502471 event 1455731409 1492118196 Do you have a billion dollars? Neither do most of the 6 million companies in the Unites States. In fact, less than 10 companies in the U.S. can reasonably finance a billion dollar investment on their own. And, in the current paradigm, a billion dollars is about what you need to develop new energy technology. Whether you are using coal, biomass, biogas, or natural gas to make electricity, fuels, or chemicals; today’s economic production is achieved through “economies of scale” where huge upfront capital investments are required. This high price of entry is a financial barrier that stifles all but the most incremental technological advancements. In this talk, the long-held belief in “scale-up” to achieve economic production will be challenged and “economies of number” will be proposed as an alternative to achieve cost-reductions through the development of an open modular manufacturing architecture that allows the production of many small, mass-produced modules by a multitude of vendors. Recent advances, emerging opportunities, and challenges ahead in “democratizing” energy conversion technology will be discussed.

Dr. Dane Boysen:
Dr. Dane Boysen joined the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) in 2014 as the Executive Director for Research Operations where he leads an initiative on developing small-scale, modular solutions for monetizing flared and stranded natural gas. Prior to joining GTI, he served as a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), where he managed over $100 million spread 34 of the nation’s most cutting-edge energy technology R&D projects. Before joining ARPA E, Boysen led an $11 million R&D project to develop liquid metal batteries for grid-scale energy storage at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2005, Boysen co-founded the venture capital-backed company Superprotonic Inc. to commercialize his pioneering in work solid acid-based fuel cells. Boysen received his Doctorate (2004) in Materials Science from the California Institute of Technology.

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