In the venture capital community, one hears a great deal about “technology risk.” In my most recent meeting with Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins a few months ago, he told me: “We want all technology risk removed before we put more than a few million dollars into a deal.”

OK, but what exactly does that mean? To illustrate the point, let me tell you about a company I came across at the Energy Storage show in San Diego last week, that appears to me to be the poster child for technology risk. Check out “Gravity Power.”

The website does a far better job than the description I’m about to provide, but imagine a hole 30 meters in diameter and 2000 meters deep, filled with water, in which a huge stack of pancake-shaped concrete disks rises and falls. The concrete, which is heavier than the water by a factor of 4 to 1, is driven upwards by energy coming in beneath it pushing it up, or falls, releasing that stored energy. In the energy generation mode, as the concrete falls, it pushes water up through a return pipe connected to the main hole. In the charging mode, water is pushed down the pipe, forcing the concrete to rise.

Is this theoretically possible? Of course. But has anything like this ever been built? Sort of. Anything of this scale? No, and the first deployment will cost $600 million. Now that’s what I call risk.

And yes, most of the risk is associated with technology. What if you can’t fabricate a huge concrete pancake with seals sufficient to do the job? What about earthquakes — and hundreds of other issues that I can’t even imagine?

But let’s acknowledge that there are other forms of risk here as well. What happens if a better form of energy storage comes into play in the years that it takes you to get your first implementation in place? What happens if energy storage is taken over by vehicle-to-grid connected EVs — or somehow doesn’t turn out to be the big deal that most people expect?

I can find you people who will risk $6 million on an idea like this that has the potential to impact the world of energy storage as we currently conceive it. But $600 million? That’s some real risk.

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Most people think of massive wind farms when they think of wind power. But there’s a small revolution going on, and one that some people are, quite literally, screaming from the rooftops about.

One small wind technology recently appeared in Time Magazine’s list of Top 20 Green Tech Ideas. The company behind it is WindTronics, which has developed small turbine model of 6ft in diameter. It is called Honeywell Wind Turbine. Despite the small size, it can generate 1,500KW/h a year (or around 15% of a household’s energy needs), depending on wind strength in the period.

WindTronics‘ turbine contains no rotating gearbox to generate electricity, which makes it quieter. The blades are equipped with magnets at the tips and are enclosed in a wheel that contains coiled copper, which means that the entire turbine is an electric generator.

The Detroit News has an in-depth article about Ted Klein, an 84-year-old retiree in southeast Michigan, who bought one Honeywell unit. The article says the gearless turbine can generate electricity with wind speeds of 2 mph.

Klein seems to be happy with it. He says the wind turbine is very quiet and you can’t hear it turn even from the porch. Neighbors have not complained about it; they are just curious. It will take him years to recoup the money invested and intends to connect 12-volt batteries to his inverter to store energy to help him cope with power failures.

The 241-pound turbine is available to buy through energy dealers and some hardware shops (it costs $6,499.99 from Ace Hardware. Here you can get the non-grid tied smart box that goes with it). WindTronics expects to have at least 100 wind turbines in operation in Michigan by the end of the year.

WindTronics’ sales are benefiting from a federal tax credit worth of 30 per cent of the cost, including installation. The tax is available until the end of 2016.

Criticism

Not everyone thinks small wind turbines are a good idea, though. The article also quotes Trudy Forsyth from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which considers the unit expensive for the small amount of electricity it generates.

She also highlights that her organization does not endorse rooftop turbines because when wind speed is reduced, turbulence is intensified. Besides, pieces could fall onto the ground, which is a cause for safety concerns.

What do you think? Do small wind turbines have a role to play in energy generation?

Watch WindTronics being featured on MSN’s Today:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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Primus Power is a Hayward, California, startup that makes flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage. A flow battery is a type of rechargeable battery that works by the flow of electrolytes through an electrochemical cell, which converts the chemical energy to electricity.

Unlike typical batteries, in which the active chemical species are stored inside the battery, the dissolution of active species in the electrolyte of a flow battery permits external storage of reactants. For this reason, flow batteries are not limited in the amount of active material that can be used and have the ability to scale up power and energy density.

Primus owns a family of at least three pending patent applications relating to its flow battery technology, including U.S. Patent Applications Publication Nos. 2009/0239131 (’131 Application), 2010/0021805 (’805 Application) and 2011/0070468 (’468 Application).

The ’131 and ’468 Applications are entitled ”Electrochemical energy cell system,” and are directed to energy generation systems including a cell stack assembly (12) made up of a plurality of cells (13). Each cell (13) includes a positive porous electrode and a negative metal electrode.

Pressurized halogen reactant enters the system through feed pipe (15) and flows through a metering valve (17) to mixing venturi (18). Circulation pump (16) circulates the electrolyte from reservoir (19) through the mixing venturi (18), to the positive electrodes in the stack assembly (12) and then back to the reservoir (19).

According to the ’131 and ’468 Applications, the metal electrode includes zinc, the halogen includes chlorine, the electrolyte includes an aqueous zinc-chloride electrolyte, and the halogen reactant includes a chlorine reactant (though this Greentech Media article says the Primus technology is based on a zinc-bromine system, not chlorine).

The ’805 Application adds the concept of maintaining the system’s inner pressure above the liquefication pressure of the halogen reactant.

Primus’s battery flow technology has received some high level attention and funding, including $14 million from the U.S. Department of Energy and $11 million in venture capital, according to the Greentech Media piece.

Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.

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Part of the events at the Electric Drive Transportation Association’s conference here in Washington DC was a press conference in which a few dozen of the currently- and soon-to-be-available EVs were displayed outside the Department of Energy Building. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and a few others spoke to an enthusiastic audience.

Markey is obviously very bright, and has the quick wit one expects of a Congressman who thinks of himself as progressive. “Many people have a theological belief in our abundance of oil. The problem is that oil isn’t about theology; it’s about geology. We have less than 2% of the world’s oil, while consuming about 25% of it.”

He also reminded us of George W. Bush’s and Condoleezza Rice’s trip to Saudi Arabia a few years ago, the purpose of which was a request for a reduction in oil prices. In exchange for the Saudis’ agreement to consider the idea, we agreed to sell them nuclear energy generation equipment (as if they need it, sitting on all that oil, with their own gasoline at 9 cents a gallon).

“This was one of the low points in US history,” Markey told us, looking at his feet solemnly. “When Kennedy was president, he told Khrushchev, ‘We will use technology to dominate you in the Space Race.’ Why couldn’t Bush have done that? Why can’t we simply commit to innovating and developing technology that will establish our leadership in the field of energy? So much of this is right here, in our hands today. The electric vehicles you see here today are a lethal weapon in our fight to end our oil addiction.”

Something to think about.

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Besides being good for the environment for reducing emissions and being a renewable source of power, wind energy also uses less water than other types of power generation, stated the American Wind Energy Association recently.

This is an important aspect of energy generation since around 40% of the world’s population already lives in water-stressed areas; with a growing population estimated to reach nine billion by 2050, pressure on water reserves will only get more intense. In fact, global water demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40% by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario.

According to research carried out by Vestas Wind Systems, wind power generation actually conserves water and can help alleviate water shortages, a sharp contrast with conventional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, which make up 78% of global electricity production. These use water for cooling and condensing the steam that drives the turbines. Wind power generation requires practically no water.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 20% of wind power in the U.S. power system by 2030 would save as much as four trillion gallons (15 trillion liters) of water, or the equivalent to the annual consumption of more than nine million U.S. citizens.

Fortunately, some of the water-challenged regions of the world are suitable for wind power generation, which could provide them with an ideal alternative to their energy demands, one that is carbon-free and simultaneously reduces water consumption.

Presentation by Vestas’ Rina Bohle Zeller explaining the wind/water/drought connection:

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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The high tech industry will play a significant role in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as long as the Internet remains a level playing field. The opportunities for software companies to innovate in the energy generation and energy efficiency sectors are substantial if the priority of traffic over the Internet remains neutral (i.e., the FCC adopts net neutrality rules).

The smart grid is the main prerequisite to the Internet’s involvement in energy. The Obama Administration recently announced $3.4 billion in the development of the smart grid and related technologies. Much of these funds went directly to utilities to provide smart meters in homes and businesses. Southern California Edison has already started its rollout of smart meters under a program called SmartConnect; they hope to have 5 million smart meters active by 2012.

The fundamental breakthrough of smart meters is the ability to communicate information bidirectionally. Like a normal power meter, the smart meters can measure the energy consumption of the consumer, but they also can send that and other information to the local utility as well as to devices located on the property of the customer (e.g. smart thermostat, smart refrigerator, etc.). A completely new market for energy efficiency products will exist when users begin connecting these smart meters to the Internet. This connection will remove the shackles from energy software outfits such as OPOWER [view some of their current clean tech job openings on the CleanTechies Job Board] and Google.org.

The Internet has an infrastructure capable of revolutionizing energy use both at home and at the workplace. For instance, we all have widgets staring at us on our computers these days. Imagine having a widget that was giving you a real time view of the electricity consumption at your home or in your office and the ability to reduce that energy use from the convenience of your office chair. One could also schedule consumption levels based on their personal preferences and real-time electricity rates. Companies have already started sprouting up to focus on these emerging technologies and this market will only grow as utilities create the smart grid. Another dependency not often included in this discussion is a free and open Internet, more commonly referred to as net neutrality.

The reliability of software that uses the smart grid and the Internet is dependent on net neutrality to ensure Internet Service Providers (ISP) deliver bidirectional data as quickly as possible. If the Internet did not operate on a level playing field (e.g., PG&E’s Internet traffic was given priority over data from a personal web server), then the growth of distributed generation and other electricity control options could stagnate. How can someone make his car’s batteries available for use by the smart grid if ISPs constantly push the control signals to the back of their data transfer queue?

The free and open flow of data on the Internet is not only important for individuals and small companies looking to spread their message. Net neutrality is an important issue for those trying to combat climate change through improvements in energy generation and energy efficiency.

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