Author Archives: @paul4innovating

Has the pace of ambition in the Energy Transition suddenly vanished?

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Is this the perfect storm we are facing today, or does that one still lie ahead?

We are all presently caught up in a global crisis triggered by the Corona Virus (COVID-19), and the uncertainties of this and all the imposed restrictions have spread fear and levels of panic that the stock markets went into a “meltdown” mode.

Then we had the breaking up of the OPEC+ agreement of the amount of oil to be pumped with Saudi Arabia opening-up its supply to cause an oil price crash.

What will further happen in the next few days and weeks is anyone’s guess as more countries go into ‘lockdown’ to stop the spread of the virus. The response to this is governed by the protection of life and the health care systems, systems that are rapidly becoming overwhelmed.

The actions we all take to protect ourselves; and those around us will occupy much of our time in self-imposed ‘quarantine’ or company-imposed remote work. We will attempt to function as normal but let’s be honest these are not regular times, nor is the future going to go back to these. We are in new territory for where the world is going

“We are even not at the end of the beginning, certainly nowhere near the beginning of the end.”

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Hydrogen: its future promise to decarbonize the world

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In our need to have in place a low-carbon or zero-carbon world, Hydrogen supply seems to be an essential part of that.

The ‘promise’ of Green Hydrogen produced with renewable electricity offers the growth potential that may be similar to solar or wind if we provide sustained investment and technology focus.

Hydrogen deserves the same levels of support that went into solar energy over the past twenty years to realize its potential. Hydrogen is an extremely efficient form of energy that burns the cleanest of all fuels, emitting only water vapor; Hydrogen is one of the leading green energy sources. Continue reading →

The different innovative Business Models in the Energy Transition

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The Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur

We are witnessing a sweeping change being undertaken within the energy sector. The shifting away from traditional models of energy supply, based on one fuel, with limited or no choice for the ultimate consumer, has been our energy system for decades.

Today the energy dynamics of supply and demand are significantly changing. Monopolies are breaking down; be these in the single use of one fuel, in the past fossil fuel (oil, gas, coal) to generate the energy are now being challenged and progressively replaced with the cleaner, more friendly sustaining alternatives offered by solar, wind, water. These offer solutions to bringing down our carbon emissions but are far more dramatic in their impact on the energy systems we have in place.

New enabling technologies are opening us to new opportunities. Continue reading →

Economics, Politics and Climate need to come together.

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Image credit @PerryGrone Unsplash

In the last few months, I have got increasingly nervous about where we are NOT going on climate change

The bush fires of Australia have been shocking, devastating, and crippling. They catalyze the concerns we all should have.

Each of us might or likely will face a shocking, devastating or crippling “event” in our lives in the next ten to twenty years. I feel it is inevitable, irrespective if we stopped all the debates and did the level of investment, we need to reverse the climate warming.

The next ten years of our investments in cutting emissions and refocusing our energy needs must go towards clean energy (renewables). Our ability to make a change will determine if these events recently will become the new norm, as our planet spins even more out of our ability to control climate-warming through greenhouse gases.

So I have to move through this shocking, devastating, and crippling effect but have I have begun to accept  the reality that our world is in a “state of climate alarm,” not just a “climate emergency.”

I have never before published one article on each of my three posting sites. This post I just had to. It is shaping me in how I look at innovation, collaboration, the power of networks, ecosystems and most of all, in our world of energy transition needed to reverse climate warming. So apologies if you see it on three separate sites but I don’t apologize for my real, underlying concern on where we are seemingly heading as a world.

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What lies at the core of Smart Infrastructure is connectivity.

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When you stop and think, you realize that infrastructure, at its core, is undoubtedly about connectivity.

Infrastructure enables people and what they need, so as to function and thrive, to provide the structures to get them from place to place, to provide sustaining residence and prospects.

If we make this infrastructure “smart,” what will that give us?

“Smart” as a concept is not just supplying the connectivity but also delivering the sense-making capability from what it offers, through the data provided. We can model, use big data analytics, apply analysis and data mine, to make this set of connections, to improve our intelligence.

As we build the smart infrastructure, we are developing intelligent infrastructure; where we learn, improve decisions, and advance our abilities to connect and improve the essential functions that infrastructure offers. ‘Smart’ can potentially connect all the parts of the city. Continue reading →

Tackling the Barriers to Smart Infrastructure?

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There are many barriers or concerns about implementing Smart Infrastructure that we need to address; otherwise, it will be held back if we do not adequately resolve these.

Each of the barriers to achieving a Smart Infrastructure that is outlined below will be hard in its own right to resolve but all of these will need tackling to provide the momentum we need

Addressing these fifteen issues lies the resolution we need to have, to overcome many of the barriers to Smart Infrastructure. Within these ‘barriers’ I offer some initial suggestions on solutions that can help in overcoming or resolving them Continue reading →

Placing context into the Energy Transition-part two

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Image credit Paweł Czerwiński
@pawel_czerwinski via Unsplash

Energy is in a massive state of change, truly global in its transition. There is a power sector transformation going on, towards a low-carbon, reliable, affordable and secure energy system.

The need is to manage the transition from the old, more reliant on fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal) into the renewables /wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass). Turning to innovation in new solutions is making this all possible.

For me, the interesting thing is that innovation is the engine powering the energy transformation and that the pace of discovery, exploration, and solution is beginning to happen at a rapid rate of demand-driven need. As someone engaged in innovation, the energy transformation story is getting really exciting.

You sense the future is changing, gaining unstoppable momentum. The difficulty for us all is this sort of transformation is at such a scale of complexity, rapid pace and variability; it is highly complex to relate too.

Here I am wanting to focus on one part of the energy transition taking place; solutions that are unlocking the energy systems flexibility. Continue reading →

Managing Urban Transition

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Today 55% of the world’s population resides in urban areas; in2050, that will be staggering at 68% of the world population will be living in cities.

We are heading for an urban crisis unless we recognize the four parts of the urban transition and bring them together.

Urbanization needs to take the idea of smart, through data, and make the city intelligent.

Urban transitions are both physical and technology solutions combining. The solutions need always to change the current performance and delivery of a different sense of hope. 

So we have Four Parts needed for Urban Transition? Continue reading →

Placing context into the Energy Transition-part one

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Abstract Sandy Dessert credit: @USGS

The energy transition we are undertaking is highly complex, and it is multiple ecosystems interacting, some parts being replaced, others introduced. It has a significant “layering effect”.

We have to strip away some parts and equally add new layers but we need to maintain the integrity of the energy system (supply) at all times.

Providing energy is as embedded as deeply as you can get into the socio-economic system we are all part of. Changing the energy-generating composition is critical in reducing climate warming but it is incredibly hard to manage the transition. It is as complex as it can get.

A sustaining, dedicated effort will take us twenty to thirty years to make the “basic” transitions. To maintain it, strength it and reinforce it will be well beyond all our lifetimes, actually all of the 21st century, to (fully) reverse the global warming effect we are experiencing, and return our planet into a more balanced one where the “human effect” gets fully mitigated. Continue reading →

Australia- a global wake-up call

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Is Australia the World’s Wake Up call for radically different climate management? What is playing out in front of our eyes is the effects of a climate crisis across the whole continent. Is this a sign for us all to heed, in what it is going to mean for many of us if the world continues to warm?

In the past few weeks, we have been witnessing Australia grappling with massive bushfires fuelled by record-breaking temperatures and months, even years of severe drought.

For some time, scientists have warned that a hotter, drier climate will contribute to fires becoming more frequent and intense with the conditions being faced in Australia.

The question currently being asked is whether these fires, more intense and regular, are linked to climate change and within the control of Australia? Continue reading →