Author Archives: @paul4innovating

Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

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Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

I firmly believe the Energy System needs a very systematic and consistent evaluation as we undertake the changes from a fossil-reliant ecosystem into a clean, renewable one, with the overriding obligation to address climate change.

As you consider a change of this magnitude, you recognize how complicated this becomes, and the deeper your thinking becomes, hence why I like thinking through this with the use of mind maps.

I would argue we need a consistent framework to keep working through all the changes that will be undertaken in the next twenty to thirty years to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully;  resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

Within my first post, “Changing the Energy Ecosystem“, I began to lay out the need to change the energy dynamics by redirecting them away from the existing systems and structures.

This is my second post, which continues to build out the new Energy Ecosystem.

This post focuses on the two points of Reforming Business models and the needed Resolutions to take this different thinking forward, then I will take out in the third post, Innovation & Ingenuity, Experimentation & Rapid Pilots,  and Leapfrog Opportunities.

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Changing the Energy Ecosystem

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We have a very unhealthy world.

When I set up this posting site https://innovating4energy.com in December 2019, I stated within the site identity the tagline “a transition in all of our lives.” Little did I know how our lives would change at that time and continually do so in a very unhealthy geopolitical environment where collaboration is rapidly deteriorating to solve our rapidly warming planet.

I have found working in this energy transition space to be extremely hard, if not at times overwhelming. It is so complex, challenging and caught between the extremes of needed change and no change. You wonder what will happen, not just in the year 2050 as that year we need to have achieved bringing our world to a net-zero in carbon.

Just how we will be capable of transitioning to a net zero energy system by 2050, ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robust economic growth is seemingly getting harder to grasp than it was a year ago or even when I started this posting site. Continue reading →

Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition

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Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition

I have on the door of my office the approach I am taking to build out my understanding and pace myself in what I can absorb, translate and offer views upon on the Energy Transition.

My site www.innovating4energy.website is where I outline and see my value contribution in applying the “multiplier effect” to any discovery and validation of the Energy Transition. The value proposition is in accelerating the clients/readers’ understanding of where the potential growth and impact points with the objective of triggering a new business opportunity for it to occur.

What we offer is exploring the Energy Landscape in understanding, so this can then be translated into fresh, exciting Energy Value Positioning Offerings. Continue reading →

Unlocking your challenges and issues

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Two really important points have troubled me in the past months and given growing challenges and issues relating to the energy transition.

The failure of CoP26 lingers very heavily and now as we are caught up in the Russian- Ukrainian war we are seeing so many reverses on pledges made in Glasgow or simply waiting to see where this crisis will take us all.

It seems to be that the lack of positives is presently being defeated with all the negatives I have been recently reading about in disruption, energy risks and the growing energy crisis. A level of panic is setting in. It does seem we are losing real momentum on reducing carbon emissions as we fall back on fossil fuel supplies.

At the UN’s Cop26 climate summit in November 2021, after a quarter-century of annual negotiations that as yet have failed to deliver a fall in global emissions, countries around the world finally included the word “coal” in their concluding decision. That is now back on the agenda, with old coal mines even being reopened.

Even this belated mention of the dirtiest fossil fuel was fraught, leaving a “deeply sorry” Cop president, Alok Sharma, fighting back tears on the podium after India announced a last-minute softening of the need to “phase out coal” to “phase down coal”.

The really shocking failure at CoP26 was this.

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Direct Air Capture- a viable dream or impossible

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Courtesy of CB Insights

I have been working through the latest IEA report “Direct Air Capture: a key technology for net-zero”

I have to be utterly honest here, I really struggle with the viability (as it stands) for Direct Air Capture (DAC) to be a significant contributor to achieving net-zero by 2050.

If we cannot soon demonstrate AT SCALE the viability I think this pursuit of capturing CO2 directly from the air is a distraction, huge experimentation that deflects us and much needed financial and human capital away from more proven (at scale) technologies or solutions. Continue reading →

Understanding the innovation needs of the energy transition

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I need to remind myself that my objective is to focus on different aspects of innovation needs within the energy transition. It should be simple for me, but it certainly is not!

The sheer scope of the energy transition often pulls me away in so many different directions from my innovation focal point. Equally, it can force me as a necessity to understand a significant amount of advice, detail and opinion, so I can far more appreciate where innovation has an even more significant potential to contribute.

I keep constantly investing my time in growing my further understanding, expertise, and thinking of energy transition ‘cross-over points’ where we move away from the old energy systems into the new ones.

This knowledge understanding provides some distinctive and inter-related “core” topics, which are admittedly time-consuming but essential based on the in-depth research undertaken.

What I look for is where innovation has a more catalytic effect as these might become ‘flash points’ of future challenges that need a new level of creative or innovative thinking.

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Exploring Energy Fitness Landscapes

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I have been building out the value of having a Fitness Landscape framework within the Energy Transition and why it makes sense.

I am looking at the Energy Transition from an evolving technology innovation perspective. In other words, what “forces” can be identified or promoted that can transform the existing energy system through the pursuit of the new invention, innovation, or technological advancement.

Specifically, ones that will be needed over such an extended time and complexity of change that this Energy Transition will take, upwards of twenty to thirty years to give it an unstoppable momentum.

When you look through the lens of innovating at the Energy Transition, you are often questioning the fitness, or the reality to achieve something. Continue reading →

Energy Dependence, Vulnerability and Risks

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We are presently seeing the vulnerability of the European markets to supply dependence and especially risks of reliance upon Gas from Russia. So how much is Europe dependent on Russian gas?
The EU is so dependent on it, and because it has committed to limiting its greenhouse gas emissions. The EU imported 155 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in 2021, almost half (45%) of its gas imports and nearly 40% of the total amount used, according to the IEA.

There is currently a real scramble to change the dependencies due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the implications to Europe, and this growing recognition that Europe is faced with a real energy crisis for the next decade.

The current “talking up” of replacing oil, coal and gas with renewables of wind, solar, green hydrogen solutions (PEM Electrolyzers), new grid infrastructure and battery storage means potentially some very volatile and disruptive energy management problems in the short to medium term.

Over now for the next 10 years replacing existing energy generating solutions, dependent on oil, coal and gas with ones based on renewable solutions needs to be even more central to energy management.

But we also need to be recognizing the next crisis following this present one, that is rapidly coming towards us is the dependences on essential minerals and who controls these and that is China.

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We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition

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No energy transition will be achieved without invention and innovation,  yet we are failing badly at present to fund research, development and deployment. We are losing the race to stop our planet warming as our innovative human endeavours are not at the level they should be, or we simply lack the “will” to make the changes we so desperately need to undergo to protect our planet.

My focus continues to get deeper and deeper into the Energy Transition from my innovation perspective, it is highly critical to our future.

I provide different perspectives and thinking, firstly on my innovating4energy.website for my offerings of service and a dedicated posting site for energy, innovating4energy.com  that provides a decent mix of thought leadership, news and awareness, for the Energy Transition.

Do visit these sites if you are curious and want to understand more about the Energy Transition we are all undergoing (really all of us in the World). Also, I can only encourage you to get in touch to see if we have areas of some collaboration opportunities.

So let me get back to what this post is about, providing critical reference points on technologies we need to improve and innovate.

One really rich reference site is the Internation Energy Agency, the IEA who provide some incredible, in-depth knowledge for “Shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for all.”

On their extensive site, they provide constant updates. This site is primarily a place I go back and constantly check when it comes to the progress on the technologies that need to be researched, developed and deployed.

Having the insights and their knowledge helps knowing if we are on track and going to be successful in transforming our Energy Systems. And make the dramatic contribution level for us to achieve the net-zero pathway we need to have in place by 2050.

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A reply to McKinsey and its Net-zero transition report by the MD of One Earth

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I have been providing extracts from the recent McKinsey report in two posts recently,

My first post was  explaining their scenario limitations with the message “we hope that this scenario-based analysis will help decision-makers refine their understanding of the nature and the magnitude of the changes the net-zero transition would entail and the scale of response needed to manage it.”

Then the second post was to re-produce and show their summary of costs and outcomes.

I did not make any personal comments in these two posts, I found the report difficult to comprehend and have been hoping someone far more qualified could provide a view to add or to challenge this report view

I personally found the costs absolutely staggering. I find the disruption frightening. So, we face significant electricity price increases and uncertainties of continuity of supply, very limited job gains over job destructions, whole industries and supply chains wiped out, steel and cement price increases of 30 to 45%, investment inequality even more.

The way McKinsey has phrased this does need deeper clarity. The point is they highlight the effect of the additional $3.5 trillion, their view of the additional amounts we need to spend on achieving Net-zero, not the predicted total spend of $9.2 trillion needed each year. To put this increase in comparative terms, the $3.5 trillion is approximately equivalent, in 2020, to half of global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue, and 7 per cent of household spending. YIKES! That is of a magnitude that is way beyond me to comprehend. For Real?

Seriously, do any of the energy experts here in Energy Central contributors recognize this as the future conversation in the boardrooms or public institutions? Now if we have a disorderly transition it gets worse.

I felt this report needs understanding, hence my staying to the report faithfully. I made an appeal of “I can’t get my head around this”- can anyone offer insights to counter this was a reply I made on comments provided to where I had equally posted this on the energy-central site.

Energy Central is a membership-based Professional Network serving the global electric power industry

Today I was reading a reply to this McKinsey report by Karl Burkart, Managing Director One Earth, formerly DiCaprio Foundation Dir. Science & Technology.

I reproduce this here as it challenges the work of McKinsey significantly and gives me a better framing of my concerns and shock. Continue reading →