Changing our Minds About Energy

There are few things as certain to the average American as energy. Flip a switch, the lights turn on. Simple, right?

 For being something so incrediblyessential to nearly every aspect of daily life, I can think of no single person concerning themselves about whether or not they’ll be able to charge their iPhone or turn on their TV, aside from the occasional power outage. For the developed world, electricity is as much a certainty as the sun rising tomorrow.

 But imagine you are one of the 1.3 billion people on this planet living without any form of reliable electricity.

I realize that’s incredibly difficult (myself included) to empathize with, but it’s a reality that an unacceptable portion of the world’s population has to face every single day.

Their primary sources of light: the sun and fire…

 So what do we do…build a grid over massive portions of Africa and India?

 How about innovate solutions that are not only effective, but practical.

 Here’s a perfect example of an entrepreneur on the forefront of energy innovation: Jessica O. Matthews, founder of renewable energy startup Uncharted Play.

Their first product, the SOCCKET, is a soccer ball that utilizes and stores rotational energy which can then be used as a light source. Another product, the PULSE, is a jump rope that functions in a similar fashion.

 But Jessica has done more than just create a new light for people in the third world…she envisions our relationship to energy in a completely different fashion. Instead of a “hoard and save” model for energy, she sees it becoming a “continuous and on-demand energy experience.”

 And I would argue that it’s this type of innovation and thinking that will solve the developed world’s impending energy crisis. The demand for energy continues to rise, and eventually, we won’t be able to satiate it on our current course.

 We cannot simply build more lines, grow the grid, and continue to produce more and more waste. Our environment and economy will not sustain it in the long run.

Think about batteries, which are becoming more and more pervasive in everyday life with mobile electronics. The conventional way to improve them is to:

1. Improve the battery so it stores more energy, or…
2. Decrease the size of the battery while holding its storage capacity constant, allowing you to place more batteries in the same space.

 But the technology behind most of our rechargeable batteries, lithium-ion, has existed since the 70s, and we’ve reached a point where improvements are marginal at best. Think about the original iPhone and how much computing and camera power it had compared to today’s current versions. Now think of how much better their battery has become over that same period. Not even close to the same magnitude of improvement, right?

 The United States, and the developed world as a whole, needs a complete mindset shift with our relationship to energy--including how we generate it, consume it, and store it--in order for us to not only become less dependent on the almighty grid, but to make leaps in energy tech that mirror those found in computer processing, camera optics, etc.

 It’s a mindset that entails the average person taking more OWNERSHIP of where they get their energy, and becoming more mindful of their consumption.

 Picture this situation, which I believe will become the norm in a not-so-distant future. You have your house or apartment. Its sources of power are:

• A battery, which could power all of your lights, appliances, and electronics for about 12 straight hours.
• Solar panels on the roof which charge and re-charge the battery.
• A connection to a micro-grid (i.e. your neighbors and people in your direct vicinity) which can provide ample power if needed.
• A connection to the macro-grid, which will provide power if the first three fail.

Notice how the primary source of our energy today becomes the back-up source of tomorrow.

You only use the power you need, when you need it. It becomes part of a cycle, one that YOU have partial ownership of, rather than being a one-way street from a massive grid that is generating and storing energy by leveraging economies of scale, and inherently creating excess/wasted energy.

And the thing is, the technology for this exact scenario exists TODAY, along with many more creative innovations. There are sail boats that derive their on-board power through the motion of the waves around them. There are buses in China that charge in the time it takes to stop and drop off passengers, and trains that charge up via contact strips as they are arriving at the next station. Each of these solutions creates much less excess waste, and provides the energy that is needed, nothing more.

And when technology like the type that Uncharted Play is developing makes its way into consumer electronics, imagine your phone or tablet charging itself via the motion you make walking. Or think about your car as a mobile storage unit, able to drive long distances AND provide energy to a whole host of devices at a remote location. Camping, anyone?

All of these solutions bring us further away from the grid, and closer to to the “experience” that Jessica O. Matthews envisioned.

The technology exists TODAY. It’s not that we can’t make renewable, cyclical energy consumption and storage a reality, it’s that we don’t yet have a compelling reason to.

But when we do find that compelling reason, be it climate change, out of control energy prices, or something else, I’m entirely optimistic in our ability think creatively and shift our minds on energy. The days of hoarding and storing are coming to an end. Energy innovation has already started…