Monday, February 15, 2016

The Bridge to Our Future is Broken | CleanTech


By: Murray Guy | Lean Lab




Venture Capitalist and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel built a hugely successful company based upon Contrarian thinking.  “Find an important truth about something you believe to be true, that very few people agree with you on, figure out a Factor 10 times superior solution” and become one of the companies to build the future.





Paul Hanley, author of ELEVEN, couldn't agree more about Factor 10.  As that is the absolute minimum amount of resource use reduction needed for there to be a future for the 11 Billion people that will occupy this planet by 2100.  What this means is innovation and a commitment are needed to reduce our current ecological footprint of 1.6 planets that is not sustainable.  Paul is very optimistic that we can be successful and if we all get going on this soon. Then just maybe we won't be needing to buy tickets to MARS.




Factor Ten is the radical idea that humanity must reduce resource turnover by 90% on a global scale within the next 30 to 50 years and that human energy use and material flows are currently unsustainable and destructive to the environment. To achieve dematerialization, Factor 10 proposes that within the next generation, human energy use must decrease by a factor of 10, and resource productivity and efficiency must increase by a factor of 10.



Elon Musk on the other hand despite doing everything possible with the Tesla electric car company and installing PV panels across the country, is a little less optimistic that we have what it takes to get Factor 10 done!  So he is working real hard at getting the SpaceX ship ready for blastoff.



Musk, as he will gladly tell you, has a vision: Colonize Mars and make humans a multi-planet civilization. He sees it as insurance against a global catastrophe that leads to human extinction. (Quartz)

To make it affordable to blast off into space, Elon Musk has adopted lean practices that enable SpaceX to build rockets at half the cost. In his self titled book we learn what it takes to launch successful clean-tech start-ups.

"The secret to the low cost is relatively simple, at least in principle: Do as much as possible in-house, in an integrated manufacturing facility, with modern components; and avoid the unwieldy supply chains, legacy designs, layers of contractors, and “cost-plus” billing that characterized SpaceX’s competitors."  





To make it affordable to blast a Broken Building into the future, we need to adopt these same waste reducing, productivity improving and value creating activities to create Factor10 buildings and communities.






As a pilot we decided to test out the assumption that we could build Factor 10 designs pioneered by building scientists like Rob Dumont at no additional cost.With five Net 0 targeted pilot projects in progress we have been successful in demonstrating that Factor 10 is economically viable. In fact, we can go beyond that and deliver Net 0 energy buildings at Net 0 additional cost with the right people as demonstrated by Dennis Cuku on the Mosaic Project in Edmonton. 

As we venture forward with Factor 10 as the target and lean as the strategy we can be confident that the building industry can take care of their 40% of the climate change problem.  

So Elon, you don't need to launch that rocket just yet.  The world is waking up to the fact that climate change is a reality and that the cost of prevention is much less than dealing with the collapse of our civilization.

So WHY not give Lean Project Delivery a GO, join the Factor 10 Revolution and help establish Net 0 buildings as a mega-trend.

Have an awesome day while contributing to preserving the beautiful planet Earth! 
Thank you QUARTZ for this wonderful article on Space Travel   ... or is it Lean Project Delivery? 

What it took for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to disrupt Boeing, leapfrog NASA, and become a serious space company - Quartz

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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Filipino-American Entrepreneur Is Building Bamboo Bikes to Improve the Planet - NBC News

Kudos ... Bryan Benitez McClelland for creating a social,  craftsman job creation WOW  #startup




Filipino-American Entrepreneur Is Building Bamboo Bikes to Improve the Planet - NBC News: "Filipino-American Entrepreneur Is Building Bamboo Bikes to Improve the Planet
by ERIK ORTIZ



The frames of the bikes are made out of the tubular material, which grows in towering green thickets far outside urban Manila. Exploiting the abundant and natural resource, then turning it into a blooming business, was the brainchild of Filipino American Bryan Benitez McClelland.

With his master's thesis focusing on sustainable development in impoverished communities, McClelland hooked up with a group called Gawad Kalinga (meaning "to give care"), which seeks to empower Filipinos out of poverty.  The 32-year-old Connecticut native introduced his line of bamboo bicycles — Bambike — nearly six years ago with $20,000 in seed money.




Bryan Benitez McClelland, founder of Bambike, shows off one of his company's bamboo bikes in Central Park, New York. Jon Sweeney / NBC News

But in 2009, his plan got a kick-start when he had a bamboo bike builder from Africa come to the Philippines to advise him and two others from Gawad Kalinga in design."I THOUGHT I WOULD JUST BE THERE FOR SIX MONTHS. BUT I REALIZED THAT I COULD HAVE A BIGGER IMPACT ON SOCIETY IF I STAYED."


All About Bamboo


"What it does is it absorbs the road chatter and the road buzz," he said. "The whole frame kind of just eats it up."

McClelland became entrenched in the world of bamboo. He realized it took just three to five years for poles to mature — a lightning pace compared to other trees.

Bamboo is also considered eco-friendly, releasing more oxygen and absorbing more carbon dioxide than other plants.

Social Entrepreneurship

After perfecting the building of a bike frame, McClelland launched his own business, employing members from Gawad Kalinga who learned how to manipulate the material into various sizes.

Today he has about 15 employees, and they polish off 30 frames a month. A complete bike, including the wheels, can cost about $1,700 — not inexpensive, but McClelland sees his prime customers as the middle- and upper-class market, as well as the export business.

In 2011, the enterprise got a huge boost when the Philippine ambassador presented President Barack Obama with a Bambike as a gift.



McClelland hopes to expand his company — Bamb Ecological Technology Inc. — beyond just bikes, with housing, flooring and construction of bamboo products still another phase of green building not yet the norm in the Philippines.
http://bambike.com/

Murray Guy @Lean_tobe_Green saluting #CleanTech #Startups


Murray Guy aka @Lean_tobe_Green
Learn: LEAN LAB. … Design: Integrated Designs … Build: EcoSmart

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