ENERNET

Bob Metcalfe

Polaris Venture Partners

April 9, 2008 at Venture Summit East, Boston Four Seasons

MIT Energy Initiative

President Susan Hockfield says, Jump!

And I ask,

How high?

on the way up.

Polaris Venture Partners

Diversified, so why not energy?

Not Energy, Not Cleantech, and certainly not Green

“Enertech”

Color? Black and Blue

ENERNET

Lessons from 62 years of

Internet history

about how to meet

accelerating world needs for

cheap and clean energy.

Birth of the Internet?

• 1998 Founding of Google• 1991 Gore Bill signed by George Bush I• 1989 World Wide Web• 1984 Arpanet to TCP/IP• 1973 Ethernet, TCP/IP, Cellphone• 1969 Arpanet• 1957 Sputnik• 1946 Transistor and Me (62)

Avoid Hardening of the Categories

FCC 1968 Carterfone Decision: Network vs. CPEFCC 1960s-70s-80s: Computers vs. TelecomsBell System Divestiture 1984: Local vs. Long DistanceVoice, Video, and Data: ISDNTelephone, Television, InternetCommunication vs. TransportationInformation vs. EnergyEnergy: Generation, Transmission, Storage, ConsumptionFeed, Food, Fuel: Corn Ethanol

Internet Surprises

• Conservation -> Shannon -> abundance• Time Sharing -> Interactive Minis -> PCs• Incestuous Traffic -> LANs• Wireless -> Cable, Cellular, Satellite, DWDM• Ethernet vs. Godzilla• Security, Economics, Quality of Service• Voice, Video, Data -> Data• Bubbles -> PC, LAN, Dotcoms, VOIP…

Internet Laws

• Grosch’s Law -- centralized mainframes• Amdahl’s Law -- Mips -> Mbps• Grove’s Law -- telecom monopolies• Moore’s Law -- integrated circuits• Cooper’s Law -- cellular vs. Marconi• Wirth’s Law -- hardware and software• Metcalfe’s Law -- network effect (V~N^2)• Let’s collect Enertech Laws…

Where research?

Not in monopolies.(not AT&T, IBM, Xerox, Microsoft)

Not in government laboratories.(not DOE)

Competing research universities.If only they were better managed.

Silver Bullets

• IBM punched cards• Transistor and Integrated Circuit• Interactive time-sharing minicomputers• Bit-Mapped Display, Mouse, WYSIWYG• TCP/IP and Ethernet• World Wide Web and Mosaic• Lasers, Optical fibers, DWDM• Google• Cellular

Internet Winning Principles

• Break Monopolies (AT&T, IBM)• Layered Architecture

Google / Web / Internet / Ethernet

• Distributed -- Smart Edges• Standards -- De Jure• Competitive -- FOCACA• Build it, and they will come; don’t, won’t.• Use the Internet to build the Internet

There was the Internet Bubble and now there is the

Global Warming® Bubble

Global Warming® is caused by CO2, so now we must urgently build the political will for a Manhattan Project to conserve energy, sequester CO2, and develop clean (but not nuclear) energy sources that can scale, for which there will be no silver bullets, and we will have to pay more.

Enertech will not be conservation.

Sure, let’s conserve energy.

I just traded in a 12-cylinder Mercedes for a 4-cylinder Mini.

I have a SmartCar on order.

But when the Enernet is “done,” we will be using many times

MORE energy than we do now. Prosperity is linear in energy.

Bubbles accelerate technological innovation. They are a tool against the status quo. Outlawing speculative bubbles over-damps technology transitions. The trick is not to get caught when bubbles burst. Caveat emptor. Not only is Global Warming® a bubble, but also are enertech, biofuels, and algae farming.

Bubbles are a good thing.

Accelerating world needs forcheap and clean energy

will best be met by competing teams of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs,

and, yes, venture capitalists.They brought us the Internet doing

computing and communication.Let’s now ask them to do energy.

Diversified High-Tech Venture Capital.Waltham MA and Seattle WA

40Gbps Long-Haul DWDM Optical Transmission.Acton MA

Integrated High-Processor-Count Linux ClustersDelivering Factors of 10 More Enertech Supercomputing

Per dollar, per foot, per watt.Maynard MA

Embedded Energy Management NetworkingUsing ZigBee Standard CMOS Radios

and Protocol Software.South Boston MA

Solid-state Thin-film Lithium-ion Batteries for low-cost microelectronics requiring

miniaturization, durability, flexibility, rechargeability.Littleton CO

Black Silicon,Using Femtosecond Lasers Irradiation

To Enhanced Silicon’s Light Responsivity.Beverly MA

Multicrystaline Silicon Solar CellsWith Photovoltaic Efficiencies and CostsTo Compete with Coal-fired Electricity.

Lexington MA

High-Productivity Farming of AlgaeBy Recycling CO2 From Flue Gasses

To Produce FeedstocksFor Feed, Food, and Fuel.

Cambridge MA

Physicists have long been taunted by the huge nuclear fusion reactor that flies daily across the sky. Maybe it’s best we keep our fusion reactor 93 million miles away and beam in the comparatively small amount of energy that we’ll need. Earth is likely itself a huge nuclear fission reactor. While waiting for fusion, maybe it’s best to distribute fission reactors on Earth’s surface.

Nuclear Energy:None, Fission, Fusion, or Other?

Global Warming® is a bubble like the dotcoms, Al Gore and all.

While doing cheap and clean energy, we need research in climate control.

Let’s control Earth’s albedo with benign reflecting nanoparticles in the

upper atmosphere; let’s position a retractable photovoltaic and

reflecting parasol at L1. Then we’ll have to argue about what temperatures we want.

END