Monday, December 7, 2015

Elon Musk .... I don't want to go to Mars!



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, and figure out a Factor 10 times superior solution.”  


Rob Dumont a pioneer in starting the Passive House Movement used this same type of thinking when he developed a recipe for homes that use a Factor 10 times less energy. This type of thinking and innovation that got its start right here in Saskatchewan has helped to spawn a high performance home movement that is having a huge impact on helping to  mitigate the 40% of GHG emissions that are the responsibility of the building industry.


According to Paul Hanley, author of ELEVEN,  Factor 10 levels of reduction are the absolute minimum if we are going to support the 11 billion people that will occupy the planet by 2100.  That is just 85 years away!  Paul is very positive that if we get serious about reducing our footprint from the 1.6 planets that we are currently consuming that we won't need to take the spaceship that Elon Musk is designing 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.[1]


Is there a success RECIPE  for a  Factor 10 home building company?

Elon Musk and Tesla were the only GreenTech  company  to get mentioned in Peters book "Zero to One" as they have they have the 7 Key Elements needed to become a Zero to One company and achieve huge levels of success.  If Elon can do it with cars, can we take the same thinking and a similar recipe to build a hugely successful  Factor 10 home building business?


Reality Check ...... Do we have the 7 KEY ELEMENTS 

1.   Timing:  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 and so there is momentum growing to achieve factor 10 levels of efficiency in the way we live on the planet.  With Europe preparing to introduce a Net 0 energy standard, the timing couldn’t be better launch a successful Net 0 home building start-up.

 2. Technology:  In Dr. Dumont’s 15 directives for high performance homes in Northern Climate the superior integrated solution is going back to basics with passive solar design, insulation, insulation and more insulation.  Sounds boring but it works! 

3.  Monopoly Product:  If you were to go into any sub-division today, would you find a beautiful unique home that uses Net 0 energy that was built for Net 0 additional cost?  With superior integration and lean thinking this is feasible! 
4.  Team:  It shouldn't be hard to assemble a great team.  There are lots of Green folks passionate about saving the planet. 

5. Distribution:  With the tough targets being set at COP in Paris, anyone coming up with an economically viable practical Factor 10 solution, should find no problem creating a market for factor 10 homes. Our future depends upon it!

6. Durability: That's what we are talking about ... Built to last, energy independent and durable on the cost of energy. 

7. A Secret.   In our case we don’t want the process to be proprietary, as we need to share what we know to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel and develop the technologies and new ways for 11 billion people to live on our one and only planet. 

Hopefully this article will give you some motivation for joining the Factor 10 movement in reducing our global footprint. If you want a copy of  Rob Dumonts Factor 10 recipe or other research papers they are available on our resource page at EcoSmart or if you want to learn about how to use Lean Project Delivery to deliver Net 0 building projects visit the LEAN LAB.

Have an awesome day!

Murray Guy aka @Lean_tobe_Green

mguy@i-designs.ca /www.i-designs.ca


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