Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2009 10:42 pm So I pick up this Harvard Business Review for an airport read and there is this interesting article:
http://hbr.org/2009/11/how-to-jump-star ... onomy/ar/1
A main point is that if we are ever going to advance with clean energy, we have to think of entire systems and not just bolting something onto an existing thing and calling it an environmental advance.
An example cited was a company called Better Place. I think a reasonable and brief summary would be this.This guy wants to help push electric vehicles. He is thinking about it. One problem is the battery. It cost a lot. The current cars are marketed with a 10 year warranty. To have a 10 year life, for reasons which I do not understand the battery can only be drained 50% before recharging. So he started thinking about separating the battery from the car. They developed a battery pack that could be changed in two minutes. Then Bill Clinton asked if they could not make the price so low that it would be a barrier to entry for others. He asked if they could make the car free. That led to the cell phone business model where the equipment is free and the fees are for the service. Our hero then began to think of the idea as selling 'miles driven' as a cell phone company charges for minutes used. The idea has been tweeked with stuff like recharging batteries at night so the utility can balance their load. He needed a demo market for this approach. He found the perfect one. The average person only drives 20 miles a day. It was small enough and populated enough that there would be a lot of customers in a small area, making infrastructure easier to build and cheaper per person. The government there was progressive and very interested in doing anything to reduce the potential for oil to be used as an economic weapon. Also, almost the only time a vehicle leaves the place is when it is stolen. And that place is - Israel. He has won government and some large company backing. They are now building the infrastructure for re-charging across the country.
How is this for thinking outside the box, moi?
Thank You
What can I say,
Great minds work alike.
Now if they would just interface the personal vehicle to work on a light rail infrastructure as well as roads, for speedier and lower energy commutes without the need to travel in a public carriage.
Let me know when "they" catch up to Moi's great mind on this next step.
Best Wishes & Thank You
Moi
PS Although people may indeed travel an average of some few miles a day, the idea is to have a vehicle and infrastructure fit for cross country driving as required from time to time.
Moi
