This blog has been a lot of things for me. Originally, and when people were willing to read and write more than 140 characters, this blog witnessed quite a bit of verbiage, including some that were just that - pure verbiage. Then there were moments where I wrote Fiction, with this one apparently the favourite of the 19 or so people that read it (and mine as well). And then there's the 'Dear Diary' type posts about things that happened in my life and that I captured for posterity because, well, I think they are completely worth it. Like my trek stories, though that is still a little incomplete (really have to get to Part IV to round it off!).
Outside of all those though, were the posts that were about things that I felt extremely strongly about. These were the ones that required no work to be honest, with the words just tumbling out on their own without much mental prodding from my hippocampus to my fingers. In my young and restless days, these were issues that I felt strongly about, but felt helpless to do anything about. Now that I'm old enough, knowledgeable enough and with potential access to decision-makers in multiple fields, I wonder if that could change in any way.
So what has becoming older and wiser done? Well, I now know that I cannot save the world by doing everything at once. I probably cannot even save the world through doing one single thing (though Google and Facebook offer pretty strong evidence against that). However, based on my career experience, and what I hope to learn over my time in school, I do know which of the world's primary needs (and problems) I want to impact - Energy.
There is an oft-quoted equation in Sustainability Theory, known as the IPAT. In short, it states that the environmental impact of anything is proportional to the population and affluence, and ideally, inversely proportional to technological advances (in the field). There is no industry where this is more intuitively understood than energy. More people need more energy (as evidenced by India and the developing world), more affluence demands more energy (as evidenced by most of the developed world) and technological advances, especially recently, are all hoping to drive down this energy use. Right now though, the factors pushing the global energy needs higher is clearly winning. Of course, Energy has traditionally been dominated by Oil&Gas. But the Energy ideas that have the potential to become the next big thing are mainly driven by alternate energy and cleantech solutions. You can pick your reason as to why, but suffice to say there's enough reasons to work on 'alternatives', and from what I have seen so far, quite a few people agree.
Over my past few months at Kellogg, I have had the opportunity to interact with companies in the field that have gone public (SunEdison), companies that were bought out (SoCore) and a start-up that is just... well, starting up (SiNode systems). The common theme among everyone is the capital-intensive nature of the industry. Energy companies take time to grow, to reach scale, to break even and are operationally expensive even after that. Most of their pressing problems are in the financing - reconciling the short-term focus of most returns-driven investments with the longer term timelines that is just intrinsic to the industry. There are multiple ways by which companies in the field are trying to solve this issue, but the question itself remains. And that, I think, is the fascinating problem that I want to take a shot at.
And hopefully, through some incredibly convoluted Butterfly Effect, there will eventually be fewer people at a signal in India who haven't had their first meal till 6 PM. Because after all, isn't that what we are all trying to solve?
