Garry Golden

Could the ‘next big thing’ in energy be micro-packets’ and power producing appliances sold on retail shelves?

In fifty years what ideas in the energy industry will be seen as revolutionary? Efforts to end our dependency on oil - or providing billions of people with access to electricity? Which of these ideas could have a greater impact on protecting the environment?

What if that road to powering India, China and the rest of the planet passed through the retail shelves of Walmart and other retail giants?

We are all participating in a retail-based energy market when we purchase batteries for our portable electronics in the check-out aisle. But can we imagine a future where we purchase high density ‘packets’ of electricity that power our televisions, computers, lamps, refrigerators, air conditioners, and washer-dryers? Can we imagine fueling our cars in our garage or buying bricks of electricity at the corner store rather than at the pump?

Every object will have its own power source. No more cords. No more blackouts. No more monthly electricity bills. Everything is off-grid. And we are in control.

Current conversations on energy are dominated by climate change and the geopolitics of oil. But the ‘big’ story of 21st century energy is the new face of electricity – abundant, decentralized and personal.

In the Shadows of Oil: Hydrogen and the Second Age of Electricity
Electricity, not oil, powers our future. To imagine a future world in which Walmart and other retail giants emerge as major players in energy we must put ‘oil’ in its proper place – and begin a new conversation about electricity.

It is electricity that powers the majority of devices in our homes, our offices, and factories. Electricity is the foundation of the digital telecommunications revolution that is driving the global economy and growth industries of the next century.

To the billions of people around the world without access to power lines or personal vehicles– it is electricity which offers the most immediate path to uplifting their lives. Electricity is the key to growing global consumer markets- and the only way to secure energy independence for all individuals, nations and continents.

Oil, as a primary energy source, is the world’s largest industry and it is not going away any time soon! It powers the combustion engine which is the foundation of transporting most goods and people. Yet in the 21st century, it is unlikely that the internal combustion engine will continue as the growth platform for the transportation industry. The bulky, mechanical combustion engine is crippling the auto industry and holds little potential for reinvention. It is a legacy crisis that has a negative impact on design, manufacturing and new revenue models based on in car ’services’.

As long as combustion remains our primary means of propulsion, there are no viable ‘alternatives’ to oil. The real choice is between launching the era of the electric motor or sustaining the legacy of the combustion engine. The long term mission is to complete the electrification of society which began a century ago.

Electrons for the Global Middle Class
Global energy consumption will likely double in the next twenty five years – driven by demand in India and China. We should expect tremendous growth in all forms of primary energy sources (coal, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, et al). And we should expect hydrocarbons will remain the primary input of energy resources for the world in the coming decades. To address climate change we issues must move beyond the combustion of coal and gasoline – and accelerate renewable based energy.

But while we cannot predict the future mix of energy inputs - we expect that the preferred end form of energy will be negatively charged electrons. Electrons power the modern world and are more valuable to developing countries than oil. (China’s appetite for electricity is three times as large as oil.) This demand translates into tremendous growth for companies involved in the production, conversion, storage and delivery of electron energy carriers – electricity and hydrogen.

So why should Walmart care about electrons? For non-energy industry business leaders a big question is: How will we deliver electricity to the world? Part of the answer relates to the long term shift from ‘stream’ to ‘packets’.

Electricity: Streams to Packets…
Electrification began in the early 1900s around a strategy to deliver ‘streams’ of electricity from centralized power plants via transmission lines to wall sockets. This supported an era of home appliances (i.e. refrigerator - air conditioners) and an era of consumer electronics (i.e. televisions - computers).

The social changes that resulted from electrification are profound. It gave birth to modern industries (i.e. broadcast media, home appliances, computing) and created a social addiction to the streams of electrons delivered through wall-based sockets. But more recently our expectations for energy have changed…

In the last ten years our craving for portable power has grown exponentially around new devices - video cameras, laptops, cell phones and media players. We place a premium on mobility and now expect electricity in the form of portable ‘packets’ without the hassles of plugging cords into wall sockets.

Meanwhile batteries have failed to keep pace. The inconvenience of rechargers and the eye-sore of cords have made ‘plugging in’ an affliction of modern existence. The premium value for consumers is based on convenience, design and portability.

When will the pundits and editors of Wired Magazine declare ‘Plugging in is Dead’?!

Fundamental Problems with Electricity: Storage and Reliability
The convenience of mobility and our longing for a cord-free existence are not the only issues. Reliability and pricing are among the biggest issues for personal and industrial customers of the highly centralized, one way ‘stream’ of electricity.

In the western world centralized power plants, transmission lines and substations are being pushed to the limit. A recent study suggested that hospitals, server / data centers, biotechnology facilities and modern manufacturing plants lose upwards of $80 billions each year due to ‘power events’ such as transmission interruptions. [Source: LLNL, 2000]

The root problem is that the electrons of electricity are difficult to store locally. They can be stored chemically through batteries and through super-capacitors. But electrons can also be stored through another energy carrier – hydrogen.

Electricity is a flow of negatively charged electrons. Batteries deliver electrons through an electrochemical process which is grossly inadequate for modern needs. Batteries will continue to improve incrementally and will always retain niche applications. But their current position as the dominate source of portable electrical power will likely be replaced by a similar electrochemical device.

The fuel cell holds the greatest potential for delivering electrons reliably, cheaply and with a high conversion rate. Because fuel cells are often synonymous with hydrogen – it is important to understand the relationship of hydrogen to electricity.

In the simplest terms - hydrogen consists of one positive proton and one negative electron. It is electricity’s sister. Even when we speak of a future ‘hydrogen economy’ – we are talking of a world driven by electrons and electricity. But it is a world more decentralized – and more unified around electricity and electric motors.

Hydrogen is not a ‘replacement’ for oil. It is not a competitor to solar or wind. Electricity is the only true alternative to the combustion of oil – and hydrogen allows us to extend the realm of electricity.

Hydrogen is a stable and convenient way to store and deliver those electrons through fuel cells. Hydrogen and fuel cells will likely play a key role in the ‘greening’ of hydrocarbons – through coal gasification and electrochemical conversion of natural gas.

It also provides critical capabilities to renewable resources in terms of electron storage and remote farm production. Without hydrogen’s help renewable energy will have a difficult time gaining market share from hydrocarbons.

We are only at the beginning - and our knowledge base and engineering ability to extract and store hydrogen is increasing exponentially as we enter an age of nanoscale science and synthetic biology.

The key element of the Hydrogen Age is the decentralization of electricity. And it is the ability to deliver electricity in new formats which could allow retail companies such as Walmart to become major players in the distribution of energy.

Retail Energy – Part One: Micro-packets
Is this shift towards ‘packets’ of electricity what might offer retailers an opportunity to launch the next century of electricity?

In the most basic terms it is an evolution of the battery concept - built around hydrogen fuel cells. Billions of people would purchase high density packets of energy through retail channels rather than plug into wall sockets. No monthly agreements with utilities. And no limitations on how – or where electricity could be used.

In this world every object would contain its own power source and older ‘cord’ products would be plugged into a local power strip that is refilled with (non-toxic) packets rather than recharged.

Everything from light bulbs, iPods, laptops, refrigerators and air conditioners could be powered by a micro-fuel cell. Software would manage power usage and signal to owners when a new cartridge/packet is needed.

Everything would be ‘off-grid’. Nothing would be connected to a wall socket stream. Industrial sized blocks of energy could help factories and data server farms manage their precious power supplies locally and reduce their vulnerability to interruptions and peak pricing periods.

The implications for power generation are equally profound. Remote wind and solar farms could generate, store and ship electron power without the expense of connecting to transmission lines. Hydroelectric dams (which currently ramp down at night) could operate at full power. The challenge is storing electrons safely and at high densities.

While it is too early to pick a winner of how we might store electrons, there are a host of competing technologies within the electrochemical world- batteries, capacitors and fuel cells. Each will likely find its own set of market applications.

There is also the strategy of storing electrons via hydrogen. This would likely be based on a solid state storage solution. One notable class of materials with ideal properties is metal organic frameworks (MOFs). These ‘sponges’ have the highest surface area of any known material and might someday absorb and release hydrogen into fuel cells. [MOFs also absorb carbon at extremely high rates and could be used to capture emissions from today’s worst power plants.]

Understanding our place in the Hype Cycle
The difference from plugging into a ‘stream’ versus refilling a ‘packet’ might seem subtle, but the implications of growing global access to electricity – and satisfying the expectations of mobile (and design conscious) consumers should not be underestimated.

The marketplace advantages of packets are – performance (a leap in power density), reliability, design (no more cords), and convenience (no more plugging in rechargers).

In the past few years it has become fashionable to be a hydrogen skeptic. We are clearly in the ‘disillusionment’ stage of the ‘hype cycle’. There are those who believe the era of packets can never be realized. Converting hydrogen is a ‘net energy loss,’ we have no safe way of storing it, etc. But these arguments often overlook the disruptive nature of technological change. And skeptics ignore the likelihood that the nanoscale design of catalysts and membranes will dramatically improve efficiencies and performance.

Along its evolutionary path – ‘packets’ - will likely be a layer to the ‘stream’ rather than its direct replacement. (e.g. substations could benefit from local storage of electrons to manage peak period demand.) But the long term potential of decentralization might be one of the most ignored topics in energy.

Retail Energy – Part Two: Energy Appliances
Beyond selling micro-packets of energy – retailers such as Walmart, Home Depot and Best Buy might also be the primary distributors of energy appliances that produce, convert, store and deliver energy to our homes and offices. This is likely the first step for the retail energy industry.

The foundation of the hydrogen economy is the local appliance – not a massive ‘hydrogen power generation station’. While we sleep, hydrogen power would be converted from natural gas or electrolysis of water – right in our garage. Nanoscale designed membranes will assure this process is efficient and affordable. The hydrogn can then be stored in a solid state and then used to refuel our electric vehicles or converted in a fuel cell to power the home. Imagine having six month’s supply of energy in a sponge-box the size of a small refrigerator.

We will not likely see gasoline stations converted into ‘hydrogen stations’. Instead automobile and consumer appliance companies are developing home hydrogen fueling stations.

Industrial sized appliances could also be used to capture and store energy produced by remote wind, solar and wave ‘farms’- thus reducing the capital costs of connecting to high power transmission lines. Ocean-based wind farms could convert electricity into hydrogen stored in large solid blocks that are transported by ship to seaports around the world. The decentralization of conversion/storage could also be used in existing power plants and substations to manage peak load demand.

Why Walmart? Role of the Retailer
Why would Walmart embark on a journey to become the world’s largest distributor of energy? What could be incentive for them to declare boldly - ‘lowest price on energy – always!’

‘Good Image’ or ‘Good Business’?
Walmart has been proactive in responding to less than positive press coverage over the past five years. They have entered the world of organic foods, launched its own ‘Sustainability Council’ – pledging to reduce its own energy consumption and are committed to pushing sales of compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Walmart might also embark on its journey because electricity represents an enormous stream of revenue. It might also see its actions of bringing billions of people online part of a master planned virtuous cycle.

Electricity uplifts the lives of consumers. Wider access to portable power could accelerate the growth of non-western economies and increase demand for all goods, products and services. Wider access to portable power would also reduce the spread of cheap (and dirty) diesel generators that are taking over rural China and India.

Design, Design, Design
Taking all objects off the grid also opens up a new world for product design and applications. The convergence of OLED based lighting, wireless networks (e.g. RFIDs, Zigbee, etc.) and off-grid power could launch a new era in home design. Freeing ourselves from the wall socket could be a boom for well known industries – televisions, lighting, indoor air systems, et al.

Building the 21st Century Electricity Industry…

Micro-packets and appliances have a bright future in launching the second age of electricity around abundance and decentralization.

Could this decentralization of electricity open up new opportunities for retail brands such as Walmart and manufacturers such as General Electric?

Somewhere in the shadows of our attention towards oil, we might be missing the next great opportunity in energy - micro-packets and the energy producing appliances to generate them.

It is too early to know which breakthrough technologies might enable the decentralization of electricity. But every journey requires a destination. Electricity powers the future.

The real question for the 21st century is - how will we deliver electricity to the world? Streams or packets?!

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” was his response.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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About the author:

Garry Golden is a strategist / futurist based in Boston, MA. He holds a Masters degree in Studies of the Future and has consulted on projects with IBM/ATLA, Harlequin Romance Enterprises, and Cobb-Vantress (of Tyson Foods).