I worked on renewable energy projects a few years back, and while the idea of a large disruptive technology development sounds awesome, the reality is that there are already a plethora of renewable energy turbines and designs that would greatly improve the world... But the engineers and inventors running around with these ideas have no idea how to go from a small scale proof of concept into a fully built out manufacturing and implementation process.
Even if they do figure out how to get engineering and manufacturing in place, then there are regulatory barriers to figure out. There will be politics involved, and legal challenges. And of course, you need to actually operate the sites on an ongoing basis.
All of these challenges can be overcome... but most people who know how to do so already work in the energy industry. What is really needed is a group of people who can bridge those gaps to take an innovate design from an engineers drawing board, and jump through all the hoops to make it a live production site. If such a group were to be built, real change could happen very quickly.
There is also a very large amount of snake oil in the renewable energy field and a ton of ideas that keep being recycled that have long ago been invalidated.
> Frankly, most of the sketchy folk that I ran into during my projects were the investors, not the engineers.
I've seen a couple of both, but for the most part the engineers when they are wrong are deluding themselves as well, the investors that are sketchy seem to be more cynical and aware of what they are doing.
Even if they do figure out how to get engineering and manufacturing in place, then there are regulatory barriers to figure out. There will be politics involved, and legal challenges. And of course, you need to actually operate the sites on an ongoing basis.
All of these challenges can be overcome... but most people who know how to do so already work in the energy industry. What is really needed is a group of people who can bridge those gaps to take an innovate design from an engineers drawing board, and jump through all the hoops to make it a live production site. If such a group were to be built, real change could happen very quickly.