and touted their sale of green energy, when, in fact, they were anything but “green”.
Lohwasser and Ha saw German utility companies buying certificates from Scandinavia where 80% of the energy produced is renewable. This process, called “green-washing” is widespread and does nothing to help alleviate the effects of dirty power on climate change as it is cheaper for some companies to buy the certificates than to switch to renewables themselves. There is no incentive for building renewable power plants and transitioning to a low-carbon company and society.
“That was the big motivation to found Lition,” Lohwasser said. “To make sure that it’s not the big fat oligarch company that gets the money and fools the customer, but the power plant that makes sure our children have greener futures.”
Lition Energy took to the Ethereum blockchain, doing what the blockchain does best — cutting out the middleman. Using the P2P marketplace, customers are directly connected to the green energy utility of their choice. They may not receive their power from that company, but Lition Energy’s marketplace ensures that when consumers pay for electricity, their money ends up in the hands of the renewable power plants they choose.
Without the middlemen, customers pay less and renewable energy plants receive more. The average Lition Energy marketplace customer pays 20% less for their energy while the renewable plants receive 30% more.
An even bigger problem that could be solved with Liteon Energy’s blockchain protocol is the power grid itself. Most grids have been set up for centralized power plants. But many wind farms and solar energy plants are smaller and more localized. They can produce far more power than the grid may need at a given time, and that power must be shut off to avoid destabilizing he power grid. With blockchain technology, connected appliances and devices could be told when to turn on, turn off, store energy or generate energy, making the entire much more efficient and alleviating over and under supply.
Lition has partnered with SAP to create their own blockchain, which they feel will enable blockchain based applications to step out of their current niche into commercial mainstream deployment.
Some of the features of this new system include “erasable” private data chains.Private data can be stored in private sidechains where it can be kept as long as you want, safely and securely, but erased when storage is no longer needed.
Lition also sees uses for their new public/private blockchain application for other industries such digital media. Copyright protection and compensation for original media creators has become a growing problem in today’s online world. Many users subscribe to the idea that if it’s on the net, it’s free. Others would like to pay the original creator, but have no idea how to find them to do so. Cross border transactions can be particularly difficult to complete. Using Lition’s blockchain technology,
“the original creator’s details, specific info on content, sources, age restriction, etc. can be displayed in a private sidechain, along with data such as buyers’ bank data to compensate the originator directly via the blockchain.”
Other industry sectors targeted by Liteon include healthcare record keeping, warehousing and logistics, the pharmaceutical industry, the travel industry and more. By using blockchain technology to eliminate inefficiencies and middlemen, Liteon is changing the traditional world of commerce and industry into one where individuals will have choices that truly benefit their lives, (and wallets) rather than the murky corporate bargains forced upon them in the past. Liteon.io is helping individual energy users combat climate change, and bringing the blockchain to traditional commercial enterprises in a way that will help companies, consumers and the world move towards a better future.
Check out the Lition website or download the white paper to find out more about this innovative company and what they have planned for the future.
Originally published in Steemit by Kay LeClerc (mobymom)
