The field of alternative and renewable energy still remains in its emerging stages after almost thirty years of incubation. This almost mirrors the personal computer development stage in the late 20th Century. What this translates into from my desk is that most potential clients are either early stage to emerging stage firms still being financed by private investor capital, recently IPO'd or merged and acquired by a large corporate entity seeking to enter into the market. The earlier the stage the more the prospects for senior executive management in the areas of finance or business development, the later the stage the more the prospects for senior engineering or scientific talent flushing out or expanding the core technology.
There are four distinct areas of this market place each with a particular market place.
Renewable energy---meaning solar, wind, thermol, hydro-powered & wave generated energies. In each of these sub-markets there are particular development curves and investor activities.
Generally speaking solar offers the greatest return and most far-reaching technological and market place penetration. That said, solar is really in its infancy in realizing its potential but then again it will take many years to retrofit to integrate the technologies into a distributed system. The tipping point will be when composite materials for skins of buidings and energy using items will be integrated into the structure or item. Until then solar energy will remain a separate component system for either individual or energy generation systems. The biggest tipping point will be when the cost per KW drops down below 10 cents instead of above $1.40 and above. Here the opportunities lie in overall business development, engineering, basic and applied science and marketing.
Wind energy currently offers the fastest return on today's current investment in that essentially the technology is fully flushed out except for the normal incremental improvements i.e., using lighter or stronger materials and expanding the optimum ratio of wind speed for power generation, disruption technologies are not on the horizon. The biggest area of opportunties are finance, project management in site construction, maintenance, and operations. The biggest hurdle is essentially building and thereby reversing the transmission line flow from coastal locations inward to central plains outward to major metropolitan areas. Most optimum Wind Farm locations are located West Texas northward following the old cattle trails all the way to the Canadian border. However mega farms are probably the occasion for the US to reach energy output targets set by various States the US will have to build over 700 Wind Farms. The other problem is that wind farm generation is actually not as consistent as solar and cannot be relied upon as a backbone grid source. Yet it's economics are quite attractive and like Europe the proliferation will be strong over the next 20 years.
Hydro-powered is old school applying the technology from the water mills at rapids, while wave powered technology is in its infancy. The consistency of water currents in large bodies of water make for an attractive, opportunitistic energy capturing model. In this areas of finance, applied engineering and entreneurialship will be strongly demanded in this embroytic area.
The next area of the spectrum is alternative energy or fuels. Let me say that in my view anything connected to the internal combustion engine or fire powered heat is a dead end. The carbon dioxide and other emissions will either be outlawed or greatly taxed as being an uneconomical process. The change will be as dramatic as coal burning in urban areas after World War II when whole cities outlawed coal furnaces and moved home heating to oil, natural gas or electric because of the soot pollution. That said alternative fuels as in ethanol, methanol, natural methane gas, will be demanded for use in fuel cell technology since its emission will be H20. Simultaneously hydrogen based fuel cells will proliferate as technology emerges to create a pure hydrogen source from inert substances like water. Naturally this energy source will fuel all forms of portable products and systems be it transportation or personal devices. Finally stored power, what we call batteries today will proliferate in their use as technology advances to store and recharge in ever larger and faster rates. Stored power will be useful for devices that either use surge power or those which use a steady electric surge. In this area business development executives, business managers, scientists, and engineers will be demanded.
Overall the explosive growth of the alternative and renewable sector is going to be continuely fueled by the ever escalating costs of the petroleum based economic model. As I write today's blog oil prices are ranging at around $86.00 + for a barrel of crude, up from around $65.00 this summer. Oil economists believe that we are in peak oil [production] world wide currently and that by 2009 the price will continue to climb in spurts to a level double and even two and one-half times today's level. This will eventually cripple the world economy if it has not already put it on the brink. Long term the forces of the ecology & environment and political-social-economic related to global warming will determine a cost of the carbon emissions and begin to economically capture that cost making the petroleum-based economy obsolete. These two forces will further escalate the move to a New Energies Economy, later problemly known as a zero carbon-based energy economy. Bottom line change is going to happen. Whole paradigms will effect companies and organizations from how they organize to how they produce and deliver their product or service.
