Hi Jennifer,
We are involved in a not-for-profit project to develop a system for clean, location independent and renewable electrical power generation that can be built from common materials.
The system design of the project is being managed in a not-for-profit and open manner and applies the same methodologies and principles that have made Linux and other Open Source Software projects such a success.
The information is presented here: http://www.energytower.org
We have some initial electrical and thermal output calculations of the system for various locations here:
http://www.energytower.org/index.html#Calculations
I believe that this project will create an implementable, economical, reliable and serviceable system. Although the entire project is being managed in a not-for-profit manner, the intent is to work with business.
The detailed design, manufacture of the sub-assemblies, construction, system operation and integration with existing operations and waste heat sources can have large economic benefits for the entire economy.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Rohatensky
Regina, Canada
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Right off the bat, I see that this proposal, as described in the “Economics” section, is playing games with the dollar issue by bringing in subjective intangible costs and saying that the initial capital cost is irrelevant. If the payback of the investment is too long or too large, I’m not interested. I get so tired of these games or simply hoping for the best.
Hmmm. Not for profit.
If it can’t be profitable, then it’s not efficient enough to compete. Which means it would need some kind of public subsidy.
Maybe a carbon tax would work. Then it might be profitable. Heck of a way to run things.
The cost of capital is a real cost. For renewable energy systems, it represents most of the price that people will have to pay when buying the energy produced by the system. Poeple will not be willing to pay the price if there are cheaper options.
It’s not that difficult to dream up renewable power generation schemes when cost is not an issue. It’s economics that dictates which of the schemes are used.
For other physically possible but uneconomic systems, see
http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/technology.htm
http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,67121,00.html?tw=wn_7techhead
http://exergy.se/goran/cng/alten/proj/97/o/
Sylvia
Is altruism a virtue or an unrealistic ideal?
Isn’t it a problem, to make novel technology and intellectual property open to all comers? I appreciate that Bob Rohatensky et al may have the highest motives, for the common good of humanity etc. But now that they’ve laid out their ideas for all to see, what incentive is there for development engineers to take up the idea and bring it to economic reality? Have Bob and his mates wrecked the economic potential of a good idea?
Or are they just fooling around looking for suckers – at what point do they ask for my bank account details so they can give me some money?
Where are Luke and Pinxi when you need them?
Boxer, Some commentators just like disagreeing – post something that might please them and they close their eyes/look the other way/ignore it?
Grrrr – was that a 1080 bait?
OK I thought it was very innovative and inspiring to see someone having a go. I thought would it have third world applications perhaps. Or remote area. Open source software has a major following and has had some majors successes – and money is made by selective investment in niche applications on top of the open source enablers. Perhaps a consideration here how to get it to commercialisation. Would like to see the economics of fabrication and engineering worked up some more.
Yep – liked it. But I’m a sucker for inventions.
Pinxi is busy on some mega-business deal and obviously distracted.
Well, there was a dash of 1080, but if you’re a mainland Aussie, your ancestors’ exposure to the gastrolobium species should have made you resistant to it. If you’re from Tasmania, well, gee I’m sorry.
The proposal may be a good idea in engineering terms. I only had a quick look, but I guess they have worked out the amount of energy available from a given volume of air moving at an assumed velocity. Then how tall does the chimney have to be to create the flows and velocities required. Must be a huge structure.
Open source software seems like a good thing in many applications, but does the complexity of software make it easier to protect from plagarism? As you say, the money is made in the niche applications and the open source foundation builds an opportunity for those niches to develop.
With engineering technology, my limited experience is that if you make it “open source” it becomes worthless and it will never be more than a good idea. The high cost of proving up the technology will only be found if there is protected intellectual property involved. The value of the IP underwrites the cost of development.
Perhaps the difference is the level of investment required. Software can be written with a lot of time from a skilled programmer and a $5,000 computer. Engineering a prototype source of power might cost $50 million and still not work, so you can only raise the $50 million if the investor owns the IP and sees enough profit to cover their risk.
Thanks to Jennifer for posting, I thought I would answer some of the questions raised in the comments.
1. Economics: First, the design of the system is the not-for-profit project, not construction or operation. The design of an energy system is similar to software development and can be managed with the same methodology.
I understand that construction of power plants is in the real world and feasibility has to be based on real dollars. The comments regarding evaluating renewable energy systems based on construction energy versus output energy is meant to get people thinking about the effect that renewable energy has on the economy and systems built from common materials. The design parameter of using common materials (concrete, steel, water and ammonia) where the materials are common and the major cost of these materials is energy in manufacture and transport, means that as there is more access to renewable energy, the cost of construction of similar systems lowers. As an opposite example, Solar Photovoltaics rely on semiconductor materials and although there are continual improvements in manufacturing, it takes many years for the output energy to compensate for the construction energy and the Solar PV panels “wear out” over time. There already is a short supply of semiconductor materials and large scale power plants based on Solar PV haven’t become a major energy source in the 50 years that the technology has been available due to the construction energy versus the output energy and the availability of construction materials. This is not to say that there aren’t specific uses and benefits in Solar PV, but it would be very difficult to have the technology supply a large portion of society’s energy needs, or at least it hasn’t done so in the 50 years it has been available. Biofuels suffer the same problems where if you do the energy in versus energy out analysis, the only benefit is the transportability and ease of conversion of current consumer vehicles.
I didn’t mean the “cost of initial construction is largely irrelevant” statement to be flim-flam. I wanted to get people thinking about our current economy being based on non-renewable energy and what that means when you look at the big picture.
2. Intellectual Property: I guess time will tell whether putting the idea out without a patent will hinder development or not. An energy system is different from software because the system produces a marketable commodity. Software is a tool to do or market something else, but a renewable power plant produces something of value. My motivation for publishing the idea without patent was based on two thoughts: 1) A patent only gives the holder a right to sue an infringer and I didn’t want to spend my time doing that and 2) What if this actually is a good idea and I get hit by a bus while I am keeping it a secret.
In the systems that currently supply our energy needs, the technology of the power plants is based on some very old ideas: steam turbine, water turbine, windmill, etc. I thought that if the system was relatively simple and didn’t require a large amount of R&D, having the design open would enable ventures to build the system to generate revenue by operating the power plant and selling energy as is done with existing energy systems.
3. Donations: Begging people for money is not something I’m interested in doing. It’s even less interesting than spending my life in litigation. I have a non-related career, a wonderful spouse, 3 great children, a cute dog and an interest in trying to solve hard problems.
— Bob Rohatensky
Most of the sceptic comments showed they just didn\’t quite get it but they felt the moral duty to attack it regardless. Did they even try to nut it out? They probably think that no-one ever makes any money out of anything unless they hold an exclusive patent over it. Next they\’ll claim to support enterprise, competition even! You bunch of behind-the-times sad sacks, go do something useful like launch a military invasion of Iran in case they commmitted some thought crimes.
The deal is chugging along Luke but more to the point, I\’m banned, not welcome here and it\’s a case of same sh1t same flea ridden donkey everyday every post anyway. Noticed many significant people with any credibility (from any side) hanging out here lately?
Hey re: the NFP generalisations and dismissals, had it occurred to any of you gob offs that a NFP enterprise can potentially be more market competitive and more flexible than one that has to line lots of greedy pockets, kowtow to directors, pay fatcat bonuses and share payout burdens? You really want competitive marketplaces then you support NFPs too! But you actually want fascist Christian fundamentalist 1st world WASP markets and jobs for the boys screw the rest.
Economic considerations dictate that cheap, but unsustainable, options for power generation should be continued for as long as that is possible without significant external costs. Only then should more expensive sustainable solutions be used.
It may be that the external costs of burning fossil fuels are significant, but there are other options, such as nuclear power, which may not be sustainable in the long term, because of the limited available of the fuel, but which are acceptable in the short term.
Consequently, the proposed sustainable solution, like solar towers and wind farms, is simply here before its time, because the power it will generate is uncompetitive.
Well there\’s an implicit value set there Sylvia. Among other things, it includes assumptions that economic concerns are the ONLY concerns to be considered and that the current economic system is complete, valid and comprehensive enough to be sufficient. Even the physicists argue against the narrow worldview of modern economics, not just the hippy scientists.
The current system of economics evolved by responding to politics, situations and events prior. Why would yuo assume that it has arrived at it\’s final and adequate state and therefore should be applied as static? To begin with by getting some rigour and credibility economists could drag their sorry arses (asses for the septics) out of antiquated newtonian maths and theoretical assumptions that don\’t correspond with reality. If you can\’t get that then you lack perfect information ha ha ha and you may lack rational decision making ha so I won\’t waste time trying to fill you in.
Pinxi,
If you’d care to specify in concrete terms where the current approach to economic analysis fails, then there would be something to discuss. Merely waving your hands, and alleging that it’s deficient, gets us nowhere.
Sylvia.
How do your economic dictates plan for the long term effects and consequences of today\’s economic choices Sylvia? How do they address even the short term unpriced externalities? How do the impoverished majority participate in markets to vote according to their choices when theyre excluded by virtue of poverty? How do your energy markets incorporate AGW? They rely on sets of guidelines that favour business as usual and a narrow set of economic concerns and ignore forces for disruptive structural change. If you only look at economics and markets then you\’re excluding the broader system in which the human construct of 1st world markets operates. we see this kind of small world outlook in the attacks on the enterprising idea above.
Pinxi, you have fallen out of bed on the wrong side. I’ll try to be more serious in my discussion now, at least for 5 minutes.
My point about intellectual property is:
1.Robert may have a good idea here, but I would leave it to the engineers to assess that.
2. Having an idea may mean that there’s a market for the idea itself, and an entrepreneur may wish to purchase the ideas to hold exclusive rights. That person would then invest significant venture capital to prove up the technology, but he/she will only do that if the proving of that technology adds to its value, which then gives the entrepreneur a return on their investment to that point.
3. If the idea is in the public domain, as it now seems to be, no entrepreneur will pick it up even though it is free, because if they do, and they put in the venture capital to prove it up, anyone can take the refined idea and use it without paying for it. The entrepreneur therefore has no way of recovering their investment.
4. Once the idea is proven at the commercial scale, then we can talk about markets for energy produced from the technology. The entrepreneur sells the technology to energy producers. Yes, said entrepreneur makes squillions of dollars, but then again, he/she may put in many millions of dollars and the concept may be a dud. The entrepreneur wants to be paid for taking that risk and if no one will pay for that risk, the venture capital will find somewhere else to go.
5. The value of the technology may be large, but if the idea is commercially successful, the cost of the technology per unit of energy produced will be infinitesimally small. The competitive position of the renewable energy will not be compromised. If the entrepreneur gets to be filthy rich, it doesn’t matter that much. I’ll be envious too, and that won’t matter at all.
I can appreciate Robert’s lack of interest in fighting to protect a patent. But he may sell or give the idea exclusively to someone who will defend the patent. This would serve the same purpose of protecting the value of the idea itself.
I think the misunderstanding you may have is that you have gone from the original idea to the energy market without passing through the market-for-the-idea steps. My concern is that Robert may have blown a good idea away because he didn’t do that either. No doubting his motives, but it would be a shame if an idea better than nuclear fusion is buried because it wasn’t marketed properly at the outset.
Then again, the idea may not require development; it may already have proven commercial viability, in which case we will see Robert’s power stations sprouting up around us in the near future.
(Large scale investments = me). It’s just no. 3 Boxer: IMO you simplify and reduce the nature of early mover advantages, innovation, IP exclusivity and incentives for enterprise. VC is easy enough to get for the right person who has a reliable track record and who’s prepared to put their nads on the line (ie don’t need exclusive IP, just need a market, perhaps a niche, and reasonable margins). Similar for self-funded, private capital ventures – there are other motivations that drive a great deal of investment these days especially when the interpretation of potential flow of benefits is greater than simply personal private gain; and also where they’re lining future silver clouds and disinclined to take overly large risks by themselves. Where an idea can have broader benefits or carries too much risk and uncertainty, an open development process can lead to an better outcome and alpha or beta stage stimulate further innovation and improvements. This approach is taking off in some quarters. Kudos to Robert and wish him all the best. Scale of investment and market conditions can also by themselves be sufficient barriers to competitive market entry, and within these type of applications there’s often considerable scope for distinctive, proprietary innovations.
I have a lot of time for your comments Boxer and in my wrong side of bed barbs I don’t generally lump you in with the other knee jerk sceptics. (I was going to point out that out earlier). The exchanges that we’ve had in past are among the few reasoned ones here that had opportunities for real learning on both sides and I’ve enjoyed them. I’ll end this conversation now as those quality exchanges are too few and far between, so the time is overdue for me to get off the blog again.
PS sideline but related, you might be interested to read some findings on innovation systems and the role of original research versus recycled know how – look into National Innovation Systems if you can google up same.
Pinxi
National Innovation Systems looks interesting and my negative attitudes are probably a reflection of personal experience. I see from this report: http://www.abfoundation.com.au/pdf/NISRoosShortPaper22Nov05.pdf
that compared to the rest of the OECD we prefer to let other people do our innovating for us. Part of this is the reluctance of the public sector to interact meaningfully and creatively with the private sector and the policy by all governments to throttle the universities in an attempt to make them self-funding degree factories. It is axiomatic that if there is a solution to anything, it has already been discovered overseas.
Maybe Robert lives in a more innovative part of the world.
true
Although it is fiction, an interesting read is Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/index.html
One of the concepts I thought a lot about was the Nash Equilibrium game theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium game theory (John Nash is the real person Russell Crowe played in A Beautiful Mind).
One of the simplest examples is Tic-Tac-Toe where the game is always a draw if both players are rational.
My understanding of a Nash Equilibrium applied to economics or politics is that the game settles into a scenario where any rational change in strategy by the competition doesn’t change the outcome.
i.e. When applied to a military arms race, both sides continue to increase weapons buildup in case the other side attacks.
My interpretation when applied to energy supply is that since the industrial revolution, all parties have been making the rational business choice. We are in the situation we are in not because there is no method to power society without destroying ourselves, but that the rational choice for a business is to show as much profit as possible.
Again, time will tell if I came up with an idea of value, but I thought it would be interesting to put my ‘X’ in the wrong spot on the tic-tac-toe grid and see how it works out.
One other note: In Saskatchewan, Canada we have 1/3 of the oil and gas in Canada and 2.6 billion tonnes of coal. New renewable energy ideas aren’t an easy thing to get people interested in here either.