Let’s create new fuel before we all become fossils
Entrepreneurs and investors can lead the way as the geopolitical consequences of poor energy decisions, particularly in Europe, alert even the most short-sighted politicians to the need to liberate the free world from Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on energy supplies
As Russia continues its brutal assault on Ukraine, investors and entrepreneurs can channel our outrage into something useful — and urgent.
As long as Europe remains so dependent on Russian energy, the Butcher of Bucha and his Kremlin henchmen can continue to rake in a billion dollars a day to fund his war machine and oppressive dictatorship.
The war in Ukraine should concentrate the minds of everyone involved in the development of new energy solutions. Until now, the threat of planetary extinction has been unable to focus our leaders on the critical need to develop alternative sources of power.
Finally, the geopolitical consequences of poor energy decisions, particularly in Europe, are alerting even the most short-sighted politicians to the need to liberate the free world from Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on energy supplies.
Now, with murderous Russian forces running amok in Ukraine and threatening the safety of the free world, even the Europeans are waking up to the immediate need for alternative energy solutions. Germany, the New York Times reports, relies on Russian energy for more than a quarter of the country’s needs and is still paying $220 million every day to the Russians.
The free world must wean itself from Russia’s fossil fuels before we all become fossils.
“Buying Russian oil and gas is financing war crimes,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted on April 3. “Dear EU friends, pull the plug. Don’t be an accomplice.”
As investors, we have a key role to play by deploying the capital required to jump-start the innovations being developed by multiple startups. We can help to fuel the search for new fuel to replace Russia’s blood-soaked reserves.
The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that, when faced with an urgent crisis, digital innovation can move fast to provide effective solutions — often by turbocharging the development of technology already proven at the R&D stage. That was how we got the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.
Deployed faster
The pandemic triggered a wave of entrepreneurial activity that cut the development of vaccines and other key technologies from a decade to a matter of months. Now we must do the same for energy. There are several promising new sources of alternative power that are predicted to come online within a decade. We need to provide the resources so they can be deployed much faster.
OurCrowd and other venture investors are already helping some of these companies to develop. We need to redouble our efforts to speed up the process. Among the most promising:
Green hydrogen: Israeli startup H2Pro has increased the efficiency of electrolysis water-splitting technology and is on track to deliver green hydrogen — a clean, renewable and limitless fuel — for less than $1 per kilogram by 2030, a 60–80 percent cost reduction. It could replace carbon fuels, at competitive prices, for vehicles and industry.
Nuclear fusion: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, nurtured at MIT, is using a new high-temperature superconductor to realize the holy grail of safely producing more energy from fusing atoms together than it takes to power the process. The company is on track to generate 10 times the energy consumed by 2025 and plans to develop full-size power facilities by next decade.
Depleted batteries
Clean energy storage: Alternative energy sources like solar and wind can now produce power at cost parity or even cheaper than fossil fuels, but they need to be stored and then released when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. That requires huge batteries that until now have been too expensive to deploy. Connected Energy, a British startup, is solving two problems at once by creating industrial-sized power storage using depleted electric vehicle batteries that previously were discarded, creating another environmental hazard. Using proprietary technology, Connected Energy is working with some of Europe’s top carmakers and clean energy providers to combine these castoffs into low-cost storage clusters for renewables.
Smart grid management: mPrest, the company behind the software that runs Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, is helping almost 20 major utilities including New Zealand’s Vector and the New York Power Authority to manage their grid and transformer health, respectively. Using smart technology to allocate energy and manage load balance, existing grids can be made more efficient, reducing the total energy input required and making them much more renewable-friendly.
Geothermal heating and cooling: Originally conceived at X, Alphabet’s innovation lab, Dandelion Energy uses the natural geothermal temperatures of the ground beneath your home to heat and cool buildings in a growing number of locations in the US. The system allows significant reductions in the use of fossil fuels and cost savings over standard air conditioners and heating systems.
These are not pie-in-the-sky dreams, but active technologies currently in production. We will redouble our efforts to speed up these promising processes. Startups like these hold the keys that will release us from Putin’s barbaric grip on the world’s energy resources — and cut the ground from under other fossil-fuel dictators who might be planning to send us back to the dark ages of despotism any time in the future.
