Is energy technology being supressed?

[Cloud]

how the hell should I know?

I think the more pressure and innovation that can come from grassroots research and implementation, the better. (Mother Earth News, anyone?) But it doesn't seem outlandish to me that oil companies are getting into the alternative energy sphere. It would be short-sighted of them not to.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Cloud

I think the more pressure and innovation that can come from grassroots research and implementation, the better.

Learn why the Silicon Valley could be so successful. One factor that destroys innovation is money men. People who could not understand because spread sheets cannot measure innovation. In the Silicon Valley, a solution to ignorant money men was venture capitalists; people who took risk because they recognized innovation. Another example was destruction of innovation in Xerox PARC by Xerox bean counters. 'Must reading' for anyone who would understand by first learning from history - "Fumbling the Future".

Another technique opposed by business school types was to work with your 'enemies'. These bean counter types (like a mental midget president), instead, invent enemies. The enemy was not that other corporation. The enemy is the unknown. An early example of how that enemy was attacked was the Compaq EISA consortium with 50 other companies (including every other major PC manufacturer except IBM) to replace the ISA bus. (Same business model eventually created the PCI bus.) Yes, that EISA bus did not make it. But the Silicon Valley (and its suburbs) were learning how to innovate.

Ironically, what drove these new innovation concepts occurred when Estridge (father of the IBM PC) was driven out by MBAs; replaced with a great hater of innovation - Cannavino. Read "Big Blues".

[tw]

Originally Posted by Cloud

But it doesn't seem outlandish to me that oil companies are getting into the alternative energy sphere. It would be short-sighted of them not to.

Energy companies have long been a driving force of innovation. Personal stories from a top Exxon executive demonstrated how Exxon innvations were opposed by GM executives. UPS, at one point, was so frustrated with their replacement engines from GM as to negotiate with Shell for new engines. Apparently that threat was enough to finally get GM to stop dumping defective engines as replacement parts.

A major problem with Lithium batteries (NiMH is already obsolete technology where innovation is ongoing) is its membrane. Remember, lithium batteries approach the energy density of a hand grenade - 40 watts-hours per kilogram. So Exxon has developed a new membrane that has higher temperature tolerances.

Largest problem in Lithium batteries is safety. But in 2002, industrial consumers scoffed at the problem saying Sony and Sanyo are too reliable to let problems happen. Surprise. June 2006. Then the Panasonic factory in Osaka Japan completely burned down in Sept 2007.

One of many examples of battery companies addressing these problems is Boston Power - again possible only due to venture capitalists - not understood by bean counters in banks and Wall Street.

Appreciate why Japanese and Chinese companies dominate the battery market. The so called 'bunny battery' was developed in WWII to solve battery life expectancy of walkie-talkies. In 1990 and that battery is still the standard battery? Yes, because battery companies were owned by bean counter dominated companies such as Sara Lee. Innovation was not permitted. What made 24 hour HBO possible in the early 1980s? Lithium batteries were developed for spacecraft by Japanese companies - using technologies stifled elsewhere - provided the lithium replacement for NiCads.

Current rechargeable Lithium battery life expectancy is 300 power cycles. Some lower tech batteries still don't do that. Lastest technology now claims to do 800 to 1000 recharge cycles. None of this comes from the big American battery manufacturers dominated by bean counters who therefore cannot innovate.

List who in this post is doing innovation and who stifles it.