The SEER-Sucker Theory

Young military nurse shades her eyes from the desert sun

As I have blogged before, it is amazing to me how easily we become lazy thinking we can predict the future.  Autonomous cars … drone warfare … you pick your favorite.

As many of you know, I own a Tesla Model S.  When I pick someone up at the airport I often comment that, at some time in the future, I will likely be able to simply send my car to do that without me and have it transport the person to where they need to go.

It was telling this week that Public Utilities Fortnightly took a look back to the end of World War II.

Here is what they wrote:

Public Utilities Fortnightly, August 2, 1945.  It was the issue just before the Japanese surrender and the ending of World War II.  The lead article was entitled: “Effect of Recent Population Trends on Utilities.”  It was impossible to foresee the approaching boom:

“As a nation our population increase has diminished and, according to the Bureau of the Census, our total population will approach a stationary figure sometime after 1980.”

The article, reflecting contemporary thinking, predicted that U.S. population in 2000 would be 150 million.  Slight miss.  The 2000 Census counted 282 million Americans.

I remember Jimmy Carter’s fireside chat, wearing a sweater, telling us that foreign oil was the moral equivalent of war.  It was the same year that natural gas was forbidden in baseload power plants … only to be repealed about 10 years later.  Coal was then considered the savior of our nation.  Not now.

Solar and wind are now the heroes.  Population growth continues but the energy use per person seems to have been turned through better device and appliance efficiencies.  Fuel cells still seem to be five years off … maybe further.  They were five years off thirty years ago when I managed projects at MTI and Plug Power was a division of MTI … so some things don’t seem to change at all.

What has changed is American attitudes about almost everything.  Plus, we have an “always on” mentality.  Go ahead the next time you are together with friends and loved ones and see the addiction to the electronic leashes. maslow

Maslow’s hierarchy has changed as a result.  Food and shelter were at the base of it … until recently.  Now it is WiFi and battery power.  Watch how quickly people freak out if they lose either of those …even when they are sitting in a restaurant with friends and loved ones.

Not sure where this all leads, but it certainly leads somewhere different.  It does seem most prognosticators agree the electric industry’s traditional business model is dead.  Perhaps they are right.

I don’t know.   I just know that for every SEER there is at least one sucker.

We Need More Mikeys

MikeyAs I reflect on the transitional and rightful questions facing energy industry professionals today, it amazes me to see so many stuck in the rut of old paradigms.

I am not implying that leaders should chase dreams willy nilly, but the spirit of exploration and curiosity seems conspicuously missing.

It is almost as if standing still and doing nothing was deemed the best and safest strategy … which of course it isn’t … but it always appears least risky in the short run.

I was talking to someone about how hard it is to get children to try a new food, and I guess I see way too many parallels.

You really don’t know whether you like it until you try it.  It may not look good, and in some cases, it may not even smell appealing.

But, you will never know unless you try.

Silk is using this angle in their latest Almond Milk TV commercials where their sprout-character challenges a man who has never tasted almond milk but who says he does not like it.

Kind of reminds me of the TV commercial … let’s see if Mikey likes it …

Take a look if you don’t remember or have never seen it: Click Here

We need more Mikeys.

 

Getting Coach Potatoes to Move With Pokémon Go

pokemon

Go figure.  Who knew? A phone app that can get them to walk? I wouldn’t have imagined this.  Check it out. Read the Forbes article Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Started ‘Pokémon Go’

I took our son Stephen out for lunch today and he showed me local interest points that I had no idea existed and sure enough, he found a Pokémon in our restaurant.   What shocked me more was that he has started walking around our neighborhood to collect these digital critters. And he tells me that there are some remarkable success stories of overweight kids getting out and shedding weight in their search for critters.

We have a lot to learn about customer engagement … not looking back at the old media or methods, but by critically thinking about what we are beginning to learn today with modern media.

There is something here folks … there are a lot of things people will spend their time doing for free if you can tap into their reward systems.  Very interesting.

And, Just in case you think I have gone off the deep end, the market has already monetized this idea. Read the Wall Street Journal article below.

Pokémon-Chasing Investors Send Nintendo Shares Soaring
Craze added $9 billion in market value to gaming company

 

 

Up the Creek Without a Paddle

SCreek

It is funny how some phrases seem timeless and require no explanation.  I am not sure anyone can claim the origins of this one, but we all know what it means.  Recently, Dick Niess, my partner who helped us found Apogee, sent me a note indicating that the original place has officially been identified as the picture here indicates.  It is real.  It is in Pennsylvania and this is not a Photoshop ploy.

The engineer in me wants to correct the clarity of the desperation here and remind everyone that it is better to be up the creek than it would be to be down the creek.  This reminds me of the two ways to look at any situation:  is the glass half-full, or half empty?

The engineer in me wants to say, “You appear to have twice as much glass as you really need.”

Maybe the operative word here has more to do with the paddle.  That reminds me of the famous international competition between the American and the Japanese rowing teams.  The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering.  The American team had two people rowing and seven people steering.  Needless to say, the Japanese team won.

So, the American team reorganized.  They fired one of the two people rowing and added a steering supervisor to manage the one person rowing.

 

 

Symmetry – A Beautiful Thing in Nature and in Energy Policy

parthenon

It is interesting how much we admire symmetry … unless you just happen to be in love with Picasso’s form of art.

Symmetry comes from Greek word symmetria, which implies “agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement.”  In everyday language, it means a sense of harmonious proportion and beautiful balance.  If you are a Photoshop user, you can really make this point by slightly distorting a human face to prove how much we dislike imbalance from side to side in any form of facial feature.

This last week we saw illustrations of just how flawed our energy policy discussions are as we observed blackout conditions in the West alongside political correctness about closing down a nuclear plant in the region.  We see incentives to promote solar without due regard for cost recovery and long-term planning to reflect the real costs and the sustainability of short-term decisions.  We see advocates for wind without due regard for the costs to keep the grid stable with its vagaries.

It seems we dislike the natural symmetries of running an electrical power system.  We somehow think a beautiful thing will emerge as we forget or disregard the differences between capacity, energy, and the true operational costs of keeping the lights on in our control strategies.  These are the elements of symmetry … and they are beautiful when kept in proper balance.

I guess asymmetric decisions seem perfectly OK when you simply have no idea how the electrical supply system really works.

Acting this way in my engineering profession is considered incompetence and can result in criminal charges.  Yet in today’s PC energy policy world, it seems to be perfectly acceptable.  There is a natural balance between energy and capacity.  There are natural dependencies in the control of power flows that also require symmetrical balance.  Ignoring those because they are complex to explain does not make them go away.

They will show up and present a very ugly picture … perhaps all too soon.