Those of us in technical fields are well aware of Moore’s Law, but what we don’t often think about is what happens when many technologies following Moore’s Law combine together. At MS Convergence 2007 Joel Barker gave a keynote about innovation at the Verge, and explained how most recent break throughs have to do with using existing ideas for different solutions.
So on one hand we seem to have everything getting more powerful, cheaper and better. On the other we have reuse of existing ideas in completely different applications. With the Internet allowing an almost limitless amount of cross pollenation between different industries this is all happening at an amazing rate.
With all the news stories about how we are destroying the planet it is nice to see hope as well.
Let’s look at one big issue, Energy.
Problem: We are using energy at an ever increasing rate with many negative effects ( we won’t go into all of those )
Examples of solutions that are converging and add up to something bigger:
Power Efficiency: Electronics are starting to become greener and are using less power. MIT is working on .3 volt technology that could drop power usage of many electronics to a small percentage of what they are today. ( This is future tech )
Power Storage: Recent nanowire technology should increase Li battery capacities by an order of magnatude using existing manufacturing techniques. (think 50 hour laptop batteries) ( This is moving to production rapidly )
Power Generation: Ink Jet technology has been adapted to create continuous roll solar panels that are both cheaper to manufacture and create much less hazardous waste than conventional solar panels do. ( These are now in production and sold out for at least a year)
Man Moment Machine: The idea is that it takes a man with vision, a moment in time where the technologies make something feasible and the time is right for that ideas acceptance so that idea becomes a reality. Tesla’s new electric car is an impressive example of multiple converging technologies that solve a lot more real problems than may at first come to mind. It is a man moment machine.
Here are a few problems addressed by electric cars:
1. We hemorrhage massive ammounts of unused electricity every night. Baseline coal fired plants run at full tilt 24×7.
2. We are running out of oil.
3. Pollution
4. Dependency on the Middle East for oil.
5. Hazardous waste generated by car waste fluids
6. Long term car maintenance
Let’s start with our wallets because when something makes economic sense it happens very quickly.
1. Cheap fuel: Electricity generated at night is extremely cheap because it goes unused. As a fuel source it is much cheaper than gasoline, E85 and hydrogen. The Tesla Roadster can go about 250 miles for $5 in electricity.
2. Pollution: Electric cars create no additional emissions if they are topped off at night. The baseline plants are going to run all night whether we use that energy or not. We could currently move the entire country to electric cars without adding one additional power plant. ( This is pretty scary to the Oil Companies! )
3. Power costs: Because the utilities are not paid for this wasted power every night, once they get this additional revenue stream, overall power rates are expected to drop. Remember since deregulation they compete for producing the cheapest power. Also Tesla is working with Power Companies to create a control system so that Tesla’s can automatically charge from the grid when there is excess. ( In over simplified terms think of cars plugged in all night, but some charging between 1AM-2AM and others between 2AM -4AM, to better use the excess production.)
Now let’s talk about maintenance.
4. Electric cars dramatically reduce failure points: Exhausts, catyltic converters, spark plugs, oil pumps, water pumps, starter motors, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, belts, hoses, most seals and most gaskets are a thing of the past.
5. Hazardous Waste: Think about all the oil and coolant that leaks from cars in your garage, on the roads and in parking lots and that has to be disposed of or ideally recycled.
6. Lower overall maintenance: regenerative breaking saves break pads and rotor wear.
7. There are no oil changes.
8. The entire motor weighs about 80 lbs and is the size of a watermellon, so an average person could actually replace one without a winch. In fact routine maintanence is basically reduced to tires and windhshield wiper fluid and blades.
The Tesla is a true Man Moment Machine and the whole concept was created at the Verge. Silicon Valley engineers applied technology outside the norm for the auto industry, but in the end used much existing technology in different ways.
As any 1.0 release, the Tesla isn’t perfect. It is using battery technology that is just barely acceptable that requires a cooling system, which is likely to be unneccessary with future batteries. Luckily, there have been many major breakthroughs with lots of parallel development of competing technologies that should see production over the next few years. These advances are expected to drop costs, increase capacities and the longevity of batteries.
The electric car is also being validated by the other auto manufacturers. Subaru and Mitsubishi are expected to introduce electric cars in 2009, but they will be small and have limited range. Toyota and GM are working on plugin electric hybrids allowing people to commute (40-50 miles) without using gas, but allowing gas operation for longer trips. Honda claims to be working on something as well.
Economics are such that once something is an obvious improvement and is affordable, change happens very quickly. We can expect this to happen in the near future.
As with every new sweeping change there are companies that stand to loose and will fight change unless they can gain from it. There is a huge trickle down.
a. Oil companies are doing their best to try to hang on to a huge distribution network by pushing fuel cell technology. Unfortunately, hydrogen is terribly inefficient to produce, and would require a huge infrastructure to transport and store. The cheapest fuel cell car in production, Honda’s FCX, costs nearly 1 million dollars each to produce. Auto manufacturers agree that fuel cell technology is still at least 20 years away.
b. The manufacturers of oil filters, exhaust systems, spark plugs etc. are going to see their market dry up.
c. Auto mechanics are going to still have to deal with collisions, suspensions, and some brake work, but their work will dry up substantially.
d. Corner Gas stations will become prime real estate.
