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Radical, Audacious Energy Technologies
DavidPoli
Posts: 39 XPRIZE
Energy is a complex topic that exists at the nexus of technology, policy, economics, and social behavior. Many impactful technological solutions already exist for decarbonization, electrification, and clean energy resilience and access, but there are regulatory and economic hurdles that prevent their implementation. These problems are best solved through policy and the creation of new business models.
At XPRIZE, our specialty is true technological innovation. If we are trying to solve a problem that requires activism or creative finance, we may not be thinking audacious enough, or looking far enough ahead.
What are some nascent or conceptual technologies that could have an enormous impact on decarbonization and other problems beyond? What’s not getting the attention it deserves? What could benefit from the push that an XPRIZE provides? Look for something that’s up to ten years down the road, but you’d be excited about if it was a reality today.
At XPRIZE, our specialty is true technological innovation. If we are trying to solve a problem that requires activism or creative finance, we may not be thinking audacious enough, or looking far enough ahead.
What are some nascent or conceptual technologies that could have an enormous impact on decarbonization and other problems beyond? What’s not getting the attention it deserves? What could benefit from the push that an XPRIZE provides? Look for something that’s up to ten years down the road, but you’d be excited about if it was a reality today.
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Comments
There are many options for carbon capture to decarbonize the modern global economy, and many of those are actually outside of the energy industry such as dealing with the impact of livestock with plant-grown meat as people from Impossible Food Labs are doing. Nevertheless, in Energy I see that there a few clear pathways to speed up decarbonization 1) Provide incentives to existing technologies and solutions (which I see the trend moving in that direction) 2) Incentivize development of high uptake potential solutions.
These solutions, which are related to your question related to technologies will be largely dependent on the application and geographical location for which they are intended. For the united states, which is the largest carbon emitter in the world I would say that molten salt reactors paired with hydrogen production through electrolysis seem to be a winner technology solution, in all honesty far more than current alternative energy sources, due to the availability of resources from local communities which that in itself would create a benefit in a reduction of carbon from logistics. The second-largest emitter which is China is rather complex as the main issue here is with transparency so that a proper strategy can be formulated, but fixing this is rather harder and might not be feasible unless there is direct cooperation with their local government. For India which is growing fast I believe that decarbonization can be achieved rather quickly by implementing better environmental rules and metrics, and also making people accountable for those (perhaps through incentives such as carbon credit trading), for example using carbon capture for carbon electricity plants (which is more realistic than expecting all energy to go solar overnight).
Regards,
Steve
Generation
Storage
Distribution
For example, imagine solar powered autonomous robots roaming a desert turning sand* into low cost solar panels, and robots connecting these panels up into a smart growing network.
* Sand is the raw ingredient for silicon semiconductors.
@akb - Thank you for listing out those amazing potential technologies solutions. In your views, where area would benefit or would have maximum impact from the push that an XPRIZE provides. Also which solution you think people should work on to get maximum impact globally.
US Patent # 10,593,778 B1 Electrostatic Doping Based All GNR Tunnel Field Effect Transistor.
March 17, 2020
The seasonal aspect could also be addressed with an international power network. A breakthrough in ambient temperature superconductors for a power network would be fantastic - and worthy of an XPRIZE.
Plus an XPRIZE for the rapid deployment of power resources (energy, storage and/or distribution) at low cost would be very welcome given the immediate global challenge (climate change). [e.g. an automated/robotic solution]
@akb an XPRIZE in ambient temp superconductors would certainly be very exciting and highly audacious. In your personal opinion as a true veteran of the XPRIZE ecosystem, do you think such a goal would also meet the audacious+achievability metric?
@curranc, I'm curious to unpack here with you more on what you would consider disruptive approaches to distributing or storing energy, compared to the traditional utility model. I know you listed some example categories, but would love to understand more specifically, especially when also taking into account your last comment on balancing technology with current capabilities vis-a-vis higher efficiency.
@JessicaYoon Good point. It is certainly audacious. Is it achievable within say five years? I'm not sure. There is certainly a significant amount of research being conducted into the physics of superconducting materials. Recently it was announced that room temperature superconductivity had been demonstrated. The catch was that it requires extremely high pressure (meaning that specific approach isn't viable for practical purposes). At least it does demonstrate that progress is being made. Perhaps an XPRIZE would speed up such research. Perhaps with the aid of supercomputers and AI we might achieve such a breakthrough.
“The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.”
Generation:
MIT SPARC fusion reactor: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc, https://cfs.energy/
Storage: Energy Vault https://energyvault.com/
Distribution: via fiber optics: https://www.rp-photonics.com/power_over_fiber.html. I believe Boeing was experimenting with this technology for the 787 to reduce potential for sparks near wing fuel tanks.
This chart includes all greenhouse gas emissions, of which CO2 is cited as ~65%. In the U.S., as a proxy for developed markets, ~81% CO2 emissions as a share of GHGs, there are similar trends but electricity is ~27% of emissions and agriculture drops to 10%.
Therefore, many of the key questions should be directed around technologies supporting the replacement of onsite combustion-based processes (energy production for factories, heating, and other process sources) with non-emission on-site alternatives, or in facilitating the deployment and connection of these energy consumers to the electrical grid with electricity-based alternatives.
Many of the barriers to adoption require overcoming hurdles that are not directly technological breakthroughs (i.e., doing what's never been done before; e.g., fusion reactor), but rather facilitating the rapid adoption and deployment of new technologies and architectures that address these needs. For example, the rapid conversion of vehicle fleets to EV would necessitate overcoming at least three logistical and supply chain issues:
Given the extent of non-electrical energy in emissions, non-electrical/grid-based solutions likely need to be considered for many/most applications. Some may be replaceable with batteries, but given that a battery has ~32x the mass of a similar amount of petroleum, transporting fuel to sites is its own challenge. H2 checks a lot of boxes but requires safe storage, transport, and release/use mechanisms. Alternatively, one could look to make these solutions 'as clean as possible' (e.g., swap petroleum-based fuels for CH4, etc.) and make up the difference with investments in sequestration.
As such, a prize including the following requirements would address a majority of emissions sources (including possibly some relating to electrical generation if existing generators were converted to use this source; such a conversion would also avoid the lengthy process of installing new HV lines to move electricity from renewable producing areas to consuming areas):
Meanwhile, given your background I feel you would have inputs to share on these discussions:
We would love to know your thoughts on any/all of the above discussions.