Get this: It’s not the 330 year-old Douglas fir tree, sliced open to reveal stunning time markers, or the 20 foot tall “Tinkerers’ Clock,” powered by windshield wiper motors.
No. It’s the entire Exploratorium structure itself, an audacious experiment in green building that aims to create the world’s largest “net-zero” energy museum.
What’s “net-zero,” you ask? Simple, it’s a building that creates as much energy as it consumes.
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How it works
Peter Rumsey, CTO at Integral Group led the design of the building’s net-zero components and explains to Fresh Dialogues how it all works in this video.
A complex system that brings in 74,000 gallons of water per hour from San Francisco Bay to heat and cool the building via miles of floor-embedded pipes;
A rain-water catchment used for flushing toilets.
Rumsey may be an enthusiastic advocate for green building, but what gets him most excited is the idea that the San Francisco Exploratorium will inspire kids to think net-zero is the way of the future.
“They’re going to say, ‘Wow, that’s one of the things we can do to solve this whole big climate change problem,” says Rumsey. “We can design and build buildings that make their own energy and don’t create a carbon problem.’ As kids grow up and become leaders in society, they’ll be the ones saying, ‘we should just do that zero energy thing. I saw it when I was a kid…it was no big deal.'”
Despite much talk about the state of the art green building features, Rumsey says, “There’s nothing cutting edge about the building…we’ve taken things that are ‘off the shelf’ and applied them in creative and innovative ways. We call it ‘state of the shelf’.”
Last night Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors joined me in conversation for the Revolutionaries Series at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. We explored his journey from South Africa to Silicon Valley and beyond and he was exceptionally candid about his entrepreneurial highs and lows. He also shared a fascinating glimpse into the future…flying cars, hyperloops and Mars, oh my! His eyes welled up as he spoke with deep emotion about Neil Armstrong, the need for space exploration and the impassioned vigils after the death of the EV1. But he also displayed a great sense of humor throughout the interview. Did you know he plans to die on Mars? Just not on impact.
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Here is the transcript of our conversation:
Here’s the podcast from KQED:
On the chances of a SpaceX IPO this year
Not likely. Elon explained that he’s not in a hurry to make SpaceX a public company because the short term desires of shareholders would conflict with the company’s longer term goals (which included manned space flights to Mars).
On flying cars
He anticipates the production of flying cars in the near future (and he wasn’t talking about the acceleration of Tesla’s Model S). In response to my question: will it be an Elon Musk production? he demurred. But when I asked, is someone going to do it? He replied: someone *is* doing it.
On the inspiration for Tesla Motors
Musk had the audience roaring with laughter when we discussed the wailing and gnashing of teeth that occurred after the forced recall of the EV1. He said, “How often do customers have candlelight vigils for the end of life of a product? Especially a GM product?”
On being an entrepreneur @38.0 on video
Remember that failure is the most likely outcome. Only do it, if you’re compelled to do it and are willing to eat glass and stare into the abyss.
“If you don’t eat glass you are not going to be successful,” Elon Musk
On the importance of sleep
Musk recommends getting a good night’s sleep, as you’ll be more productive. Despite running two companies and having five children, he averages 6 hours a night. Less than that and he admits to getting grumpy and achieving much less.
On the environment @55.0-1.00.00 on video
He says putting hydrocarbons into the atmosphere is “the world’s dumbest experiment“…We’re playing a lethal game of Russian roulette with the atmosphere and every year, we’re adding another bullet.
The hour long interview will appear on the Computer History Museum YouTube channel next week and air on KQED TV in April. Check back soon for more photos and more details on inspiration, innovation and SolarCity. Check out #CHMElonMusk on Twitter for more audience reaction.
This week SolarCity made public details of its plans for a $200M IPO, an all too rare sunny event for the clean energy sector in this doom laden post Solyndra era. Yet the filing revealed information which might have some investors take a cloudier view of the company’s future.
Although the company has installed solar arrays on over 33,000 U.S. buildings, and revenues have been growing healthily, SolarCity is still in the red and relies on the 30% Federal Investment Tax Credit to keep expanding. As Katie Fehrenbacher reports, the company is being investigated for overvaluing its solar systems for the tax credit. To date, SolarCity’s business model has benefited enormously from the surplus of cheap Chinese solar panels, and prices (until recently) have been trending down. But that is due to change with the large increase in duties imposed on certain Chinese solar panel makers; and the bankruptcy of other Chinese panel suppliers. Investigations by the Treasury Department are ongoing, as is the evolving landscape of solar panel industry.
In a Fresh Dialogues interview earlier this year, CEO Lyndon Rive was bullish about the company’s prospects and even suggested SolarCity was seeking “world domination” in the energy supply sector. He addressed the increase in tariffs on Chinese solar panels:
“It’s more of an annoyance than a concern,” Rive said. “It’s a worldwide market…if China’s costs go up, we’ll just buy from somebody else.”
Rive talked about tempering the growth of SolarCity, to avoid the pitfalls of expanding too rapidly.
“We have a four month waiting list….four months is totally acceptable. Our customers totally understand it,” said Rive. “Could we grow even faster? Yes. But then the wheels may start getting shaky. So we are growing at a healthy rate to ensure quality, safety and also customer satisfaction.”
The IPO disclosures reveal that Elon Musk has over 30% of the shares in the company, followed by John Fisher of Draper Fisher Jurvetson with 26%. The Rive brothers, cofounders of SolarCity with their cousin Elon Musk have a combined 14% only. Here’s Lyndon Rive’s perspective on how Musk contributes to SolarCity as chairman.
I recently recorded a story for KQED radio about Apple’s “dirty” iCloud and the more I dug into the issue, the greener the world’s most valuable company appeared to get. By the time I’d finished researching the topic, visiting a local data center, talking with an expert in energy efficiency, and interviewing members of the public at my local Whole Foods store, Apple released a statement announcing it was going “all in.”
“By the end of 2012, we’ll meet the energy needs of our Maiden, North Carolina, data center using entirely renewable sources,” the statement read.
The data center is a LEED Platinum building (the highest rating of the US Green Building Council standards) with an impressive collection of energy efficient design features from a chilled water storage system to a white cool roof which maximizes solar reflection. The whole project looks so “insanely green” it might start to make once green-revered Google turn a shade of (envious) green.
Was it the black balloons released in Apple’s spectacular retail stores in the Bay Area and around the world? The giant iPod “squatting” outside Apple’s Headquarters in Cupertino? The supersize iPhones walking around the campus demanding Apple clean its “dirty” cloud? The slick video or the 200,000+ petitions asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to stop using dirty coal? The environmental group Greenpeace would like to think so.
But it’s likely that none of the above induced Apple to green its cloud. These decisions to install 20 MW of solar arrays (from SunPower) and the largest non-utility fuel cell installation (from Bloom Energy) were years in the making, and the Greenpeace campaign weeks old. But having Greenpeace on its case does appear to have helped Apple discover some transparency in its operations. Something for which it’s not exactly famous. And that transparency will likely spur further clean action from other IT companies.
In a detailed release, Apple explained exactly where the 60% onsite clean energy is coming from and made a public commitment to power the remainder using local and regional clean energy supplies, including NC GreenPower.
In the war of words and facts between the environmentalist group and Apple, prior to the company coming clean, several commentators accused Greenpeace of “doing a Mike Daisey” on Apple. That is, intentionally fabricating the facts to make a stronger case against the tech giant. In the end, Greenpeace spokesperson Gary Cook told me, “We will continue our campaign to push Apple – and other IT giants like Microsoft and Amazon – to clean the cloud until Apple has policies to ensure that they will grow using exclusively clean energy.”
As for Google and the other fast growing cloud users like Amazon and Microsoft, we’ll be watching closely to see if a “greener than thou” race starts warming up. Each leapfrogging the other to out-green their competitor’s data centers. A race for the most insanely green cloud? Bring it on.
What do Elon Musk, SolarCity and Burning Man have in common? The answer is illuminating for those seeking climate friendly solutions to our energy needs.
Elon Musk is well known in Silicon Valley as founder of luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors and SpaceX, the space transport company. But what’s less known is Musk’s contribution to SolarCity, the solar installer and energy efficiency auditor. Not only did Musk inspire the creation of the San Mateo based solar company, but he’s working closely with the founders on a futuristic clean energy storage solution, coupling lithium-ion batteries with rooftop solar power.
When you discover that SolarCity cofounders, Lyndon and Peter Rive and Elon Musk are first cousins, such ambitious collaborations make more sense, but where does the inspiration come from and how does Musk have the time to keep all these projects moving forward? SolarCity’s Lyndon Rive shared some family insights in a recent Fresh Dialogues interview.
Last week, SolarCity company confirmed that it’s working on stage two of a collaboration to couple Tesla lithium-ion storage batteries with SolarCity’s residential and commercial PV solar arrays. Stage one involved $1.8 M funding from the California Public Utilities Commission to fund a research program in 2010. Stage two seeks to commercialize the program on a modest scale, with over 7o applications pending under the California Public Utility Commission’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), which provides incentives for distributed energy generation. The strategy seeks to leverage funding from the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for clean power and subsidies from SGIP, up to 60% of the system cost.
As Chairman of SolarCity, Elon Musk is not involved in the day to day running of the solar company but CEO Lyndon Rive admits that his cousin only contributes “maybe two hours a month” to the company – by phone – and three hours a quarter for board meetings. Not many minutes to have a significant impact on a company, for your average chairman. But Musk appears to have a rare gift for strategy.
“Elon is a phenomenal genius,” says Rive. “So when he gives you the time and you lay out the plan, he can quickly identify the hole in the plan… this is the true definition of quality vs quantity. .. you can fix whatever potential pot-hole you might run into, just in a ten minute discussion with Elon.”
So you can only imagine the ambitious discussions Musk and Rive had in 2004 on a road trip to Burning Man, the weeklong cultural event held annually in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. It was en route that Rive shared his desire to do something that had a larger environmental impact (than enterprise software) and Musk “came up with the initial idea” for SolarCity.
Burning Man has been described as a seven day experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and culminates in the burning of a wooden effigy. Perhaps it was the profusion of attendees using free standing solar panels to power their RVs; the atmosphere of radical creativity or witnessing all that carbon going into the desert air, but whatever sparked the conversation has had profound impact on the US solar market. SolarCity has the largest share of solar installations in the US and is growing so rapidly, it’s hiring four new employees a day nationally, 10 a month in the Bay Area. Rive’s ambitious goal is world domination in the energy market, no less.
Burning Man may yet become the Mecca for clean tech entrepreneurs as well as the counter culture set; a journey worth emulating for other entrepreneurs seeking clean tech solutions to the world’s energy needs. Past attendees from the business world include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt.
For more Fresh Dialogues interview with SolarCity click here
SolarCity’s CEO Lyndon Rive sat down with Fresh Dialogues last week to share details of the solar company’s business model, rapid growth, and ultimate goal of being the world’s largest energy provider. Yes indeed: this 35 year-old entrepreneur from South Africa anticipates no less than world domination.
Although Rive was tight lipped about the impending IPO expected in Q3 this year, he referred to the $280M investment from Google last year and said, “Our expectation is that companies like Google and other Fortune companies start making similar investments.”
“In order to monetize the full benefits of the solar system you need a large tax paying company. .. might as well use that tax bill to motivate the growth of the renewable industry…” he added. “We are approaching hundreds of Fortune 100 and 1000 companies…and will continually be raising funds, potentially in perpetuity.”
SolarCity is targeting companies that can benefit handsomely from the 30% Federal Business Tax Credit for solar investments. Although Rive wouldn’t name names, Apple Inc. springs to mind immediately. Record profits and enormous tax base? Check. Recently inclined to alternative energy investments? Check. In case you missed it, Apple recently invested in a massive 4.8 megawatt fuel cell development using Bloom Energy technology. Watch this space. We’ll keep you updated.
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Business Model
SolarCity’s innovative model offers a range of solar options. Customers can buy systems outright or pay zero down and lease or purchase the power the system produces. Large investments from partners like Google allow the company to make solar affordable and continue growing rapidly. Rive described the company’s business model thus: “(We) install solar systems for free, so we need capital to pay for that, and take a long term revenue stream on the electricity that we sell. So, as fast as we grow, that’s the business model that we’re in.”
Approx. 6,000 high efficiency solar panels;
