Sun to Wheels
Enabling the EV Energy Storage Sharing Ecosystem
In Jeffrey Sachs’ foundational work, The Age of Sustainable Development, one can learn that “…on average, for every $1,000 of total production in the economy, the economy uses about 0.19 tons of oil-equivalent energy and for every ton of oil-equivalent energy 2.4 tons of CO2 is released.” In 2010, when the world economy was about $68 trillion, this was daunting. What it meant in 2014, when the world economy grew to $91 trillion, is nearly overwhelming. In doing the math, a shocking 31 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere in 2010 with as much as 46% of that CO2 not being captured by “natural sinks,” such as the oceans, land, and vegetation. It’s quite clear, the past 200 years of CO2 released into the atmosphere has broken free from the prior 800,000 years of Earth’s history. For humanity to continue ignoring the implications of using fossil fuels as the primary source of energy, especially as population soars, is without lack of concern for what is to come!
Thankfully there is hope and a growing awareness how to address these matters. As of September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were unanimous adopted by 193 of the United Nations Member States. The intention was to establish a guiding light for global and national forward development thinking policies to 2030. Inspired by this monumental effort and the work of the scientists, professors, and researchers at Columbia University and The Earth Institute promoting adherence to these SDGs, I’ve turned on my heals and made a personal commitment to try and find systemic ways to help decarbonize the energy system and reduce CO2 emissions.
As a serial entrepreneur coming from the high-tech software development and wireless telecommunications sectors I’ve put my attention and skills into finding like-minded and mission driven ecopreneurs that will work with me to create and deploy low CO2 emission energy solutions.
My drive stems from knowing that low-carbon energy production options exist but I’ve been confounded how to best deploy them at scale. Sure, renewable energy options exist, a growing consumer market seeks to positively change the climate, but how humanity can move at the pace needed to make change is where many efforts fall short and I hit a wall. While at UNLEASH 2017 I hope to break through these barriers and further develop a platform that I’ve been working on that will shift consumers and producers away from fossil fuel electricity generation into lower carbon pathways. Believing that “electrifying” the transportation systems and getting rid of the internal combustion engine helps but going to motors powered by batteries is not enough. To get to at scale impact we must find ways to procure electricity for these batteries from low-carbon sources such as solar and wind.
After now investing a couple years of research at Columbia University it’s clear to me, the “make, move, and sell” energy business model era is coming to a close. A great deal of excitement and motivation exists in the marketplace because rather disruptive forces are at play. Now that energy consumers are able to reverse market direction and become energy producers we are on the brink of a new breed, the energy prosumer.
Albeit, the electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) form of transportation is growing, it’s being done without sufficient policy and manufacturing coordination. A hidden and unsustainable problem within urban planning looms on the near horizon. For the most part the impact on energy demand from EVs and PEVs is an increase in “dirty” fossil fuel energy consumption; a demand that actually is increasing CO2 (a typical Tesla battery carries the amount of energy an average U.S. household consumes in a day). If, for instance, consumption and use of EVs and PEVs continues at current rates, U.S. electrical grid and transportation systems may not reach the required matching electrical distribution requirements and if they do assuredly they will fail to meet the sustainable emission goals set by many states seeking to reduce CO2.
To try and resolve this threat and appease the desires of “green consumers” a team of Columbia University students has joined forces with me to work on long-term sustainability, energy policy, and renewable technology solutions. Our goal is to try and use EVs and PEVs as part of a distributed renewable energy solution and after spending months “hacking” the U.S. energy system our team has found some ways to sit electric vehicles in strategic geographical markets so as to ensure access to “green energy” sources. Yes, a win-win-win scenario exists and we’ve know we can establish a platform that can account for the environment, the EV/PV/energy producers, and the EV/PEV consumers. Ensuring that in so doing we promote the SDGs is our next challenge. With a little luck (and a lot of hard work), at UNLEASH 2017 these efforts will be put to a global scale feasibility test.
