Capital

Listening to today’s presentations at the Bio+ conference, a recurring theme has been the lack of venture capital and the corresponding need for public funding. While I am generally sympathetic to greater investments in energy R&D, it is worth considering that the lack of private capital may also be a function of basic physical realities, that there simply is no scalable business case for the proposed innovations.

To give a practical example, the reason that we do not see electric generators at every stationary gym bike is not that capitalism is short-sighted but that the 100–150 W generated from biking simply does not amount to enough power to make practical sense. Still, after today, I could easily see the PowerPoint slide:

"Our innovative circular bio-based human energy platform (HEP) unlocks previously untapped endogenous renewable energy resources while simultaneously delivering public-health co-benefits. The technology is mature, locally sourced, fossil-free and compatible with existing electricity infrastructure. The principal barrier to rapid scale-up is currently insufficient access to patient, risk-tolerant capital."