Perpetual Innovation

Author: SustainMe

  • Solar Investment is Crazy Profitable for Businesses and Good for Homeowners

    [Update. The Inflation Reduction Act 2022 has raised and extended the 30% investment tax credit to qualified investments. There are many limitations and additions. See our Blog post here. This makes all the financial discussions below much more profitable. Also, higher inflation and higher power inflation. The below Article was originally published in Summer of 2020.]
     
    SBP has done several detailed financial calculators for analyzing both residential and commercials solar projects. SustainZine has a main web page on Solar Profitability where
    we discuss examples from our Solar Profitability Calculators: https://www.sustainzine.com/p/solarinvest.html
    … Here are articles – and YouTube videos – discussing
    both:
    1. Quick Take on 
      Residential Solar      : Solar
      Invest 2020: Do Good and Save Money Too       … See the video related to
      Residential here:       Solar Residential: Good Investment & Doing Good
    2. Full Financial Analysis: SolarInvest2020:
      Residential Solar is Good, but Commercial Solar can be Crazy Profitable!       …
      See the video related to Commercial/Business here:       Solar for a Business can be Crazy Profitable: Do
      Good by Doing Well
    YouTube Video on Residential: Solar Residential: Good Investment & Doing Good https://youtu.be/p0pqg4ZeTjY
    Dr Elmer Hall talks about the doing good and making money at
    residential Solar. He discusses that subtilties of the financial analysis for a
    homeowner, and why it typically is a far better decision than a typical profit
    analysis would suggest. #SustainZine #Solar #RenewableEnergy #SBPLan
    YouTube Video on Commercial Business: Solar for a
    Business can be Crazy Profitable: Do Good by Doing Well     https://youtu.be/ulryBkhsKWg

    Dr Elmer Hall talks
    about the doing good and making money by a business installing Solar. He
    discusses the financial analysis for a business and why it probably is such a
    great investment. The investment for businesses has huge tax savings. Plus, the
    money to pay for power to operate the business is already committed if the
    building is used. This is Part 2: See part 1 related to Residential as well.
    #SustainZine #Solar #RenewableEnergy #SBPLan #Profitability #CrazyProfitable 

  • Solar-Fit Radio Show: Gallagher and Hall Talk Home is Castle and Solar Fitness

    Elmer Hall on Solar-Fit Radio

    Solar-Fit Renewable Energy Radio Show. June 20, 2020, Live at 10am ET.
    Bill Gallagher, President/CEO of Solar-Fit (and world renown talk-show host) is interviewing Dr Elmer Hall (Strategic Business Planning Company). We’re talking about Perpetual Innovation(tm), Hall and Hinkelman’s book series on intellectual property (Patents) Commercialization. Then talking about about the COVID abnormal (and new-abnormal). And lastly move on to talk about renewable energy as people spend more time in their Castle (living, working, safe-distancing). What does this movement to update and improve the castle mean for Solar???…


    Listen to the archive of this show on Flagler Broadcasting: Dr Elmer Hall on Solar-Fit Rewanable Energy Show June 20 2020.



    Note that SustainZine has pages devoted to the Financial Analysis of Solar System Purchases (both Residential and Commercial). Residential is a good investment; Commercial can be crazy profitable!


    Here is a long SustainZine article from a May 2018 radio show related to Energy Efficiency and Telework.
    (Remember that the Renewable Investment Tax Credit was 30%, then dropped down to 26% in 2020 and will continue with a very rapid phase out over the next couple years.)


    #Solar-Fit #SustainZine #Solar #RenewableEnergy #EnergyEfficiency
    Here is the Solar-Fit radio show station:Solar-Fit Renewable Energy Radio Show
    (We’ll let you know as soon as this show is archived for your redo, review, renew!)

  • IntellZine: Big winners of Renewable Energy — IP and Manufacturing

    Here is a June 7 2020 post over on IntellZine, our Intellectual Property-centric bog. The blog post was about Renewable Energy patents an how much they have expanded, especially solar IP.

    Here is the Big winners of Renewable Energy: IP and Manufacturing article.

    As you look at the companies that are winners in Renewable Energy (RE) you have distinct winners (and losers, especially in the fossil fuel world). But there are entire countries that stand to win as well. Several countries have become exporters of energy, for example, when they produce more regional energy than they can use. I like the image set related to 25 areas/countries that are winners in Renewable Energy (at LoveMoney.com, The world’s greenest nations that are reaping the rewards). Here’s Love/Money’s take on China, both in terms of the technology (Intellectual Property) and the manufacturing/exporting:
    “Of all patents for renewable energy issued globally, as of 2016 China has 29%. That’s more than 150,000 patents, which underlines the focus of China’s investment in the industry. So it’s not a shock that the country has been dubbed a “renewable energy superpower” in a recent report issued by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. The report argued that, as renewables come to fossil fuels globally, new energy leaders will emerge.”
    The US had only 100,000 patents (vs 150,000 for China) and Europe had 75,000 in renewables according to the Forbesanalysis in Jan 2019.  Overall, patents in renewables has made impressive progress, even though RE patents are only 1% of all patents (and other high-tech categories like computers are about 6%). Check out the great article at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on RenewableEnergy patents by James Nurton. More than half of the RE patents through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) are in solar. Fuel Cell technology has consistently exceeded Wind in terms of patents. Fuel Cell (using hydrogen) is important because it can function as battery, battery backup, stationary power and portable power. Geothermal is trivial are of RE patent activity. When the RE “international” patents (PCTs) are registered at the national level the first three countries are: Japan, USA, and Germany.
    On the manufacturing/exporting side, China has been a huge producer of the world’s renewables (solar, wind and more). Here’s how LoveMoneysummarized Chinese production of RE:
     “China is currently the world’s largest exporter of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. The country is well-suited to wind power production, and it has an estimated potential capacity of 2,380 gigawatts. What’s more, many Chinese companies are investing in renewables.”
    Keep in mind that many things sustainable are lower tech, not higher tech. Much, if not most of sustainable solutions does not require break-through solutions. Using less energy can be very low tech (turning the lights out when out). Driving less (by telework) can be no tech. But in the cases where leading tech can be a major competitive advantage, he owners of IP will win.
    Look also at GlobalTrends in Renewable Energy Investment in 2019 by UN Environment Program and Bloomberg. Where is RE coming from? The investment from 2010 through 2019 has been $2.6T with 52% in Solar and $41% in Wind.
    And the final question: how do we get to 100% renewable energy in a reasonably short period of time?
    #RenewableEnergy #REPatents #IntellectualProperty #IntellZine #SustainZine #WIPO #Sustainability #PCT #REInvestment #Solar #Wind #RE100

  • Video on Oil: Supply, Demand, Contango, Sustainability, Future

    Elmer Hall produced a video June 1 2020 related to the Oil Contago in April of 2020: Conundrum Of Oil Contango: Supply n Demand, Sustainability and the Future.

    Much like a race with a distinct start and finish, you can look at oil and the future the same way. Although it might take a little longer than 20+ minutes, and not have a definitive finish-line, the oil play has a future that can not be good for the oil producers. By definition, things that are non-sustainable must end — sooner or later. Gracefully or ungracefully. Elmer Hall does a video about oil. The tragic shutdown of economies has also produced a magical moment for people to observe what the air (and water) might look like if we stopped burning coal and oil. Clean air for cities across the world; for some people, the first time in their life when the air was safely breathable.
    So what did the shutdown do for oil demand, and consequently for the oil supply and demand? Oil, at 100M Barrels per day represents about 4.4% (or $4.5T) of the worlds 2019 GDP. With the collapse of demand and price, that represents only about $1T.
    But the true cost of oil and coal is massively higher than we pay at the meter or the pump. This video discusses the likelihood that things will be different post-COVID. The genie is out of the bottle related to telework; workers who can work remotely will not want to go back to grid traffic commutes. People who have breathed clean air will not want to go back to smog and air quality warnings.
    The Oil contango in the 3rd week of April was a once-in-a-lifetime event where owners of the futures contract (in May) would have to take possession of the oil at the close of the contract that week. But, with the world swimming in oil, there was no place to put the oil. So owners who had to get out of the contract — and no place to store it if they kept the contract — were willing to PAY buyers to take the oil. At the worst point they were willing to pay almost $40 per barrel for anyone who would take the oil off of their hands. The price went from about $60pb in 2019 to a low of -$37 in April 2020.

  • Earth Day 2020, 50 years of Hind sight

    It is the 50th Earth Day and the world is generally locked down while we deal with the Coronavirus pandemic — and how best to ramp back up the world economy.

    50th Earth Day. April 22 2020

    The pandemic is a serious and sobering aspect to the fun and excitement to an otherwise interesting and informative day of rallies, speeches waterway cleanups and more…

    Worldwide we are going on 3M positive COVID19 cases and nearing 200,000 deaths. The US, never to be outdone in anything that seems competitive, has 32% of the cases and more than 25% of the deaths. Deaths in New York and New Jersey just passed 15,000 and 5,000 respectively. New England deaths exceed all other countries. It is hard to imagine this given that the virus had to cross the Pacific (to the west coast) or travel to Europe and then cross the pond to New England. The US has only 4.2% of the world’s population, yet 25% of the worlds deaths, and rising. How can that be?

    COVID19 Positive Cases and Deaths

               As of April 22, 2020
           Cases  %/World
    World 2,621,436 100.0%
     deaths 182,989 7.0%
    7.0%   %/World
    US 837,719 32.0%
     deaths 46,771 25.6%
    Deaths% 5.6%

    COVID has had a big toll on health and live and a wicked toll on the world’s economies. There some linings, and some of them silver, from this
    pandemic – currently and on the other side of it. Let’s think of a couple while
    we address what the other side of COVID might look like. First, if you think
    that we will ever get back to “normal”, you probably haven’t thought it through
    a lot.

    Pollution. The massive slowdown in the world economy has
    allowed the earth to take a breather. There are wonderful satellite views of
    China, Europe and the US, before and after pictures. Business as usual shows
    clouds of pollution followed by a few weeks of complete economic shutdown, and
    pristine-looking skies. Wow! There are similar pictures everywhere. Denver. LA, New York. The clear
    canals of Venice with fish and dolphin. 
    Pollution contributes to hundreds of millions of ailments every year, and to millions and millions of deaths. Let’s say 6 to 10 million people die each year because of air pollution. (See for example, this Forbes article in 2018.) Note that the infographic shows about 2.1M in the USA. Maybe the slowdown in the first quarter of 2020 will result in 1M people saved related to air pollution? 
    Once people get a taste of clean air, they tend not to want to return to smog and pollution.
    A Whole New Economy. The world economy will never be the same. For several reasons. First, what we came to think of as “normal” was never normal. We have undertaken to consume all the world’s fossil fuels in a few short centuries. We are fully beginning to realize the full costs of non-sustainable systems, the business-as-usual economy was never normal.
    Earth Overshoot day is a concept that is especially relevant to the first Earth Day in 1970. The resources we took and consumed from the earth — although maybe not sustainable and renewable — were fully supplied by the 1 planet we inhabit. That is, the 3.7B world population in 1970, staying with the same consumption patters, could live on the earth without depleting her resources. Think of this earth carrying capacity like you do a annual budget, it would be nice if the annual income lasted all year. But the population has more than doubled to 7.7B, and overall consumption has nearly doubled. Right now, the carrying capacity of Earth is exhausted about the end of July, only 57% of the way through the year! That’s 43% deficit spending for the rest of the year. To consume 43% more than the earth’s annual carrying capacity, we deplete resources like trees, fish and more.
    But, in 2020, the earth has gotten a bit of a breather. Overshoot day will improve dramatically!
    The economy will change. There will never be a “new normal”. People have gotten a taste of teleworking. It’s going to be hard to force people back into the offices that require an hour commute each way. Travel will take some time to come back, and business travel will never be the same. Stadium events will take some time to come back. Students have fully embraced online learning, and they will never fully go back.
    Consumption of fossil fuels are down at least 30% during the closed economy, but consumption may only bounce back half when the economy slowly starts to churn back.
    This might be the jump start that we all needed to step up a move toward sustainability. Assuming a 15% jump back, we would need to reduce our carbon footprint by 3% each and every year to have a 40% (overall) reduction by 2030, a 66% reduction by 2040, and near zero by 2050. Good news, we can easily move to 100% renewables by that time. (See Stanford Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy by 2050 by country and also by major city.) And we can profitably move to 100% renewables if we include the health and death costs of fossil fuels.
    Hind sight is 2020. Every year since the turn of century as been in the hottest 20 some years, with many years breaking all time records. In fact, many months have hit monthly record highs, especially since 2015 (an El Nino year). January 2020 was hottest on record, and the oceans have never been hotter. Remember that carbon dioxide (CO2) persists in the environment for about 100 years from the time we introduce it by burning fossil fuels. As CO2 zooms from about 320ppm a hundred years ago to 415ppm now, the green house gasses will result in atmospheric heating for a century!
    Our linear economy was never “normal”, for this reason, and many others no one should consider using the term “new normal” on the other side of the COVID recession. Hopefully, with 2020, we will have a new respect for science and scientists.
    Let’s leverage this tragedy of COVID to make a real difference in our trajectory of the future.
    May every day be an Earth Day.