IBM Watson™ made its debut in February 2011 when the Deep Question & Answer software system defeated two previous reigning human champions – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a three-night special Jeopardy! showcase.

The event made for carnival headlines but most news reports failed to connect Watson’s performance with its intended application- to transform the nature of human productivity in an age of information-rich, context dependent and software-mediated work environments.

Watson is designed to augment (improve) our capacity to think through complex problems, ask the right questions,  judge possible solutions and make informed confident decisions based on real-world data that exists within our own memory banks and beyond.

Productivity and Life-long Learning via Personal Assistants
IBM Watson™ and Apple Siri™  are early signals of what might transform work and lifelong learning around software based personal assistants that push human beings to think more deeply and broadly about questions, answers and their personal confidence levels in making decisions.

IBM is leading the way in an emerging paradigm for software – based on improving human cognitive performance in an era of endless streams of data and changing contexts around the marketplace and collective industry knowledge base.

The next step for IBM’s Watson is to enter the workplace and help to transform the capacity of human work.  IBM’s public roadmap for Watson begins in three main industries: Healthcare, Finance and Customer Service.  But first, let’s explore why Watson matters….

Why Watson Matters…
Natural Language, Box in a Cloud, Focus on Answers & Honesty about Confidence Levels 

There are four things that matter with IBM Watson that are relevant to understanding the future of work and learning (machine and human):

1) Natural Language Matters
Watson is not alive.  It is not artificial intelligence.  But it can (better than any other system on Earth today) understand the nuanced elements of meaning created by natural language.

Forget about display screens, clicking with your mouse and typing on a keyboard.  Watson (and to a lesser degree – Siri) allow us  to engage us in conversation and overcome the ambiguity associated with human language.  Watson is an ideal ‘post screen’ interface that helps to lower the barrier to workplace applications where screens might not be conducive to workflow.

2) Knowledge in a Box Matters
The web revolutionized access to information, but has also led to a world with too much information — and at times –  too much inaccurate information.  The web is also limited in its capture of unstructured and private data.   So we can recognize a fundamental limitation to a purely ‘open’ web platform for advanced human augmentation systems. Knowledge requires filters for transparency, authentication and accountability.  There is benefit to controlling information in a silo that is constantly updated.

Watson is a self contained storage, retrieval, analysis systems.  Watson is a ‘box’ with a 15 trillion-byte memory capacity which allows IBM to be sure that the information output will be shaped by the input rather than extracting data from the open web.

The next step is putting the Box in the Cloud — and opening up a portal to non-supercomputing devices!!

3) Answers Matter
Today we search the web and receive a list of websites which we must read to find the answer.  Again, there are no filters to guide that process.  The website we choose was likely placed on the first page of a Google Search bar – or shared with us via social networks.

Watson does not give you a list of websites, it gives you the answer(s).

It might take years to change behavior– but in a not-so-distant future, our ‘search’ expectations are likely to shift to more answer oriented results.  Obviously there is tremendous potential for an upside and downside (e.g. narrow casting; critical thinking issues) to an answer engine web culture– but we can see other players such as Wolfram Alpha and Google validating the industry’s new direction towards ‘answers’ as the next step for search.

One wonders if Google and IBM become learning management systems in the end…

4) Confidence Matters
Watson knows that it is not perfect.  IBM recognizes that technology cannot deliver certainty on demand.

So Watson embraces uncertainty and is honest about its confidence level with each response.  For each question it receives, Watson assigns a ‘Confidence’ level (%) and chooses to respond – or not – based on the situation.

One can only dream of a world where humans approach real-world challenges filled with uncertainty – with answers that reflect our recognition that the answers – solutions – might not be perfectly clear.

Imagine a work environment where people are honest and transparent in their knowledge level – and confidence level to respond to a particular question!  Instead of giving answers to please our colleagues and customers we can envision a future world of work where uncertainty is dealt with using a range of possible answers given our best set of inputs.

….

Apple’s Siri is cute— but Watson is the real potential game-changer in these early days of software-mediated human performance!

Real World Applications for ‘Watson’-like Software Programs 

Healthcare Why healthcare?  It is impossible to know all new information in the world of life sciences.

IBM Watson – Commercial for Healthcare

IBM Watson – Future of Financial Services

IBM Watson – Call Centers 

Finance – Assist in providing humans with real-time market information.

Watson is not Alone

• Google is not shy about hiding its ‘real-time’ and ‘voice’ based interface innovations.  Google’s vision is to have the answer ‘as fast as you think’.
• Apple has recently launched Siri as a consumer grade personal assistant.
• Microsoft’s promotion of Bing is as a ‘decision engine’ – not a lowly search engine.
• Wolfram Alpha (and a number of other startups) are involved in this ‘answer engine’

Key Concepts:

• Natural Language Interface; Conversational Interface
• Analytics; Deep Analytics; Deep Question & Answer;
• Algorithms; Data;  Unstructured Data; Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (DIKW)
• Parallel Processing; Distributed Computing; Multi-core; Scaling; Power 7 Platform;
• Augmentation; Intelligence Augmentation;  information processing augmentation

People

• Algo Team
• David Ferrucci
• Anant Jhingran

Video Resources

IBM Watson: Overview (20 min)

IBM – The Next Grand Challenge: Natural Language

IBM Watson on Ambiguity 

Science Behind IBM Watson

Manoj Saxena IOD Keynote – Putting IBM Watson to work

IBM Watson – Future of Financial Services Work

IBM Watson – Future of Customer Service 

The Wall Street View
Last week, DuPont announced its acquisition of Denmark-based Danisco based on the ‘clear synergies with [its] Nutrition & Health and Applied BioSciences‘ business units.

DuPont’s $5.8 Billion strategic investment is based on two macro trends that will shape global markets over the next half century:

• increased global demand for food (both commodity ingredients and specialty ‘functional foods‘ with health benefits)
• increased constraints on industrial production based on chemical engineering & hydrocarbon feedstocks (and likely shift to biologically-inspired and biologically-driven systems.)

Danisco is the world’s largest food ingredients maker (e.g. sweetners, enablers, probiotic cultures, et al) but the most strategically appealing asset of DuPont’s courtship was Danisco subsidiary Genencor which develops industrial enzymes for biofuels and biomaterials production.

The combining of these two companies did not shock analysts. DuPont and Danisco started dating several years ago with a collaborative venture (DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol) to produce ethanol from waste byproducts.

But the shift from chemical engineering to bioengineering goes far beyond biofuels – and DuPont could help to mainstream global efforts to expand biologically-derived industrial processes across all major industry sectors from energy, agriculture, healthcare, textiles, construction, pharmaceuticals, and materials manufacturing.

DuPont is investing in a bridge from its chemical engineering past, to its biotechnology future — but it might also be a catalyst speeding up other global investments in this emerging bioindustrial age!

The Foresight View
Inspiring the Next Generation of Bio Industrialists

Believing in Bio-Ridiculous
It is time to imagine a world transformed by the tiniest organisms on the planet – algae and bacteria.  Silly as it might seem, there is precedent in such foolish ideas!

It was once seen as other worldly to melt rocks (ores) and create metals/alloys.  Then it was considered ridiculous to imagine coal – considered to be a useless black rock – as a better source of energy than dominant wood.  Using steam (or oil) to turn a ‘machine’ seemed like a silly waste of time.  The idea of a ‘synthetic rubber‘ seemed foolish given the poor performance of early plastic products (rubber would always come from trees).  And how would we ever make money from sand (silica) alternatives to vacuum tube computers?!

Ores. Coal. Oil. Rubber. Sand.  Only foolish industrialists imagined a society transformed by these things!

So the foolish thing today would be to imagine wealth creation using algae or bacteria.

The foolish industrialists of today would see the carbon dioxide emitted from coal power plants (or waste byproducts) as food for algae and bacteria to create biofuels and biomaterials.

They would dream of a small home bioreactor that cleans household wastewater and breaks down organic waste, or a bio-fuel cell that turns industrial waste streams into fuel.

Why would we ever look for solutions to global energy and and environmental challenges inside the metabolic factories inside the world’s tiniest creatures?

Giving Credit, Where Credit is Due
(Plate tectonic shifts aside…) Microorganisms like algae and bacteria are the engines of all natural systems.

Billions of years ago, they breathed oxygen into the world.  Every molecule that we breathe today has passed through a microbe.   And they are the majority ‘sink’ (more than plants/trees) for the planetary carbon cycle.   There is a lot to learn from the metabolic factories inside algae and bacteria.

DuPont is moving the world one step closer to believing in the foolish idea that we can make things (sustainably) from bacteria and algae.

This vision is that we will make things, by growing things.

Past industrialists were inspired by rock ore, coal, steam, oil and sand.

Future industrialists might be inspired by algae and bacteria.

That is the disruptive vision.

Same Ingredients, Different Tools for Assembly
DuPont sees the big story:  rethinking industrial systems.

Industrial companies make money by leveraging the interactions of molecules.  Heat has been the main method of facilitating those interactions.  Biology offers a different strategy to manipulating the interactions of  carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and metals.

Look around your world and you’ll find that most industrial products in your life are made up of hydrogen and carbon atoms with a touch of other elements.

Hydrocarbons like oil, coal and natural gas are the foundation of polymers (plastics) that have allowed humanity to leap from the constraints of natural materials like stone, wood and metals (steel; aluminum).

And the past 150 years of industrialism was defined by chemical engineering that took resources like natural gas and gasoline to produce higher value products based on a system often characterized as:  ’heat, beat and treat‘.

All of our major assumptions of industrialism are based on a past and present era of  ’extracting’ resources (mostly hydrocarbons and metals) for treatment (via chemistry) in large batches. To be sure, chemical engineering is not going away!  But it will no longer be the only method!

In the future, we will introduce a new method for ‘growing’ resources above ground by leveraging algae/bacteria (and their enzyme reaction centers) to re-assemble molecules like carbon, hydrogen and a host of other elements

This bioindustrial age could allow us to open up new opportunities for creating materials and fuels that tap the power of biological systems (e.g. genetics, proteins/enzymes, and metabolic pathways)

The promise is lower costs of production, reduction of waste (inputs/outputs), new product categories, and improved manufacturing yields.

DuPont’s acquisition expands its base of usable industrial enzymes that facilitate better interactions of molecules that can be used to make things.

And the runway for bio industrial processes is very long!   There is still new knowledge to be acquired and prototyping to be done. But DuPont’s stamp of approval goes a long way….

I’ll stop there…  some more resources below

Related Terms:

• Industrial Biotechnology; Bio Industrialism; BioEconomy (thanks, Sean_OHanlon)
• Bio Refineries; Bioreactors; Microbial Manufacturing
• Industrial Enzymes
• Bioplastics
• Biologics (Pharmaceuticals)
• Biomanufacturing
• Proteomics; Protein Engineering
• Biomimcry
• Bio-utilization
• Synthetic Biology
• Algae; Bacteria; Archaea

Companies to Watch

• Novozymes
• DSM
• CHR-Hansen
• CPKelco
• Kerry Group
• Tate and Lyle
• Arla
• Kemin
• China Biotics

• Dyadic
• Dow Agro
• Codexis
• Cathay Biotech
• FLSmidth
• Firmenich
• IFF

Image Source: Flickr Creative Commons by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fdecomite/5062256469/

Forecast & Outlook: Industry pundits might soon recognize the most innovative transportation startup in the land as San Francisco-based Uber: a compay that connects fleet drivers to users via an on-demand, mobility-as-service business model.

This high-tech, high-touch, point-to-point service empowers fleet owners/drivers and has the potential to provide users with a more compelling access solution to Zipcar’s car ownership alternative. Considering real world mobility demands, I find Uber’s focus on a fleet-leveraged ‘per mile’ to be more compelling than Zipcar’s ‘per hour’.

The Future of Fleets: 2010-2020
Uber‘s position as a disruptor is based on its focus of empowering fleets and setting new expectations for personalized on-demand service. And its focus on service innovation might appeal to a wide range of stakeholders: cities/suburbs seeking to new mobility solutions, transit companies seeking to expand their reach and revenues from premium services, automakers seeking blue ocean markets of new smaller footprint EV fleets, and entrepreneurs seeking to enter this new tech-infused transportation landscape.

Forget about bold predictions - let’s just have fun with a few plausible events by 2020 that could shift our attention to the potential low-cost, high margin future of fleets they might include:

• 2012 – the incumbent fleet legal battles begin as taxi and transit unions fight on-demand business models; Meanwhile, GM Onstar and Ford Sync battle for the brand value in a crowded smart app landscape
• 2014 – fleet union leaders wake up and realize that on-demand markets will only increase their service opportunities
• 2015 – major auto insurance agencies release first line of products for on-demand services
• 2016 – a sprawling metro (say Houston) creates legal framework for on-demand fleets to reach suburban markets (e.g. after-school programs for kids, commuting parents, aging populations)
• 2017 - GM buys Segway (causing Ford to buy ZipCar) as both announce roadmaps for ‘last mile’mobility-as-service partnerships that begins with commuters to transit hubs
• 2017 – Tokyo Metro announces plans to test pilot remote controlled mini-van system
• 2018 – Brooklyn and Queens-based ‘Dollar Vans‘ sign revenue sharing agreement with MTA to service non-peak hours and expanded transit’s reach and service footprint
• 2019 - Hertz Connect leads the way as rental companies scramble for partnerships as they (finally) move beyond airports to servicing resident communities.
• 2020 – Toyota buys Local Motors and introduces open source hardware platform for ‘Chariot’ form factor urban vehicles; The industry’s value chain shifts from selling new hardware to a ‘product plus service‘ revenues
• 2022 – Majority of EVs (based on fuel cells+batteries) are manufactured for fleets not direct-to-consumer
• 2025 - Auto safety giant Takata* releases semi-autonomous fleet solutions based on externally mounted pedestrian safety systems for first wave of ‘chariot’ pods to be unleashed in Germany and Japan

One Certainty – Service Innovation is Coming
Beyond these provocative events, there is one certainty for the future of transportation.  Service innovation based on technology is coming!  And I give the biggest upside to fleets!

Who might be the early adopters?  Fatigued commuters? Boomers living in downtown condos? Millennials? Spectators heading to sporting events? Tourists?  Or might companies lead the way (e.g. Home Depot control fleets of pick up trucks)?

It’s just a guessing game on who will jump first or lead?  But we can be confident in the direction of service innovation and likely rise in access-model revenues as the decades old ownership model of the auto industry fails to break out of its capacity utilization challenges.

By 2020, I would expect that the idea (not the market adoption) of ‘mobility-as-service‘ to become mainstream. Setting the stage for a massive retooling and build-out of mobility systems beyond 2020.

Read more:

The Spectrum of Visions: Anti-Car; Social Mobility and Autonomous Era

& What if ZipCar is the Friendster vs Uber as Facebook in the Mobility 2.0 Industry?

The Spectrum of Visions: Anti-Car; Social Mobility and Autonomous Era

The  seeds for the future of transportation have been planted and visionaries are now once again free to envision more radical futures. What most people agree on is that the future will include more choice of multi-modal transportation and that the true cost of vehicle ownership could be revealed as subsidized systems (e.g. free parking; peak/base commuting) are brought into the marketplace of ‘pay as you use‘ fees.

The visions come from a wide spectrum:

• The ‘anti’ car’ communities who wish to kill the car and focus on more structural design remedies of suburban-urban systems
• The ‘go social’ entrepreneurs who see the leverage of collaborative consumption via feel good concepts like car-sharing, taxi cab sharing, and crowd-sourced real-time networks (e.g. Roadify).
• The ‘grow with flow’ crowd of techno-optimists which put all their chips on more transformative solutions like autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure to get more capacity out of existing systems

The secret to good foresight is being able identify and understand all three mindsets – and communicate the incremental and transformative changes to industry leaders!

Talking with my transportation industry clients I recommend leveraging structural investments around multi-modal transportation solutions and the upside of ‘social geoweb’.  These drivers of change are coming!

And with these same clients, I plant a seed of a more disruptive image based on a future beyond 2020 where situational awareness technologies have transformed the role of the human from driver to captain.

While the end game might indeed be fully autonomous vehicles that allow us to ‘grow with flow’, the transition begins with semi-autonomous systems that empower the human.   These driver-oriented systems represent the near-term opportunity for service and safety system design.

What if ZipCar is the Friendster vs Uber as Facebook in the Mobility 2.0 Industry?

I should begin by stating that I am a huge fan of Zipcar and its brilliant and eloquent Founder Robin Chase. And I believe ZipCar will continue to be a disruptive force in transportation.

My blog post title is really more to provoke and get pageviews than to throw Zipcar’s future under the bus!

I only question the long term viability of their current business model which is a car ownership alternative.

The purpose of this post is to explore service innovations that transform existing fleets around point-to-point business models rather than ‘per-hour’ based revenues.  I believe there is an incumbent base of fleet operators waiting to transform their commercial and residential services.

In its current form, I find Uber more disruptive in leveraging the operational side of fleets and transforming how consumers view mobility as a service (not simply car ownership as a service!)

Uber also has the right people on the bus looking at its Leadership (including Stumble Upon Founder; see Crunchbase Profile] and Bay area home base.  Never underestimate the power of media attention.   I wish them success in 2011-12 and hope that we start to explore the future of fleets as a source of transformative change!

*Disclosure: Recent Client

‘Point, Click & Learn’
Visual search and augmented reality experiences seemed poised to evolve as early adopter platforms for learning based on images, objects and places that exist in the physical world.

Google, Nokia, Ricoh, Intel, and Microsoft have all demonstrated or released beta and 1.0 version services that layer digital information over images and video captured by the camera holder or person looking at the screen.

The vision (pun intended) for visual and augmented reality platforms is to use cameras, screens and projection systems for uncovering and layering digital information about objects (including text)  and places.   So you can learn about a particular flower or building while standing in front of it, and not when you are at home sitting in front of your computer.  The hope is to move beyond photo/video capture and bring new functionality to the lens as a learning device.  No keyboard or mouse needed- just point, click and learn.

Camera + Web-based Software = Augmented Visual Learning
We can already see demonstrations of first generation personal learning experiences based on visual augmented reality (digital layers over real world images) and software services that tap the power of scalable  cloud computing architectures:

• A student learning biology is able to point, click & learn about a tree leaf, an insect or a bird whether the object exists in real life or as an image inside a book  (e.g. Bobcat tracking app; IdentityTree)
• A tourist uses their mobile camera to identify the name and history of a landmark building; or to help them learn about the local mass transit options (e.g. ‘Nearest Subway’ app; BART)
• A museum visitor sees an art piece and wants to learn more about the artist (e.g. museum app)
• An architecture student want to see a time-lapsed reply of a building’s construction, or an ‘x-ray’ layer image of the structural beams below the exterior skin
• An aspiring wine connoisseur wants to learn more about a vineyard or ideal food pairing by snapping an image of the bottle while inside the retail store (e.g.  Tesco Wine app YouTube video; demo)
• Someone reading a newspaper sees a compelling image – points, clicks and learns more about the topic (e.g. Ricoh iCandy app1; demo2)
• A star gazer visiting the Southern hemisphere looks up at an unfamiliar sky – points, clicks and learns via an augmented layer explaining the night sky (e.g. Google Sky demo)

This is quite an impressive list for 2010!  And yet these are only examples based on first generation software, hardware and a tiny catalog of images.  The most exciting learning applications of visual search are ahead of us!

Visual Search 2011-2020
It is important not to confuse today’s beta and 1.0 version visual search and augmented reality apps with those likely to image in the next decade.   Both platforms are likely to evolve alongside other applications based on 2D-3D modeling, location based services, robotic vision, tagging, visual mashups, personal assistants (e.g. Siri) and personal learning systems.

But in order to have a ‘real-time‘ experience in which we capture an image and have it immediately identified (from a catalog) and layered with relevant digital background information – we must think beyond the phone or camera itself and see the potential of software as service models.

Visual search catalogs and services will ‘live in the cloud‘ and not on our devices.  In other words, we will not have to rely on the memory or processing power inside of our phones.  The phone will access image catalogs stored on the internet (or ‘in the cloud’).

This software-as-service architecture of cloud computing (e.g. networked & virtualized) offers users tremendous storage and processing power.  It is a low cost, scalable platform for  individuals and companies to store, access and collectively learn about physical objects captured by camera lenses.  This will allow us to access billions of images, tags and related content by tapping this massive cloud catalog of object shapes and textures.

My wish list for advanced visual search and learning by 2020?
Making the invisible, visible
I am most interested in real-time augmented reality experiences that allow users to test alternative assumptions and scenarios with real-world systems.  I’d like to see visual interfaces that reveal layers about the molecular structure of our natural and synthetic worlds.  And if all goes well, it might be micro-projectors which layer images directly onto objects and surfaces that really change the game by the end of the decade.

Imagine an engineering student standing on a highway overpass to study traffic flow patterns and then changing the parameters of vehicle speed and driver behavior to test alternative results.  Or imagine a 5th grade student zooming in on any material to see the nanostructured reality that defines the material’s properties.

Alas, that is my vision of the next decade!  For now, I am comforted and enthusiastic about the Beta and Version 1.0 experiences already on the marketplace!

I’ve included videos from Google and Nokia below:

Nokia’s Point & Find application that uses a video camera to recognize real world objects (e.g. solar panel, buildings, products, et al)

Google has released Google Goggles as its own platform for camera based search

Here we see Goggles being used to translate a menu text (in German) into a captured image into English

Google Goggles Demo

Another Goggles 1.0 real world demo

Using Google Goggles to identify photos taken in Europe

Additional clips

Origional Point and Find demo from Nokia’s Beta Labs

Tesco wine visual search

Nearest Subway Search

Ricoh iCandy Apps

Additional Resources

• Microsoft Bing Visual Search (see this as a database of future)
• html 5 (<canvas>) demo at Google I/O event (Youtube)
• Augmented Reality companies (e.g. Metaio)
• [For those readers who are more technically oriented- I believe visual search (pictures and images) will be greatly enhanced through html 5 based applications (e.g. <canvas>), 3D simulation environment, and NoSQL based personal learning management systems.]

Image Source:
Creative Commons Attribution License

Bloom Energy CEO KR Sridhar gives a wonderful 101 style interview with Fresh Dialogues in which he explains the fundamentals of fuel cell energy and why it is a very smart bet on the future of energy across electricity power generation and vehicle electrification.

Fuel cell based Power Generation: Bridge & End Destination:
Despite the failure of fuel cells to live up to the  ‘Hype’ Phase of expected growth created during the DotCom Bubble, the electrochemical platform continues to evolve and remains a viable 21st century platform for cost effective and clean energy applications for portable power (micro- and transportation) and stationary electricity production.

A few points to note…

As is true with any new disruptive technology platform it will take time to develop and unfold.  It is important not to oversell the speed of change, yet avoid underselling the transformational power of fuel cells to change our world in the long-term!

And while Bloom is not the first company to bring stationary fuel cells to the market, it is the first to garner this much attention!  And awareness of what is possible with distributed power generation is very critical to the industry’s growth!

What makes Bloom Energy’s fuel cell important is that it can better utilize our dominant primary input of hydrocarbon fuels (mainly natural gas) for electricity generation, yet remain relevant to future ‘clean chemical fuels’ (e.g. hydrogen, hydrogen rich biofuels and synfuels).

Sridhar understands the dynamics of energy market transitions and the role that fuels play in electricity production.  The company has wisely decided to ‘build a bridge‘ and a ‘future destination‘ around fuel cells.

Central Power Plant Combustion vs Distributed Power Generation Electrochemical Conversion
Sridhar explains the advantages of direct chemical fuel to electricity generation.  Today we use large centralized power plants that convert hydrocarbon fuels (e.g. coal and natural gas) via multiple steps: combustion conversion of chemical energy to thermal-heat energy (water/steam) to mechanical energy (turbine) to electrical energy.  Lots of energy loss there!  And it requires massive capital investments (that are ‘peak demand’ oriented) and operational costs for central infrastructure maintenance and control.  Oh, and then there are the costs associated with transmission disruption along the wire grid via intentional attack or accidental overload.

Stationary fuel cells take that same chemical fuel (prefer hydrogen rich natural gas delivered via pipelines or trucks) and convert the chemical energy via electrochemical reactions directly into electrical energy.  One step that requires no moving parts.  And it is done at a lower capital cost, and with less operational overhead.  There is less risk because the fuel is distributed locally and can be converted via an energy appliance.

Bloom is opening the door to smaller distributed power generation. Neither this one company nor today’s versions of fuel cell platforms are going to transform the world any time soon!  But the door is open and the public is now getting an important lesson in the market dynamics of distributed energy!

Battery vs Fuel cell?
A battery is only a storage device.  Fuel cells are power generators!  One stores energy, the other converts fuels.  For many reasons (e.g. cost, weight, uptime, portability, non-grid production, profit structure) fuel cells are a more desirable energy platform.  Batteries are very important, but they do not offer the same transformational potential to global energy markets.

Batteries can be used to support the grid, whereas fuel cells make the grid irrelevant.  That is a very simple but disruptive concept that could alter how people around the world access fuels and electricity.

Solar & Wind vs Fuel cells?
This role of fuels is often overlooked in discussions around the future of energy.  Solar and wind are largely ‘grid oriented’ sources of electricity (exception being ‘rooftop’ solar that is ‘distributed power generation’).  Solar and wind compete against dominant ‘chemical fuel’ markets like coal and natural gas.  And despite all the upsides of renewable photons and wind patterns, it is hard to compete with the energy potential locked up inside chemical bonds that are extracted from the ground, or assembled above ground via chemical or bioenergy engineering.

Fuel cells play directly into the chemical fuels market, and offer a more cost effective and cleaner way to convert hydrocarbons into electricity beyond the centralized power plant model.

Of course, we must evolve all energy systems!  It is not ‘either or’ – and no single energy system can be viewed as a ‘holy grail’ to our complex set of energy challenges!

Again, I’ll step off my futures soapbox.. here is Sridhar’s interview:

[via Fresh Dialogues]

Related posts:

• Why Bloom Energy Fuel Cells are Disruptive to Energy Markets
• Personal Power Systems might be the Biggest Story in the Future  of Energy

Additional interview with some more detailed explanation

‘Holy Grail’ vs ‘Disruptive’
Bloom Energy is helping to shake up the conversation about the future of distributed energy systems.  But let’s be clear…!!!   There is no Holy Grail solution for global energy market!  There is no silver bullet!

The spectrum of energy demands is too wide and varied across applications to have one single solution.  Disruptive energy systems exist for the demands of tiny sensors (ambient capture), smart phones (density), electric vehicles (low cost per weight), data centers (reliability), and grid energy (base load).  So let’s not get distracted looking for one solution!

More importantly, we should not confuse an aspirational industry ‘holy grail‘ for a genuinely applied ‘disruptive‘ energy system that could change the cost structure and business model innovation landscape in a way that avoids direct competition with incumbents.

Disruptive energy platforms are rare (e.g. steam engine, internal combustion engine, electrical grid) but we are likely to see more candidates emerge in the 21st century as we tap the power of energy entrepreneurs and advance our knowledge and engineering prowess in the areas of nanoscale materials design and bio industrial processes.

Energy systems are about the interaction of molecules – and both nano- and bio- give humanity new shapes to manipulate and control the interaction of light, electrons and molecules.  And within the energy sector, it is materials science that enables business model innovation (not the other way around)!  This is a materials science game!

Why Bloom Energy’s Distributed Fuel Cell Vision is Disruptive
Low cost, highly reliable distributed power generation systems are disruptive because they open up a new ecosystem for non-grid based power generation that can bypass the incumbents entrenched business model.

They are green in the sense that electrochemical energy conversion is more efficient and less polluting than combustion conversion.  But let’s be clear.  Being green is less disruptive than being cheap, reliable and distributed.

What makes an energy system disruptive?
Let’s look at two versions of solar.  Traditional solar farms try to compete directly against the grid without a chemical fuel.  Good luck!  Feels good, but it’s not disruptive.  You are at the mercy of grid access, price volatility of chemical fuels, and the regulatory frameworks of the utility sector.
The disruptive version is ‘distributed solar’ (e.g. rooftop via thin film solar) and is not connected to the grid, and creates new market demand rather than trying to replace or repair the old model.

Fuel cells convert chemical fuels (e.g. natural gas, oil, coal, propane, biofuels, hydrogen) into electricity.  They are silent, have no moving parts and can be manufactured using low cost scalable and modular assembly.

Electricity powers the future!  And fuels dominate the electricity power generation market.

Bloom Energy plays into the fuels market, but offers a non-grid solution for energy!

Bloom Energy’s success will of course be based on its ability to continue to apply innovative technology with great business leadership.   As to the skeptic points raised by Greentech Media‘s Michael Kanellos (whom I respect and admire!) here are my notes on issues of:

• Hype: I hear you!  Of course, we’ve followed this since Ballard’s bubble in the late 1990s.  But you know that all technologies pass through the hype cycle!  Shouldn’t we compare notes on latest developments in labs and Board rooms and talk about an plausible roadmap that has commercialization within 2-10 years for first wave of products?!  Bloom is testing an actual product!
• Durability:  Fuel cells do not have to last 30 years. Stacks can be broken down, replaced, et al.  And the cost is per unit, not per power plant.  So we don’t need a product that lasts forever!
• Mass manufacturing: Fuel cells are modular, scalable units and I see no reason why manufacturing cannot be scaled?  Certainly a barrier, but not a show-stopper.
• Competition: ‘It will be GE, not Bloom Energy!’ — Great!  That is not a criticism.  I expect incumbents will play!  If Siemens, GE, Dow, DuPont, JC, Emerson (et al) get into the game, great news!
• Cost – Bloom’s CEO stated $3,000 price point – a fine place to start, but really, we need $300!   But it seems clear that low cost alternatives to precious metals are becoming commercially viable.

Watch: 60 minutes [video]

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Read similar posts

• http://www.garrygolden.net/2010/02/21/future-of-portable-personal-power-via-micro-fuel-cells/
• http://www.garrygolden.net/2010/01/14/ford-2012-focus-is-one-step-closer-to-skateboard-chassis-manufacturing-platform-and-end-of-combustion-engine/
• http://www.garrygolden.net/2010/01/28/gms-decision-to-build-electric-motors-could-shift-conversation-on-future-of-american-manufacturing/

Note:
I have followed Bloom Energy since it was formerly Ion America many years ago.  And I have been an evangelist for the disruptive market potential for fuel cells applied to portable and distributed power generation.   And to all the doubters of fuel cells or hydrogen I have responses to the dated and misguided criticisms related to storage, production, energy loss, et al.  Happy to answer questions in Comments section.

Additional Videos for more in depth interviews

Forecast and Outlook:  The vision of personal power systems based on fuel packets and micro fuel cells is arguably the most disruptive concept of future energy systems in the world today.  And yet it remains completely off the radar of most conversations about the future of energy.

The disruptive vision of energy access to anyone, anywhere in the world is two-fold:

• Fuel – Anyone in the world can buy clean, low cost fuel as long as they they have access to general retail markets. [e.g. you can buy safe packets of fuel next to a pack of gum.]
  [*Fuels are developed via any/all primary resources from renewables to hydrocarbons. The main point here is that we are bringing fuels to the user, not to the power plant!]

• ‘Personal power plants‘ (e.g. micro fuel cells) sold via retail stores in all sizes: from those already embedded inside consumer products (e.g. phone), to a small portable $10 charger or a $100 appliance that can power your home. [Fuel cells convert hydrogen rich fuels into electrical energy] [Note: Bloom Energy just released its press on The Bloom Box, video!]

This is the vision, and not a snapshot of first generation products currently on the market!  And I am not saying that we should abandon our accelerated focus on new forms of energy production or battery storage!  Just realize that cheap renewable grid energy or better batteries does not solve  issues of access and portability.  We cannot forget about the role ‘fuels’ and power conversion devices play in the energy world!!

To provide energy access to anyone, anywhere in the world we must focus on increasing access to clean fuels and reducing the cost of fuel cell conversion devices.

Why micro fuel cells? Non-grid Access & Portability

Portable power systems are those that use fuels to produce electricity in a device that can be carried by an individual person.  This notion goes beyond today’s grid-dependent rechargeable battery model to include micro fuel cells that convert hydrogen-rich chemical fuels into electricity.

Portable power can also be extended beyond people to the transportation sector for electric vehicles powered by batteries and fuel cells, and for remote auxiliary power (e.g. telecommunication towers).

Think of portable power systems as tiny power plants rather than storage devices like batteries.  But there is a key difference in the deliver of fuels to the the user and the cost of converting that fuel into electricity…

Micro fuel cells by-pass the grid and bring fuels directly to the end user.  Hydrogen rich chemical fuels come to market as small packets (e.g. small liquid containers of methanol, sponges of solid hydrogen).  They are safe and operate at room temperature.  And most importantly, can be bought and sold over a retail shelf.  The ‘packet’ of fuel is bought and controlled by the user.    No monthly contracts.  If they want to pay a premium for renewable resource derived fuel packets, by all means!

Instead of relying on multi-billion dollar power plants, fuel cell conversion devices will be made using low cost manufacturing techniques.  They are silent, have no moving parts and can be manufactured to any size/scale.

Portable power systems mean no need to access the grid.  No need to fight with strangers over a wall socket in a café or airport.  No need to hang wires from your new thin screen television.  No need to have plugs built into your kitchen counter top because your toast and coffee maker do not need to be ‘plugged in’.  They are all simply refueled.

How do we get there?
So how do we ‘unplug’ and access electricity away from the grid?  By radically transforming the cost structure and business models associated with low cost packets of chemical fuels (e.g. methanol, hydrogen, et al) that can be sold over retail shelves, and micro fuel cells (energy conversion devices) that can be embedded in any and all objects or sold as stand alone micro power plants.

The road map to this future is largely dependent on our ability to translate our expanding knowledge of energy systems into nanoscale materials engineering and next generation manufacturing techniques.

Once major cost and production challenges are overcome, the marketplace dynamics for diffusion of micro fuel cells will not have to compete against the existing grid model.  It can grow as fast as the user side demands. (e.g. it is a low end disruptive strategy that does not have to battle the incumbent).

Ummm, what if there is no current consumer demand?

Why I am not worried that consumers do not care about micro fuel cells!!
We are all familiar the essence of the anecdote of Henry Ford: “…if I would have asked my customers what they needed, they would have said a faster horse.’

Portable power receives virtually no attention within the media because micro fuel cells are simply not a viable option today!  And most consumers can see no real world applications for energy beyond their current assumptions of what is possible with batteries and solar roof panels.

Most people have no idea how the internal combustion engine works, let alone the electrochemical principles of  a micro fuel cell or the disruptive business model of distributed energy production.

Micro fuel cells occupy the same spot of consumer irrelevance that was held by the need for a horseless carriage when ‘my buggy works just fine thank you’, or the benefits of an ATM machine when ‘I really prefer to have human contact with my bank tellers, thank you’…. or demand during the early PC age when ‘… I don’t need a ‘home computer’ because I don’t need to do calculations at home, thank you.’

I do not expect consumer demand will lead this transition… nor do I expect it will come from within the existing energy industry.

I am not worried about what first generation micro fuel cells or solid hydrogen sponges can do today.  I care where we think we might be in 2015, 2020, 2025.

Personal power systems will likely come from  startups and entrepreneurs intent on creating new markets, not trying to add band aids to existing platforms. And I am fully confident that enough energy entrepreneurs in the micro fuel cell world see this same low end disruptive vision of putting power plants into the hands of consumers and bypassing the grid.    I am also fully confident that chemical fuel providers will embrace and innovate to meet the high premium value and price placed on smaller bundled packages of energy.

Micro fuel cells (‘direct methanol’ and water activated powder versions) are expected to be brought to mass markets as batter rechargers soon after 2011.  And I suspect the real time horizon of disruptive change will occur 2015-2030.

It took us half a century to build out the electrical infrastructure of the 20th century, and I don’t expect it will be threatened anytime soon!

For now, the best we can do is explore the implications of this vision for personal power systems, and continue to monitor latest breakthroughs in materials science and the efforts of startups to bring micro power solutions to early adopter markets such as the military and back up power market.

Micro Fuel cell companies (in no particular order):

• MTI
• Ultracell Power
• Toshiba
• Jadoo
• Fujitsu
• Samsung
• Medis
• MyFC
• Bloom Energy
• CMR (UK)
• ReliOn
• DTI
• Angstrom Power
• Smart Fuel Cell
• Lilliputian Power Systems
• Violet
• Horizon Fuel Cells
• Protonex
• Hydra
• E-Cell
• Tekion
• Oorja
• GenPort

Extra Notes:
Embracing New Assumptions: The Hype vs Vision of Portable Power
All new disruptive technology platforms must walk through the stages of the ‘Hype Cycle‘, and confront our natural tendency to overestimate short-term change, but underestimate the long term potential.

I am selling the long-term vision, not the short-term hype of personal energy systems!   I am making a case that barriers can and should be overcome so that we can reap the benefits of distributed energy systems.   So rather than describe a snapshot of first generation micro fuel cells (as they exist today), let’s embrace and explore a new set of assumptions:

• Retail access to energy!
  The vision is: you can buy a packet of energy or micro power device next to a bar of soap or bag of rice whether you are in Walmart, Whole Foods or a tiny rural village in India. While visionaries try to put solar cells on every rooftop, don’t forget the role ‘fuels’ play in our energy system.
• We unplug everything!
  Electricity consuming products are embedded with micro fuel.  No more cords or plugs.  No more grid dependency.  You only need packets of fuel to keep your device running. (e.g. Every object contains within it a micro power plant that converts a fuel into electricity.)
• Fuel cell energy conversion devices!
  Chemical energy is converted into electricity via low cost fuel cells that consist of stacks of ‘tin foil’ like membrane sheets, rather than large metal turbines at multi-million dollar power plants.
  This means our electricity producing devices can be manufactured using industrial ‘ink jet’ printing machines and plastic casings, rather metal tooling machines.  And they are quiet and have no moving parts!

Extra Notes:
Disrupting the Era of Grid Dependency

For most of human history all energy was local.  Regionally available fuels (e.g. wood/biomass) were converted onsite (e.g. usually via fire) and controlled by the individual.   This was expensive in terms of labor and environmental impact (goodbye forests, goodbye clean air) but did not require organized capital investment or complex ‘energy companies’.

Then humans figured out a way to master electrons- and the age of electricity was born.  The only problem was that producing electricity was best handled in large power plants.  Thus the electrical grid was born.  And from that point forward access to electrical energy was based on a one-way stream of wires.  And humans became dependent on a ‘grid’ for their access to energy.

Let’s focus on the model: fuels such as coal and natural gas are discovered, exploited, refined, transported, heated to boil water that spin turbines that create electricity that travel long distances over wires to a wall socket.  Break that stream anywhere along the chain and the wall socket is useless.

Efficient? Hardly, more than half the energy is lost in the process.

Reliable?  Yes and no.  Even the .1% downtime of today’s modern grids cost tens of billions of dollars in lost economic productivity.

Cost effective?  Yes!

Valued by users? Absolutely!  (Unless you are talking about my portable gadgets!  Or if I don’t have access to the grid!)

The energy marketplace lesson?  Value and cost matter more than efficiency gains/losses.

Business models that make money beat the physics of energy loss.
(e.g. dear skeptics, stop trying to say hydrogen does not make sense because of laws of thermodynamics.  Can you add value is the only question you must ask!]

So let’s focus on how we can create value for users in a way that makes the centralized grid model irrelevant!  Rethink how we distribute fuels & convert them via distributed micro power plants!

Forget about trying to displace oil, the target for disruption is the internal combustion engine!

If you want a sneak peak at the most revolutionary ideas in how we design, build and experience cars visit: Local Motors, River Simple, Commn, and Trexa (Image).

These companies are rethinking platform-based vehicle design to support manufacturing and business model innovations that might define the 21st century mobility industry.  They are focused on creative disruption within the industry by expanding the industrial ecosystem of hardware and software platforms that enable low cost, low volume production, mass personalization via ’aftermarket‘ services, and innovation around open-sourced software and hardware principles.

EV Platform = Design & Manufacturing Revolution
The EV transition will likely be driven by a revolution in how we build cars, not fuel them.  The best way for the auto industry to reduce its eco-footprint is to confront its manufacturing footprint (e.g. low factory capacity utilization) by abandoning the combustion engine platform for electric propulsion.

We are years away from mass EV production, but given the rate of progress and profit incentives to change,  it is now possible to imagine very highly disruptive market innovations based on the leveraging of  scalable, modular principles with EV design:

• High performance wheel-based electric motors that provide improved torque, efficiency and a lower cost modular manufacturing platform for vehicle assembly
• Carbon composite bodies that reduce vehicle weight and open up possibilities for new vehicle (shape) design that move beyond metal frames to polymer composites
• Situational Awareness Software & ‘Drive by wire’ control systems that transform the driver experience and replace mechanical systems (braking/steering) with more reliable (and personalized) electro-mechanical systems
• Advanced batteries and hydrogen fuel cells that power electric vehicles using the integration of storage (batteries) and fuel conversion (hydrogen fuel cells) at lowest cost per weight possible

Imagining Scenarios for the Future of Mobility
We are in Year One of the EV transition and it is important not to over-hype the speed of change.   But given the rate of innovation happening with EV platforms, we can develop a number of roadmap-based scenarios that might include the emergence of smaller, low-volume brand producers; a mainstream market shift from new car sales towards aftermarket vehicle upgrades, and fundamentally new vehicle segments (e.g. 2 or 3-wheeled urban ‘access’ vehicles).

Software is clearly the lowest hanging fruit – and we can already see a  mainstreaming effort towards situational awareness systems (e.g. connected cars‘, adaptive cruise control, et al) by major auto brands (e.g. OnStar; Ford Sync).  We can be confident that the driving experience will be augmented by software within a decade.

Yet, hardware is the real lever for changing the industry!  And the enabling force of change will be the emerging era of nanoscale materials science and engineering.   Advances in materials design could lead to breakthroughs in energy systems (batteries & fuel cells) and composite materials for light weight vehicle bodies that reduce costs, simplify assembly, improve safety and evolve our notion of vehicle shapes beyond traditional sedans and trucks (e.g. P.U.M.A. chariot).

Is the skateboard chassis the 21st Century’s version of the Model T Ford?  (I think so…!)
The internal combustion engine is more vulnerable to losing its market share than oil!  The I.C.E. is at the center of the auto industry’s cost and capacity management nightmare scenario.  Asian manufacturers entering the marketplace are likely to cause headaches for managing capacity utilization, and it might be wise for established automakers to decouple their business model from building new I.C.E. cars to ‘aftermarket’ sales and services based on EV software-hardware platforms.

Trying to compete globally around mechanical engines is likely a race to the bottom for profit margins!

Good luck to GM and Ford as they try to win a brand battle in a world with plenty of capable competition.   There are simply too many brands in the marketplace vying for the same traditional markets.  It might be time to transform the auto industry around a more open ‘platform’ / ecosystem model that shifts focus towards continual aftermarket upgrades.

And the ‘skateboard’ chassis might be that platform… (See GM’s Autonomy concept!)

Just as the assembly line changed the economics of auto manufacturing, so might the modular potential of electric vehicle platforms based on wheel-based motors, drive by wire and plug-n-play energy systems that integrate batteries and fuels cells.

But until major automakers share this new vision of the future of mobility, we will look at startups such as Local Motors, River Simple, and Trexa to show what is truly possible in transforming mobility.

Learn more:

• Local Motors on Twitter
• River Simple on Twitter (Formerly OScar project)
• Trexa on Twitter
• General Motors – Autonomy / Hy-Wire concept vehicles (**Which launched the ‘skateboard’ chassis concept) – [See TED Talk below]

Related posts and videos:

• GM’s Decision to Build Electric Motors Could Shift Conversation on Future of American Manufacturing
  includes videos
• Ford 2012 Focus Is One Step Closer To Skateboard Chassis Manufacturing Platform and End of Combustion Engine

Related posts on The Energy Roadmap.com (where I was Founding Editor)

• The Road to Electric Vehicles passes through ChinaWall
• Street Journal confirms our Case for Electric Cars: A Lower Barrier to Manufacturing
• Electric vehicle industry goes global around energy storage systems
• What powers the car of tomorrow? Batteries or Hydrogen fuel cells? [Hint: Both]
• Video Interview with Shai Agassi on disruptive business models for electric cars
• Is Detroit asleep at the wheel?
• The Good news? China is investing in electric cars, The Bad news? China is investing in electric cars
• Is GM expecting China to extend its grid for electric cars?
• France to spend millions on electric vehicles
• Warren Buffet buys equity in China’s BYD
• New hydrogen storage device lighter than lithium batteries
• McKinsey believes China could lead world in electric vehicles
• GM pick Korean battery maker over US startup A123 Systems
• Hyundai to build fuel cell electric vehicle for 2012
• US algae startups could transform China coal industry
• France’s GDF invests in electric car infrastructure
• Electric vehicle networks startup moves into Australia
• Detroit to World, Nobody has killed the electric car
• India’s Tata Motors will produce electric vehicle in 2009 for Europe!
• A Futurist’s Guide to Cars of 2020

Just a few alternative assumptions about changes in the transportation industry that I am fond of repeating…

• The revolution is in how we build cars, not fuel them!
  The problem is not oil, but the combustion engine.  Why? First it lacks fuel substitutability and must use liquid fuels.  Second, it leads to challenges for automakers who must manage factory capacity utilization. Third, it is bulky and leads to to generic vehicle design!

• The industry must first reduce its manufacturing footprint, then its environmental footprint will follow.
  The auto industry can reduce costs by evolving towards modular EV vehicle platform based on the integration of batteries and fuel cells, wheel-based motors and drive by wire controls.  This is not a winner take all future for energy systems.  Batteries and fuel cells are the winning combination for auto applications!
• Consumers will love Personalization & Software Experiences (more than eco benefits)
  Time to decouple!!  The auto industry (automakers, dealers and suppliers) can expand revenues by shifting from one-time new car sales, to on-going  ‘after-market’ upgrades and software-media experiences.  When will software designers and auto customization specialists be considered desirable auto industry jobs?!

Image credit:  Trexa vehicle press release photo

Video: Larry Burns at TED: Reinventing the Car

Additional Videos to watch:

RiverSimple (UK) Open Source Hydrogen Car

TED Talk by Larry Burn introduction GM Autonomy

EV Mini test drive

Cisco CEO John Chambers is selling a very powerful vision of future growth based on innovation timed to major market transitions occurring in business, government, education and infrastructure.  His current ‘network-based collaboration’ stump speech offers lessons on building an organizational culture based on foresight and innovation:

• Innovate across Market Transitions - The secret to company longevity is the appropriate application of strategic foresight that allows companies to innovate ‘across market transitions’ instead of fighting for market share during economic downturns or mature phases of industry growth.
• The Network is the Platform – The web is evolving as a platform for unified communication systems and business services.  Business model innovation and operational execution are the foundations for tapping the power of network-based delivery of high value services.
• Social Enterprise – The way to unleash productivity is to replace rigid org chart based communication channels with social enterprise structures that allow any individual to identify internal expertise, and directly share knowledge and experience across the organization.
• Video-based Collaboration – Forget about ‘virtual teams’ based on email exchanges!!!   The game-changer in web collaboration is visually connected workers, partners and customers. Video (real-time and recorded) is likely to emerge as the preferred mode of collaboration in the years ahead.

Here are five videos featuring John Chambers exploring the dynamics of the ‘next generation’ organization:
(My favorites include the MIT talk and India Holographic presentation):

2008 Keynote at World Business Forum

MIT Video: Building the Next Generation Company

Recorded: October 15, 2008   Running Time: 1:07:45

A sneak peak at future holographic versions of telepresence [India 2008]

Video
Harvard Business Review Interview [Recorded February 06, 2009]

Cisco Collaboration Products Demo – 2009

Forecast & Outlook: Electric vehicles (EVs) powered by the integration of batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and capacitors, represent an enormous opportunity for re-tooling America’s manufacturing base.  The high end of the value chain in automobiles is no longer based on combustion engines or mechanical systems, and has shifted towards electric propulsion, composite materials, energy storage/conversion, and software systems.

We are not going to create jobs by merely extending the 20th century auto industry around mechanical engines.  We will create jobs by creating new EV related industries.  So the EV revolution is likely to  be driven by changing how we build cars, not just how we fuel them!

EV Transition & America’s Manufacturing Base
General Motors has announced its plans to invest $246 million in a Baltimore (Maryland) Transmission plant that will begin building electric motors in 2013 for GM’s hybrid system.  GM would become the first major U.S. automaker to design and manufacture electric motors, and it could help to reframe our transition to electric vehicles from expensive ‘tree-hugger’ cars designed  to save the planet, to the future of high value American manufacturing designed to save the manufacturing base via:

• High performance wheel-based electric motors that provide improved torque, efficiency and a lower cost modular manufacturing platform for vehicle assembly (See Videos below)
• Light weight carbon composite bodies that reduce vehicle weight and open up possibilities for new vehicle design that move beyond metal frames to composite polymers (e.g. Boeing Dreamliner)
• ‘Drive by wire’ control systems that replace mechanical systems (braking/steering) with more reliable electro-mechanical systems
• Situational Awareness Systems - ‘connected car’ hardware-software systems that provide drivers with real-time sensing and decision-support, and collision avoidance.
• Advanced batteries and hydrogen fuel cells that serve to storage and convert fuel for powering electric vehicles (and other energy applications beyond transportation)

The EV ‘Perception’ Problem? Frame as Industrial Policy, not Environmental
Let’s not over-hype or underestimate this transition!  We know that it will take decades for the EV transition to unfold.  But the future is knocking at our doorstep and those economies that find the highest place on the EV value chain will be selling to billions of new customers, and be in a position to transfer their materials engineering and energy systems capacities across other industry sectors!   The technology platforms have arrived and only needs to be cultivated and advanced by the most capable companies and workers (industrial and knowledge!)!

The faster American leadership can make this EV transition about our Industrial policy, and not just our environmental policy the faster we will reap the returns.  Meanwhile, the misleading perception of electric vehicles is that of  wimpy golf carts bought by  ’tree huggers’ – instead of  powerful 21st century industrial platforms driven by truckers [See Vision Motors] and built by blue collar labor.  That perception must change before a massive retooling can occur.  What we need are truckers with tattoos praising the industrial performance benefits of electric motors, and factory workers smiling because of their new jobs assembling drive-by-wire systems.

With a coordinated campaign, we might see a return of high value added manufacturing jobs as former ‘Rust Belts’ become  ’Polymer Belts’, and the American auto sector can begin exporting its vehicles and technologies around the globe.  [Forgive my American-centric tone but there is a jobs crisis at hand ]

Updates:
via Treehugger: US DoE loans Nissan $1b for EV Plant in Tennessee
via Kenny IdaTechEX EV 2010-20 Report
Norway-based EV company will invest $40m for Indiana plant

Electric Motor Videos Below….
[Video] LA-based Vision Motors Demonstrating Power EV Fuel cell Truck

In Wheel Motor concept

Electric Mini with Wheel based Motors

Michelin HyLite Wheel Motor

Photo Credit: GM Press Release Image by John F Martin