Sunday, February 20, 2011
Ten Green Ideas That May Never Take Flight
I do not succumb to the authors views on automobiles (3 wheeled cars and battery swaping stations could be feasible). There is not enough data to write them off even before they have their fair chance.
Nevertheless an interesting read.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
India - Energy and Policy Crisis
EU (and even US) have a very low electricity growth rate compared to India. Their electricity generation infrastructure is well established and any renewables they are adding is just for greening up their infrastructure. India is at growing stage, we need policies that should address energy growth, security (indigenous resources to provide price insulation) and climate change. So EU's policy of feed in tariffs to green electricity infrastructure addresses only climate change but not renewables growth. Consider this, Germany - leader in solar industry just installed - 8.87 GW in the last 10 years. We need to install 160 GW in the next 15 years !!! We need policies that make renewables compete with coal in free market, not feed in tariffs which is still a licensed and regulated market draining govt resources.
Our policies should put renewables on par with coal. Since renewables pay for itself in 7 ~ 10 years (with large scale manufacture and deployment pay back will come down), our policies should help finance the renewables. First solar and Green Tech media ppl both tell me that high initial cost is putting off investments in renewables. So why not take away incentives for coal to help finance the renewables or provide low cost capital? We should not subsidize renewables but rather provide the initial capital for investment.
As a post script, a note on feed in tariffs. It accelerates the pay-back but with feed in tariffs
1) It is no longer a free market so less opportunity for innovation and slow growth. In India solar is projected to grow only to 22GW in 10 years.
2) It drains the govt resources - our present solar feed in tariff policy will cost govt 14,00,000 crore rupees.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Innovative Technologies – Calera:
So this is the first in a multi-part blog on technologies and companies which can radically change our world. The first one is on Calera.
Calera:
Calera is a company which wants to convert all the carbon dioxide emitted by thermal (coal- or gas-fired) power plants into cement or bricks. Further more they also want to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into cement. Too good to be true, isn’t it?
The technology in principle is very simple. It is just chemistry, specifically Catalysis. CaCO3 and MgCO3 (Calcium and Magesium Carbonate) is the biggest ingredient in the manufacture cement. So what Calera proposes to do is that, it plans to combine CO2 with seawater or any kind of hard (salt) water and produce lime stone in the presence of a catalyst (the catalyst is ofcourse a secret!). The salt water provides calcium and magnesium ions and this water get sprayed in carbon dioxide to naturally get converted into calcium and magnesium carbonate. This could be then used in a variety of ways. Either spray-dry into cement or use it as precursor material along with concrete aggregates for building walls or roads.
A pilot plant is up and running in
P.S - Carbon Sequestration or the idea of storing carbon dioxide is not new but to make it as cement or brick and use it as a product is very innovative. Most of the proposed carbon sequestration technologies involve liquefying carbon dioxide and store it in depleted oil / natural gas wells.
Further
http://www.calera.com/what-we-do/
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/index.html
http://www.khoslaventures.com/resources.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07friedman.html?hp
Saturday, March 6, 2010
College days
Thought everyone should read this. I realised this only late in Amrita and more so after coming here. I still have couple of years of college left, so trying to make full use of it. (via karthik)
Vishnu
...are we stuck in High School?
I had two brushes with higher education this week.
The first was at a speech I gave in New York. There were several Harvard Business School students there, invited because of their interest in marketing and exceptional promise (that's what I was told... I think they came because they had heard that Maury Rubin would make a great lunch!).
Anyway, they asked for my advice in finding marketing jobs. When I shared my views (go to a small company, work for the CEO, get a job where you actually get to make mistakes and do something) one woman professed to agree with me, but then explained, "But those companies don't interview on campus."
Those companies don't interview on campus. Hmmm. She has just spent $100,000 in cash and another $150,000 in opportunity cost to get an MBA, but...
The second occurred today at Yale. As I drove through the amazingly beautiful campus, I passed the center for Asian Studies. It reminded me of my days as an undergrad (at a lesser school, natch), browsing through the catalog, realizing I could learn whatever I wanted. That not only could I take classes but I could start a business, organize a protest movement, live in a garret off campus, whatever. It was a tremendous gift, this ability to choose.
Yet most of my classmates refused to choose. Instead, they treated college like an extension of high school. They took the most mainstream courses, did the minimum amount they needed to get an A, tried not to get into "trouble" with the professor or face the uncertainty of the unknowable. They were the ones who spent six hours a day in the library, reading their textbooks.
The best part of college is that you could become whatever you wanted to become, but most people just do what they think they must.
Is this a metaphor? Sure. But it's a worthwhile one. You have more freedom at work than you think (hey, you're reading this on company time!) but most people do nothing with that freedom but try to get an A.
Do you work with people who are still in high school? Job seekers only willing to interview with the folks who come on campus? Executives who are trying to make their boss happy above all else? It's pretty clear that the thing that's wrong with this system is high school, not the rest of the world.
Cut class. Take a seminar on french literature. Interview off campus. Safe is risky.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary Trek
Parambikulam wildlife sanctuary was the setting for 2 day trek / stay in the forests with my brother and cousins. The 2 day break was a great bonding / thrilling / interesting experience for all of us. (Thanks to Karthik for writing this blog :) )
Route we followed : Coimbatore - Pollachi - Top Slip - Parambikulam. Except for 10-12 km just before top slip, the rest of the roads were in top condition, especially, the road between top slip and parambikulam.
And more climb!! There were leeches all over the place !!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
2009 ! :)
1. I kick started 2009 in freezing cold with my best buddies at Manhattan watching the “Ball Drop” among million other people. It was madness to spend the night outdoors with the mercury hovering around -20deg C. But it was a truly amazing experience.
2. I spent the 2008 Christmas Eve on a low note after being fired by my old advisor (The recession ate away our research grants). To say disappointed was being very modest especially after putting in 16 hours a day for the previous 4 months. On the brighter side, he was a great mentor, learned a lot from him and I still look up to him.
3. I got a nice 2009 New Year present – a fully funded assistantship. My crazy ideas will henceforth be funded by the university. My previous advisor and a few of my PhD friends’ generous recommendation helped me out in getting me this financial assistantship. As a part of the assistantship I was supposed to teach budding engineers on how to use Matlab.
4. Teaching a class of 60 students was a great learning experience. It was scary and definitely challenging but it was also fun to teach kids, motivate them, and come up with new ways to explain the concepts. Many years from now, I want to be a teacher / lecturer, I feel it is the best profession to inspire and motivate children.
5. Joined a new research group, got an inspiring and deeply passionate advisor (friend?), opportunity to once again work on solar energy with new friends.
6. Washington DC Trip – White House, Independence Day fireworks, Black Bird and the drive to DC.
7. Awesome time at Six Flags with a gentle ‘Kiss’ from Giraffe.
8. New Hampshire Trip – the climb to Mt. Monadnock with Sriram and Kau helping me, pushing me, and in some places lifting me so I can reach the top – drive to Mt. Washington.
9. Listening to U2 concert in a fully packed NY Giants stadium.
10. Me and Brian coming up with a new idea of depositing thin film semiconductors for solar cells. Pitching the idea to Birnie, to mentor and fund the research work.
11. Spending many nights in university to bring the ideas to life and sleeping in the dept lounge.
12. The single biggest disappointment was giving up the ‘Asha’ running training mid way. Someday I would like to attempt that once again.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Facebook for school & college education
Software’s are driving and catalyzing innovations in all spheres of our daily lives. And as more and more ‘focused’ software’s are being developed, the impacts they create will also get bigger and bigger.
Four years back people could have never foreseen Facebook / Orkut creating such a big impact. It has become one of the most essential tools helping us ‘connect’ and ‘reach out’ to friends and family across the continents. All this and more in a single web page. It has changed the way as to how we build and grow our friendship.
This made me wonder if we were to develop software / software’s focused for our school and college education, how will that be? What features should it have? I decided I will make a go and list down things which I would have if I was the software architect (Software development and me are miles apart!).
I made 4 categories – Student Assist – Teacher / Professor Assist – Parents Assist – Career Assist. These are just to organize and list down the features but the final system should integrate and bring it in a single, simple and easy to use package. Also I think the final system should utilize multiple types of devices PC’s, mobile phones, PDA’s, Kindle’s and a lot more.