Let’s Reimagine Everything: The Veridian Master Plan
For the $100T problem of climate, we need Trillion Dollar ideas.
We Need Ideas Bigger than Fusion,
That Create Companies Bigger Than Tesla,
This isn’t a time for playing small. We need to play to WIN.
In my post, Disrupting an Ecosystem, I discussed the importance of disrupting the energy industry on three, integrated fronts.
In those dimensions, I’m excited to unveil the Veridian Master Plan for accomplishing this with 3 Big Ideas:
1) SuperGrid – A Layer 2 for the Grid (Grid Resilience)
2) SuperFuel - A Rechargeable Fuel (Clean Energy Transport & Long Duration Storage)
3) Breakthrough Battery - Grid Scale Energy Storage for Speed & Scale (Grid-scale storage)
The Veridian SuperGrid would overlay and upgrade the current grid infrastructure
1. SuperGrid – “A Layer 2 for the Grid”
Despite decades of smart grid research, the grid remains anachronistic. The current grid has finally reached its limit. It can’t be replaced, yet it also can’t grow. If this network needs to evolve, how do we disrupt it?
Networks can only be disrupted by networks. In nature, the brain grows new layers as the previous network of neurons reaches its limits. Most recently, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum evolved Layer-2 networks.
A Veridian SuperGrid would be the Layer-2 of the electric grid. Each node comprises of Veridian’s unique energy storage system controlled by Advanced Microgrid technologies that were designed for US military bases to operate independently. Veridian licensed a suite of these Advanced Microgrid technologies from Sandia National Labs, which was a major innovator in both the DOE Grid Modernization program as well as the DOD SPIDERS Program.
A Veridian SuperNode would comprise of Advanced Microgrid architectures for grid resilience built solely around it’s energy storage solution.
In this design, we've harnessed advanced technology to handle the instant power demands of electric vehicles (EVs). Through smart load management and grid intelligence, we ensure a seamless flow of electricity, preventing disruptions. Our system integrates responsive features that adapt to high EV charging demand, maintaining stability. It synchronizes fast-charging stations with the grid and uses energy storage to balance power surges. With predictive analytics and a resilient infrastructure, our super grid is always prepared, even during extreme scenarios.
In extreme weather events from climate change going forward, these independent, distributed nodes can intelligently reroute power. This not only ensures power continuity in various scenarios but also actively regulates frequency, mitigating the risk of cascading collapses similar to the Texas power disaster in 2021.
2) SuperFuel - “A Rechargeable Fuel”
As mentioned in “Disrupting an Ecosystem”, fossil fuels can store and transport energy physically, giving the entire ecosystem resilience to commercial change. Renewables have no competitive equivalent.
This Veridian SuperFuel is energy dense and can be charged and discharged nearly forever. Veridian will be using compounds based on combinations of (Li/Na + NO2) also developed at Sandia National Laboratories. What is the advantage of this architecture? One could imagine a world where renewable power is built where they thrive without being tethered by the electrical grid.
Solar could be built in the deserts of the Southwest and wind could be built in the Midwest without being limited by lack of grid transmission. (see Video, "Why the US Isn’t Ready for Clean Energy” above)
SuperFuel could travel by freight, taking advantage of the US rail network similar to coal.
SuperFuel would be green (no CO2 emissions), but could be transported using the rail network to bypass the limitations of the grid. It could store energy from a centralized source, discharge elsewhere, and then return back in a fully sustainable ecosystem.
US Freight Rail Map
Source: https://www.aar.org/data-center/railroads-states/us-freight-rail-map/
“The Infinite Well”
Since renewables create energy once they are installed, adding this long-duration storage feature would create what I call, an “Infinite Well”. We don’t have to keep drilling for new fossil fuels; if we can store the energy of the sun or the wind with Veridian SuperFuel, we can keep harvesting energy indefinitely.
This would be like drilling for oil wells that never run out.
3) Breakthrough Battery - “A Battery for Speed & Scale”
The Veridian Ecosystem with its SuperGrid and SuperFuel is enabled by one breakthrough innovation: The Radical Ion Flow Battery developed at Sandia National Laboratories.
Vanadium Redox batteries are advantageous because of their electron-based, reversible chemistry and flow battery architecture. The VRFB has near limitless lifetimes and the battery can be scaled easily with the size of the tanks. Vanadium is expensive, so Li-ion batteries outperformed in the free-market.
The Radical-Ion Flow Battery, licensed to Veridian, allows the Company to replicate this 1) Radical-Ion Chemistry and 2) Flow Battery architecture using Lithium and Sodium which are much less expensive.
This completely changes our way of thinking about grid-scale storage. The Radical-Ion Flow Battery would have high round-trip efficiency (>94%) and would perform just as well 30 years later. Li-ion batteries degrade in performance quickly and we are just starting to build recycling facilities to support them in the EV industry.
What if in grid-scale storage, the materials (Li or Na) were just as good in 30 years as it was when the battery was installed? Radical-Ion Chemistry enables extreme performance along with sustainability. No nickel and no cobalt needed either.
The Flow Battery architecture scales to meet the needs of the world’s short duration energy storage. It also doesn’t require a multi-billion dollar Gigafactory, which inhibits even the best cell-based batteries to catch up with runaway cost curves of Li-Ion batteries. During manufacturing, it’s simple to pour the SuperFuel battery fluid into tanks.
The economies of scale are incredibly powerful for disrupting the energy industry. It would only take 500 units per year to manufacture the same energy storage capacity of a Tesla Gigafactory. The manufacturing facility would also be smaller on the order of $150M as opposed to billions. This creates powerful economies of scale and overcomes the big issues I noticed when thinking deeply about the topic: “Breaking Down Speed & Scale”.
Since the battery fluid stores energy through the electrolysis of LI/Na and NO2, long duration energy storage is covered as well. The battery fluid of the Radical Ion Flow Battery is the SuperFuel that can be recharged and stored indefinitely.
The Game Plan
The gameplan is simple:
1) Develop and deploy the Radical-Ion Flow Battery (Li version first; Na version second)
2) Upgrade them into SuperGrid Nodes
3) Develop the SuperFuel Network
In a Veridian future, renewables are the cheapest source of energy on the planet harnessed and stored indefinitely as needed. As the current grid ages and extreme weather events increase, we’ll have a more resilient Layer-2 SuperGrid and SuperFuel network protect us. As the batteries spread across the country, they replace fossil-fuel power plants as they convert SuperFuel with >94% efficiency straight to the grid.
With careful attention to commercialization speed & scale, a Veridian ecosystem is much closer than one might think and could be accomplished in as little as 8 years. One can imagine how impactful this would be to our net zero 2050 goals. All of the other fronts: Hydrogen, Direct Air Capture, Green Steel & Concrete would be accelerated with this sustainable ecosystem.
Concluding Thoughts
Veridian was founded on the belief that the spirit of innovation, technical excellence, and sincerity towards the mission that allowed us to build the first Atomic Bomb and send a man on the moon will allow us to succeed in this generation’s transition to net zero.
We are an early-stage company that was started after the Founder’s one-year independent study at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. This work wouldn’t have been possible without all of the sustainability training at Stanford and the tremendous work laid down at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM.
For more information about the thoughts, insights, and ideas that went into Veridian’s development, please enjoy the following articles: