“ACTION” — An Innovation Journey with reflections from a US visit
Wow, what a week! In a week I covered California, Texas and Michigan. So different states, so many actions, talks, meetings and just having fun!
Bridging the Gap.
What I learned from a variety of activities and discussions, is that there is a big need to bridge the gap — between innovator/startup and corporate, between pilot and scaleup, and we need to play together, what I also realized, is between different US states. Collaborating well is key to future success. Functional innovation ecosystems are critical, sharing knowledge to make an impact.
My week started with spotting my first RIVIAN R1T on the streets of San Francisco, and ended with actually driving one in the Detroit area, in between I was offered a Polestar as a rental car in Houston, but needed to transport bulky stuff, so it wasn’t fit for purpose. Also, I am uncertain about the charging station network in Texas -how well developed is it? During a talk with a local friend, we checked the highway charging stations and it was not all too encouraging (excluding Tesla’s superchargers). The electrification is on its’ way, but still requires more development and better infrastructure. The gas prices might accelerate the whole thing — in the Bay Area the gallon price was $6.399!
You might ask — so how was the Rivian? My answer. AWESOME. What a product! I just love it! This type of product should make people want to accelerate the electrification. San Francisco by the way is not just about robots in any place (like fully-automated coffee bars) and other tech, but also incredible (mind-blowing!) good ramen!
“Ioneers”, Innovators & Pioneers
In Houston, we were again “Ioneers” — as we have our Houston, TX base located to the innovation house the Ion — a fantastic own innovation ecosystem and very inspiring to work from.
At one point during our power week, we got a question: “how are you, how is it going?” And we were unanimous — “it is great, a fantastic week”. As a response: “But it is only Wednesday!” Well, innovation never sleeps, being on the road, gathering impulses, customer feedback, and needs, helps us create new solutions to solve problems that are costing the planet both in terms of climate and financially. And we are in a hurry — 34% of anthropogenic GHG emissions come from the energy industry and an additional 24% from manufacturing. Did you know that 75% of US Gulf Coast processing industry maintenance is unplanned? A big financial loss (some 650 BILLION $ per year lost) and huge amounts of emissions…Caused by a lack of insights and run-to-failure situations. Also, more than 50% of critical processing equipment failures are due to faulty instrumentation*. And there is our cause — as ROCSOLE we can rectify this with our electrical tomography solutions and provide unique actionable insights. Gain energy efficiency and dish out carbon emissions. A 10% efficiency gain results in 4% emission reduction. For a single oil and gas field operation that can be more than a 100,000 metric tonnes per year or even a million! (TRIVIA — how many tonnes of carbon emissions does the first operational Direct Air Capture aka DAC capture on Iceland? ANSWER: 4,000 metric tonnes per year).
Had one of the best OTC’s in my memory — our stand had one of the biggest audiences, perhaps boosted by our third OTC Spotlight on new Technology Award. And that pride and joy could be seen on our team. Amazing and well done to the whole team. Who would have believed that a few years ago?!
I had the honor of moderating a panel session, which I had on behalf of AIChE (yeah, the chemical engineers…) curated, with fantastic speakers/panelists.
One of the speakers was talking about that entrepreneurs can not only survive on ramen noodles, but go to San Francisco and it might actually work. Jokes aside, he meant that also entrepreneurs need to get some wins in between and have more than 3-months cash runway, well I hope you understand what it means.
Furthermore, we discussed efficiently scaling up new technology to make an impact, the access to good piloting. And ensure to have a good team. Remember that deployment/implementation time is long with infrastructure and making an impact takes time. Still, the energy transition is also much about energy efficiency and we can act now.
That last bit was perhaps the most important, we have to accelerate actions and implementations, and by doing so, we can reduce the carbon footprint drastically. And by that we have the CARBONBUSTERS — speed up the implementation, do more technology adaption, scaleup various renewable energy systems and save our planet for the future generations.
I had the time of my life, the working days were stretched out and returning home I was hit by some sleep deficit (well, not the first time…).
Meeting and talking to all incredible people along the trip was probably one of the most inspiring parts. I also sensed how much we bonded as a team, and how the industry insights and our mission grew on us all during this intense week. It was all so fun and there is so much to learn, and giving my own humble insights to other people, I believe will also add to moving the needle.
Returning home, we were this week met with being selected as a Technology Pioneer with the World Economic Forum, fortifying our mission to make industries safer, better and cleaner. Our work has just started and I feel so powered-up after the latest experiences.
/Mika
*operating environments are harsh, with emulsions, deposits and solids. Very few instruments can tolerate or read well. ROCSOLE, a multiple awards-winning tech company, has real-time detection of solids/deposits and also gives unique insights from emulsion layers. This is what is required in today’s type of processing and manufacturing, to reduce toxic pollution, carbon emission; increase uptime and reduce operating costs. Contact ROCSOLE on www.rocsole.com
