Mad Like Tesla: Underdog Inventors and Their Relentless Pursuit of Clean Energy was launched this month and has been well-received. The reviews so far have been positive, and awareness of the book is slowly building. But not fast enough. I want to take this moment to ask my readers, many of whom have already purchased the book (thank you!), to help spread the word. Share this link or the Mad Like Tesla website (www.madliketesla.com) on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Refer to it when commenting on the various blogs you might follow. And for my media friends out there — whether in the mainstream press or the blogosphere — please consider a review, or alternatively, I’m happy to chat about the many odd and inspiring stories in this book. Please see press release here.

Thank you all for your ongoing interest and support. BTW: Many have asked, so I’m happy to report that the e-book version of Mad Like Tesla is now available at Amazon.com.

Why Mad Like Tesla? That’s explained in the introduction, but in a nutshell Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla invented many important technologies in his lifetime. yet he faced constant struggle against naysayers and skeptics who couldn’t, at first, grasp the significance of what he was sharing with the world. Many dismissed Tesla as a mad scientist, and yet his inventions shaped the world largely for the better. So, in my view, if someone today is mad like Tesla, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s quite a good thing, actually — we need more of these people, for the changes necessary in our world will not come from the kind of cautious, incremental steps being taken today.

I have a website for the book in the works, but it won’t be ready until end of August.

Thanks for your support!

Hamilton, energy and technology writer for the Toronto Star, examines some of the latest, most far-out green energy innovations and the people behind them. How far-out? Take, for example, a retired engineer’s idea to produce electricity via an artificial tornado, or a plan for a space-based power station that would harvest the sun’s energy, using microwaves to beam it down to earth. Other gizmos and processes seem more amenable to commercial success and social acceptance: Hamilton tells of a secretive company called EEStor that claims to have made a breakthrough in energy storage, and of a team building a low-cost nuclear fusion reactor. He strikes a fine balance between hope and hard realism when considering barriers to energy transition. As the “tornado guy” says, upon considering financial and regulatory obstacles: “Holy crap, that’s a lot to get through.” VERDICT: Mad Like Tesla is easy to get through, even for readers with only a basic knowledge of energy issues. Hamilton makes complex technologies comprehensible, and he clearly enjoys the remarkable human stories behind the science. Many of the risk takers and visionaries portrayed are Canadian (rocker Neil Young makes a cameo appearance!), but this book’s strong appeal should transcend all borders.

Can’t complain with that. The book is scheduled for public release on Sept. 1 and is already available for pre-order on a number of sites, including Amazon.com/Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca. The book won’t break the bank, either. We decided to do paperback release on first run to make the book more accessible to a larger audience. You can likely pick it up for $13 or so. I built a Web site I’m not entirely happy with, so plan to have a newly designed site finished by the end of August. Stay tuned!

All of this is no surprise. ZENN is trying the best it can to conserve cash until EEStor delivers on what it has promised. There are no shocking departures here. All restructuring is orderly, and that is a good sign. And while we’re all impatient to see whether EEStor can deliver, I guess the good news is that the ZENN/EEStor relationship remains strong and the two companies are planning to work more closely together. Being a media guy, however, I’m still uber curious about the role that Allan Greg is playing here on EEStor’s board.

For a good primer and innovation update on flywheel energy storage systems, check out this recent story in the Washington Post. My column also explains the basics of how the systems work and the challenges of making them efficient and economical.

So what does Temporal claim? The company says it has designed a system with zero parasitic losses and extremely low friction using relatively simple and easily available components. It uses permanent magnets, not electromagnets, but the overall integration of components is largely a mystery — for now. It claims its flywheel will lose less than 5 per cent of its energy after up to 10 hours of spinning, making it ideal for storing energy from a wind farm in the evening and dispatching it hours later when the power is needed. This is a departure for flywheel systems, which are typically used for short-term energy backup and services such as grid regulation.

The company plans to standardize on 50-kilowatt-hour units, double the size of the main Beacon model, and these systems could be grouped together to achieve a larger scale of energy storage. It already has a working 20-kilowatt-hour prototype. Its first demonstration is likely to be a 10-flywheel project deployed in Hydro One’s distribution network, where the technology will absorb fluctuations from nearby wind turbines in an area of the grid that has strained capacity. The project is partially funded by a grant from Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

I’ve already received a couple of e-mails from skeptics who say flywheels have been researched for years and what Temporal is claiming can’t possibly be done, at least not economically and reliably. I always get a kick out of these knee-jerk, borderline arrogant reactions, usually by engineers who think they’re smarter than everyone else and that anything new can’t be true because, if it was, it would have already been done. I like to keep an open mind. No doubt, others will question the fact Temporal isn’t explaining in detail how it can do what it claims, but really folks, why would it reveal its secret sauce at this point? Why would it risk erasing a competitive edge prematurely?

 Anyway, skepticism is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t degenerate into outright uninformed dismissal.

That’s why in my Clean Break column this week I argue clean technology, and specifically the efforts of SDTC, need to be part of the country’s election dialogue. We need to build on the progress SDTC has achieved to date, not abandon the momentum at a time when major world economies — Germany, China, India, Brazil, the United States – are racing to establish a dominant position in the emerging global green economy.

The leaders of the political parties looking to run the next government need to be asked: How are they prepared to support clean technology innovation and green economic development in Canada?

Some participants in the Oklahoma pilot achieved a 57 per cent reduction in energy use during peak periods compared to a control group, while the average reduction was 33 per cent during highest-price periods. Widening the TOU price range in Ontario is crucial to realizing the benefits of smart meters and to enabling competitive services from third-party retailers, including storage services.

Neat idea — though obviously studies would have to be done to assess environmental impacts on the body of water. Still, the fact that 50 per cent of ther world’s population is located near bodies of water, and the fact that Hydrostor’s system uses off-the-shelf components and is highly scalable, this could be a nice niche in the emerging market for grid-scale energy storage. VanWalleghem estimates at this point that the round-trip efficiency of the system is in the ballpark of 70 per cent, which is competitive with other storage technologies, such as zinc-bromide flow battery systems offered by companies such as Premium Power.

The rest of my column urges Ontario to begin taking a more serious look at the regulatory and policy changes required to enable the integration of new technologies into the provincial grid.