Matthew Engel

In the New York Times on Monday, there was a very important article on young entrepreneurs entitled: No Jobs? Young Graduates Make Their Own. With the lack of traditional jobs on the market, young people are blazing a path to success by creating their own companies. These organic businesses, started from the ground up are what the U.S. needs to revitalize it’s economy. One must never forget about the roots of companies such as Facebook and Google, which of both started in a college dorm room or one bedroom apartment. And in 2010 you could look to Groupon, for example, which started in 2008 and recently refused a $6 billion bid by Google. Granted, most of us will not be forming the next multinational enterprise, but with a vision, tenacity, and good business acumen there are always possibilities available to the budding entrepreneur.

The NYT article describes the failures and success of a NYU film student, Scott Gerber, who used nothing but his passion and the last $700 in his pocket to start an internet company. While there are many opportunities for forming novel businesses online, I think the biggest game changers will be in the energy sector. Since starting his business, Gerber has also founded the Young Entrepreneur Council which mentors early stage entrepreneurs primarily through web forums, Q&A articles and video conferences. Scott also writes prolifically for several websites, such as this article on how to raise capital for your business based on first hand experience from various new entrepreneurs on youngentrepreneur.com.

While there is still room for virtual businesses to grow, a truly sustainable company should focus on solving unmet needs. In the U.S., the primary unmet needs are in the energy sector. Therefore, many investors and serial entrepreneurs are moving into this arena trying to bring new products to market and bridge the cap between new technologies that are challenged by consumer adaptation and habit.

Taking Your Career Path Beyond the Zebra Path

Well, I have been extremely tardy in updating my blog. For that, I apologize. In fact, I am so late, I am posting an advertisement for an event which already happened. However, from the post I think you will still be able to read about the event and learn about the speakers, who were extremely interesting. It was a complete success – we had good attendance, the speakers gained invaluable experience, and the audience, including myself, learned alot about the career paths of these two unique Stony Brook University alumni. The talk was organized by the HERA Group at Stony Brook University. The University Career Center helped us advertise on their website, as well. Below, I’ve included the speaker’s bios and will just give a few points of advice the speakers gave out. Adam DeRosa suggested that if you are doing a PhD to find a young advisor who is trying to publish as much as possible. Luke Suroweic suggested hitting as many networking events as possible with your suit on, business cards and resume out – that is how he got his first internship. And the rest is history!

Free Coffee and Snacks!

Supported by the Career Center and GSO

View the PDF

In early September 2009, I was privileged to attend an information session at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)  regarding the proposed 32 MegaWatt (MW) solar power plant to be installed on site. The presentation was given my Timothy M. Green, Natural Resource Manager of the Environmental Protection Division and consisted of an overview of the BP (British Petroleum) Solar Project. The plan is to build the largest solar power plant ever in NY on Long Island, and would involve collaboration with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), BNL, and BP while following Governor Patterson’s 45 by 15 plan.  The Governor’s policy calls for 45% of NY State’s energy to be generated by renewable sources and improved energy efficiency. This is a great shift forward, if in fact it can be implemented.

Solar Electric Generation Facility Competes with Oil-Fired Power Plants

Patterson’s call to create this solar power plant as part of his 45 by 15 plan is an excellent moderate goal for several reasons, but a poorer long term goal. This is a positive short term goal because the construction of a solar power plant in the tri-state area will serve to demonstrate feasibility of solar power generation on a large scale to New Yorkers, educate consumers about the capabilities of this technology, provide a testing ground for BNL photovoltaic researchers, and raise awareness about solar energy to the general public. Also, it is extremely important to note that this plant will be operated, managed and connected to the grid by LIPA – a non-profit NY State electric utility company. They are responsible for distributing electricity to all Long Island residents, though LIPA does not currently own any electric generation assets. LIPA functions by outsourcing distribution and transmission line maintenance to NationalGrid. The construction of this new plant is different from the current model, in which the oil-fired power plants in this region are operated and managed solely by National Grid without a single other power company existing in the region to compete and drive down prices. Therefore, the solar power electric generation facility which will not be owned by National Grid represents the first source of competition for electric utilities in this region.

Weakness of Large Scale Solar Power Plants Compared to Small, Locally Owned Solar Powered Electric Generation Facilities

However, the weakness in creating large scale solar power plants for electricity production for individual and commercial usage is that it is unsustainable. In the future, if we were to build enough new solar power production plants to sustain the Long Island region we would require much more land than is available for new development (data forthing). The alternative solution is too construct individual ‘power plants’ at the end user’s location by installing photovoltaic (PV) arrays at the actual site of energy consumption – another words, install solar panels at home or work. This would (1) marginalize the environmental impact and reduce development costs by eliminating the need to tear down trees and build plants on empty land; and (2) increase efficiency and reduce costs by eliminating electricity lost during long-distance transmission from the power plant to the consumer.

Environmental Impact and Research Component

In September of ’09, it was announced that this facility would be producing 50MW. In the last 4 months, the total power output has been reduced roughly 30% to 35MW, which takes a significant amount of benefit out of the proposed advantages of this project. Upon questioning, the representatives of this project stated that one major advantage of this plant over smaller, locally owned PV systems would be savings due to the “economies of scale”. A 30% reduction in power output and probably panel construction lowers this benefit. During the meeting with LIPA and BNL representatives it was states that LIPA wanted “to provide more green energy to [their] customers”. They solicited a proposal for large scale power plant construction and received many offers. The audience at this talk received some information on the technical specifications of this operation as well as alot of ‘greenwashing’. Greenwashing is the act of stating rhetoric in order to improve public image. However, in this case, the greenwashing is being backed by significant action so some rhetoric is in order, such as “we must diversify our energy resources to increase security”. No offense, but adding 32MW to the grid is not going to do much to reduce dependence on foreign oil. It is really just a first step.

The plant will cost $220m and the panels will be manufactured by BP in the USA. BP is seeking a ROI over 20yr, the length of its contract with DOE. The panels will be standard crystalline PV modules and will take up 200 acres. Total acreage of the lab is 5,625 acres. By optimizing space, the laboratory was able to reduce the standard 8-10 acres/MW to 5 acres/MW. This will be achieved by closely packing the panels with 18.5ft of spacing apart to gain maximum efficiency without causing loss due to shadowing. Construction would occur right in the middle of the lab. The arrays would be interdispersed with smaller step-up transformers (converting DC->AC power) sprinkled throughout the plant. A final step-up facility will be used to bring the voltage to 69kV in order to be compatible with voltage already along the grid. The electricity produced would not be for the lab and the Department of Energy will continue to own the land. If approved, construction will begin in Spring 2010 and go online May 2011. While the facility would create jobs by requiring 200 people for construction, it will only require 2 people to manage the plant. There are no moving parts.

Research and Commercial PV Array Specifications and Location

Approximately 10 acres of this plant will be dedicated towards a research array which would produce 1-2MW of power for the lab. These panels will be used to study battery storage systems, the effects of local climate on PV modules, and how fluctuations in the grid impact output. The 37MW plant should be capable of producing 40m kWhrs/yr. These panels are projected to last up to 40 years, It will require 500,000 gallons of water/yr just to wash the panels.

Other locations on the BNL site were considered. A dispersed system along roadways was ruled out since it would be difficult and inefficient to connect these panels. The goal is to direct energy from the PV arrays to the LIPA substation – and a disparate chain of panels would require more voltage and pipeline to link the arrays. During peaks hours LIPA will be able to reduce the load of its current grid and avoid 1.2m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. For reference, 2000 acres of 75 yr old trees sequester 2.2 thousand cubic tonnes of carbin dioxide. I did not realize that trees sequester most of their carbon while growing – a good excuse to plant more!

Summary and Conclusions

In summary, this is an inspirational and practical project that I believe will seriously benefit the regional economy and environment. However, I still fail to understand why the 200 acres of PV arrays were not built on rooftops. Considering the average house uses 5,256 Kw-hours/year then this 40million kW plant should be capable of powering ~7,160 homes. If each home takes up 0.5 acres then we would have ~3,600 acres available to build panels. Therefore the 7,160 homes which are being powered by this lone plant could potentially produce much more power combined if they were equipped with their own PV systems. Some further calculations – assuming each home is 0.5 acres, but only has 0.25 acres os usable area for panels then this reduce our total acreage available to 1,800 acres. Assuming BNL’s factor of 5 acres/MW then 7,160 homes could be capable of producing 360 MW. This is 10x the power of the current plant. Therefore, the government should seriously consider investing in PV systems for the individual homeowner, rather than municipal utilities in order to account for increased efficiencies.

Additional Information

How Many Solar Panels Do I Need to Power my House?
New Project Developments
BP Long Island Solar Farm – Environmental Review
enXco Eastern Long Island Solar Project – 17MW of Solar Energy to be constructed on Suffolk county Public Land

A streaming video can be found here on the bottom of this webpage.

The full presentation was uploaded onto the BNL website, and I have a copy of it here. Below, I will share some of the slides which I thought were most critical and relevant; as each could warrant a full discussion unto itself. One of Chu’s goals was to establish the idea that our world is changing. Many peoples are not prone to understanding these types of changes, or how they will affect society. However, it is important not to ignore them but study them and try and calculate how they will impact humanity. One may ask ‘Will these changes be beneficial or detrimental? Can we alter their course, can man control them? Are these changes to our world caused by man, or a byproduct of our society?’ Chu establishes three ‘myths’ which are commonly thought to be true, and present evidence to combat each myth. They are:

1. The wealth of a country is proportional to the energy it uses and its carbon footprint.
2. Energy efficiency and CO2 reductions are not affordable.
3. We have all the technology we need to solve the energy problem. It is only a matter of political will.

The graph above shows the development index of many nations in the world including the U.S., Japan, France, Netherlands, Germany, Israel etc. in proportion to their energy consumption. From here, we can see that many developed nations all across the world are able to maintain a high standard of living while having much lower energy consumption per person. Therefore, in America we have the potential to maintain or even raise our standard of living while lowering our energy consumption – this data shows that it can be done.

Here we see the energy consumption in the United States per person in kWh compared to the energy consumption in California per person. It is obvious, there is a drastic difference between the two. The average person in California uses much less energy than the average person in the U.S. Even while the per capita GDP in California doubled, its energy consumption remained flat. This was due to greater energy efficiency practices, that we could learn from. These practices would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and help reduce pollutin emissions.

I will post this now, but continue updating it over the weekend. Enjoy, and best wishes.

Announces Construction of 50 MW Solar Power Plant and NSLS II

Today was an extremely interesting day to be an employee at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Governor David Paterson made a special visit and announced some extremely good news on site to the laboratory employees. The core elements of his talk focused on the funding, development and construction of the National Synchrotron Light Source II and the construction of a new 50 Megawatt (MW) solar panel plant at the laboratory. These are both exciting new developments and display a strong commitment by the federal government to researching and deploying new technologies. There was also mention of a possible additional 400 MW solar power plant to be funded by private investors. Governor Paterson was accompanied by Senator Brian Fowley (NYS Senate), Assemblyman Mark Alessi , Brookhaven National Laboratory Director Sam Aronson and a representative from LIPA. According to past state audits, NY has been directed to implement alternative energy technologies to provide electricity for the region, and this solar power plant will accomplish that. Specifically, a solar power plant will be used to providing power to the new NSLS II, though I beleive there is potential for expansion in the future. This is a major breakthrough and will provide thousands of jobs for the Long Island regional economy in construction, real estate, retail sales, science, education and alternative energy research and development. Much of the engineering and construction will be accomplished my local firms who are hiring individuals form New York and Long Island to do the work.

There has been a lot of talk recently about how changes in the economy are affecting the energy sector. This is an extremely important topic to anyone who has money invested in mutual funds, stocks, their 401(k), mortgages, housing or any retirement portfolio. Why? Because the face of the stock market, as we know it, is about to change. The past decade has seen large oil companies reigning supreme posting double digit growth, with natural gas vying for a close second. It is indisputable fact, that these products are natural resources. And it is also indisputable fact that these resources are finite, and their steadily increasing consumption will lead to a jump in price as the Earth’s reserves dwindle. Therefore, at some point in the future, any company which relies solely on oil or gas supplies will be bound for failure. This can be validated by the divestment of the world’s largest energy companies into renewable sources such as wind and solar.

The New York Times reported in late October that investors are nervous about prices for fossil fuels falling, which could cause alternative energy start-ups to incur heavy losses or declare bankruptcy as their market dries up. It is already difficult enough to obtain venture capital or equity financing in these times. Fluctuations in energy prices add considerable uncertainty to alternative energy (AE) technology based companies. It is well known that this industry is currently extremely vulnerable and will probably require strong government backing by means of subsidies and research financing. Personally, I think this would be a tremendous investment in our nations future – much better than investing in other securities that may continue to decline in value, such as American automakers.

Let it be known, that I have full respect for American car manufacturers – I just believe that are much to slow reacting to market forces and have been at the mercy of American oil companies for too long. Why else would they continue to market and manufacture the gas-guzzling SUV’s when all other nations across Earth are making smaller, lighter, faster cars which run on less fuel. I find that absurd, and unless Detroit mounts a drastic change and realizes that the future is electric and hybrid vehicles, they will be out of business by Q4 09.

This is my challenge to the next president of the United States: many of us see a new way forward, and hope that you can realzie this vision. Our hope is that you can solve both the economic and energy crises simultaneously with one blow: bringing alternative energy sources and electric vehicles to market will no doubt require large amounts of man power and resources while slashing our most damaging expenditure – oil. Creating thousands of new jobs for AE contractors, mecahical and electrical engineers, and scientists to design and install solar panels, geothermal systems, wind turbines nationwide. This would destroy our addiction to oil and usher in the green century we all so desperately need.