More excerpts from my upcoming book, The New Polymath due in June. The book celebrates innovations of all kinds including those around sustainability. Here are some excerpts from the case study on Kleiner Perkins’ cleantech portfolio
“Since 2003, Kleiner has evaluated more than 5,000 investment opportunities and has invested more than $1 billion in cleantech companies. The discovery process has made Lane a walking encyclopedia on fuels. He can rattle off ethanol yield from sugarcane versus that from corn and other biofuels. He can compare fuel technology innovations in Germany, Brazil, and Israel. It’s a far cry from the cash flow metrics and global operations he managed at Oracle.”
“In a presentation Joy made at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, he presented the factors in what is called the Kaya calculator: Carbon dioxide emission = Population × Gross domestic product per person × Energy intensity × Carbon efficiency. The first two components keep going up as world population and affluence levels continue to grow. The third and fourth components have to improve dramatically if we are to offset some of the dependence on fossil fuels and related emissions of the last few decades. Joy elaborates: “Through compounding, if we could create energy with half the impact, deliver with 20% less loss, use it three times as efficiently, recycle 20% of that, we can get a 10 times improvement. In fact, we need to aim higher in each of the create, deliver, use, and recycle phases to offset any shortfalls we may have in the others.” Those “stretch goals” helped the Kleiner team spell out some grand challenges across the energy landscape.”
““Think of it as a cocktail of nutrients.” Luca Technologies is based in Golden, Colorado, where Coors Brewing is headquartered, and you wonder what exotic concoction Robert Pfeiffer is offering. But he is into something far more exotic. Pfeiffer explains: “Check out the microbes on our Web site. Tiny ones, magnified up to 10,000 times in the pictures. They are anaerobic organisms [those that are buried deep and can survive without oxygen] in coal beds, shale, and older oil fields. Our nutrients coax them to release methane. Pfeiffer is CEO of Luca Technologies, and the company has several patents to document what he is talking about.”
““In Florida, they had to prove the equipment could stand up to high winds and electric storms. In California, to mountainous terrain and high-population-density issues.” Scott Lang, chairman, president, and CEO of Silver Spring Networks, is describing the “torture” two of his earliest and biggest customers, Florida Power & Light (FPL) and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), put his equipment through as part of their initial deployments. These utilities and several others are investing in making their grids much “smarter” by allowing two way communication between all devices on the grid. Silver Spring’s mission is to create a platform for utilities to connect any device that generates, distributes, or uses energy.”
“The Bloom Energy Server converts air and nearly any fuel source— ranging from natural gas to a wide range of biogases—into electricity via a clean electrochemical process, rather than dirty combustion. Even running on a fossil fuel, the systems are approximately 67 percent cleaner than a typical coal-fired power plant. When powered by a renewable fuel, they can be 100 percent cleaner. Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom’s fuel cells—flat, solid ceramic squares made from a common sand like “powder.” While, the initial focus is on commercial use, the vision over the next
few years is to deliver smaller versions for a home backyard. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid”
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