Commercialising Innovative Technologies

Commercialising Innovative Technologies is just change. Innovation is a change. Change in business models. Change in technology. These articles look at changes and innovation in these areas.

5 Orders of Innovation

There are 5 orders of innovation from individual components at order 1, to systems at 2, services at 3 to disruption of industry at order 5. Knowing this provides expectation of capital and time to market with new innovations.

Green Steel From Fortescue Minerals

What is FMG ulitimate goal? To change his low cost iron ore exports to China and turn it into green steel manufactured in Australia and exported globally? The company has been busy setting up deals and purchasing technology.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies are $11m per minute

We pay over $11 billion a year for fossi fuel subsidies for direct support. That does not include the indirect subsidies. As well there are billions of dollars needed to remediate fossil fuel coal and gas mines. Who pays? Consumers

Electric Trucks Are Here

Electric trucks have been slowly entering the market from all the major manufacturers, and businesses are catching onto the savings and applications. Transition will be steady as the capital to change from conventional to electric will be intensive.

Is renewable energy cheaper than nuclear

Some argue for nuclear as the basis of the Australian electricity energy but the data says nuclear would be more than 2.2 times the cost of renewable energy with sufficient battery storage of 20GW.

Tesla Insurance Opportunity

Tesla has established an insurance business, and the value of insurance could be 5 times more than just selling the car by itself. The margin from the insurance business could be bigger than the revenue from full self driving software, face lower barriers to adoption and reduce costs to customers.

Direct Lithium Extraction

Direct Lithium extraction (DLE) provides faster extraction of lithium from brines, reduction of costs, increased recovery and opportunity for reduction in energy and carbon inputs.

VC Funding for Innovation or Angel or 3’Fs

Venture capital success in growing innnovation has been transformational. Along with internet speeds, the amouint and scale of vc funding of innovative companies.

EV Pickups are Coming

Electric pickup trucks are coming. In China they are here already, but the love affair of the Pickup in USA or Australia, from big to small is coming over then next 4 years.

Green Hydrogen Opportunities

Green hydrogen has 3 challenges to be part of the energy mix. a) cheap manufacture. b) cheap transport and c) applicable uses. That journey has started..

Coal Mine Replacement

Coal mines continue to be constructed but face becoming stranded assets with the change to RW. But coal mines are half of the worlds mines and less than 17% of the revenue. Will other EV minerals replace them?

Global Car Sales

Who are the major car manufacturers globally, and what disruption will be coming with electric vehicles. Who will be the winners and loser?

Small Power – Why Nuclear Is Not an Option

Small power from rooftop solar and batteries and not nuclear is the best. Nuclear was suggested would be too cheap to meter but is too costly to remember.

Simple Power by Freeing Energy

Freeing energy explores the energy in the world and shows how local free energy using PV panels and batteries will provide energy to 3 billion in energy poverty and disrupt 135 years of Big Grid.

Fossil Fuel Company Lies

The Angry Clean Energy Guy talks about corporate evil: comapanies knowingly doing harm. Exxon, BP moved responsibility from their fossil fuel CO2 emissions and pushed “personal carbon footprint”. He outlines Adarni as a worst case example.

European Battery Gigafactories

Over 37 companies have announced or are building European battery gigafactories. The largest is Tesla at Berlin due for production in early 2021, but others are focused on supplying the European manufacturers.

USA Battery Gigafactories

Numerous battery gigafactories in the USA have been announced. With capacity over 1TWh they could build 15million electric vehicles per year.

Lithium from Chile

Lithium from Chile, Argentina and Bolivia makes up 20% of the current supply, with China and Australia the majority of the rest. Intense exploration and extraction is in full swing.

China Battery Gigafactories driven by EV Demand

EV production in China is booming with multiple “Gigafactories”, and the battery market is racing to keep up with demand and supply. China will get to 20% of EV new car sales by the end of 2021 4 years ahead of 2025. Six battery companies provide 47% of the global demand for batteres.

Lithium Shortfall for GigaFactories

It takes 2 years to build a battery gigafactory. But it takes 7 or more years to develop a mine. While there is plenty of lithium on the planet, it isn’t being extracted and refined quickly enough to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for batteries.

Nuclear SMR Reactors

Nuclear SMR Reactors are small and modular and it is proposed they overcome 2 of the conventional nuclear issues, cost and refuelling. In reality, they are still a decade or more away from commericalisation and the value is yet to be confirmed.

Battery Gigafactories

Over 200 Gigafactories have been constructed or in construction or announced. There are in many countries around the world and are needed to produce the 80 million cars each year and the GW of energy Grid Storage.

New Battery Technologies

While lithium ion batteries are the mostly widely used, other battery technologies are avalable that are competitive in some applications. Numerous other battery chemistries are in R&D phase

Rare Earth Elements

Rare earth elements are a critical part of the renewable energy industry as well as in the past for catalysts and industrial products. We explore what they are, and where they can be found.

Cobalt in Batteries

Cobalt is used in Lithium ion nickel batteries as the cathode. Globally, 98% of cobalt is a byproduct of copper or nickel . In copper it’s 60% of that market….

Nickel in Batteries

Nickel is a widely mined mineral, often in conjunction with copper around that world. Primary use is in stainless steel, but EV batteries require substantial amounts of nickel over the next decades.

Graphite for Batteries

Graphite is a key component in batteries and is the anode in most commercial batteries today. Sourced from fossil fuels, companies are seeking new carbon zero supply and looking to improve performance and reduce costs.

Lithium for Batteries

Lithium for batteries is in short supply and getting worse as batteries demand will increase by 30 times over the next decade. Mining supply is costly and slow. What other elements are in short supply.

Nuclear Power Not An Option

The conclusion is clear: Nuclear power not a sensible option. It fails on multiple front – technology, economic and political, yet the industry continues to push for nuclear as a viable option for decarbonisation in the next 20 years.

EV Replaces Petrol Imports

The value to Australia for coal exports is less than the cost to import petrol and diesel. Australia should transition to EVs as fast as possible to improve the balance of payment and reduce carbon emissions and save consumers money.

Tesla makes Robotaxis Economic

Simple napkin maths says that Tesla makes robotaxis economic. In fact the numbers are so high they are just not believable? So what is stopping this? Politics? Technology. The only thing seems to be timing. Will it be this year? 2024?

Hydrogen Myths and Opportunities

Renewable green hydrogen is a myth when auto makers and fossil fuel companies say will transform the transportation network. Here are 5 simple reasons you need to dispel myths about hydrogen

Renewable Energy Transformation by 2025

Australia can and should get to 400 % renewable energy by 2030 to be a leader in carbon planning globally.

5G Explained

5G is misunderstood and the conspiracy believers are out in full force. Here I try to make this simple so it can be understood. In undertanding some principles you can then decide which part you don’t like or things that are exciting.

Autonomous Cars by 2023

The Robotaxi – Here in 2023 or 2035? Want a 40% pay increase? Ditch the cars and go autonomous vehicles. Here are 10 reasons why robotaxis will be in widespread…

Goal Setting Questions

Setting goals is a valuable exercise to allow focus and direction. These goal setting questions help not avoidance. The right approach, 10 minutes, and tools, goals can be valuable to life.

Improve Productivity

How productive are you? Hre are 10 simple things to make you more productive.

Mobile Phones Are Global

The mobile internet has taken over from the desktop. The number of mobile devices is expected to reach 18.22 billion by 2025, an increase of 4.2 billion devices compared to 2020 levels.

8 Steps in Website Preparation

How do you get the right website for your business? Start planning. Start with who is going to visit your site, and what you want or how do you want your visitors to respond. This simple 8 point process helps smooth the design, construction and deployment of your business.

10 things to make you more productive

10 things to make your life more productive. Avoid meetings without an agenda Never take a call from someone you don’t know. Permanently turn off your voice mail Sort your email with an app. Disable email and texting when you need to focus Give social butterflies short shift Eat well Take a walk. Make your decisions more quickly. Disconnect for 12 hours each day.

Customer Acquisition and Life Time Value

CAC (customer acquistion) and LTV (life time value) are key metrics in all businesses, and most importantly in startup businesses. Learn more about CAC and LTV

Goal Setting

Goal planning is easy to do, but few every do it as it is too complicated, does not seem important enough. Yet having some plan helps most people in their day to day life.

Business Consulting

Do you want some direction in your business; or do you have some pressing concerns. Contact me, for focused business coaching and mentoring.

Scroll through the articles, or the full list is in the footer. Down there ↓↓

Why change discussion? Because change management relies on four core principles and these are :

Understand Change.
Plan Change.
Implement Change.
Communicate Change.

Change is happening rapidly. Climate change. Renewable energy. Transportation. This period of human existence is one of the great revolutions of the last 20,000 years, and the changes will be as or more profound as previous revolutions:

First Industrial Revolution 1765
Second Industrial Revolution 1870.
Third Industrial Revolution 1969.
Industry 4.0

This industrial revolution 4 will be as profound as previous ones. Over the 250 years of the first revolution, and 135 years of electricity, the advent of free energy will liberate the 30% of the global people who have energy poverty.

Commercialising Innovative Technologies

About 20 years ago, an astute Canadian told me there are 3 reasons people change.

They make money
They lose money
It is the law

The strongest change is when there are 2 factors in play. So change can be sudden. Whenever something is 1/10th of the cost, change will happen. Adoption is often 10 years to get to 1% of the market. Then within a decade, it can hold 80% of the market. Often it is not a 1 to 1 substitution.

Article Perspective

Check out the various recent blogs. I try to view these subjects from 3 perspectives.

Technology. Does it work? We know that R&D and scaling of solution will drive up the tech, and decrease costs
Economics. Are the compelling financial or economic drivers for change? Will these change with R&D or scaling?
Politics. What are the institutional barriers or the individuals belief systems?

Innovation is never a straight line.

Commercialing innovative technologies — Innovation over the past 100 years has been an “S” Curve (from Tony Seba, www.RethinkX.com)

Challenges to Transition

The International Energey Agency says the data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions. This in the energy market is also true to other aspects of change over the next 10 years.

Change Discussion mineral requirements for EV — IEA, Revenue from production of coal and selected energy transition minerals in the Sustainable Development Scenario, 2020-2040, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/revenue-from-production-of-coal-and-selected-energy-transition-minerals-in-the-sustainable-development-scenario-2020-2040