Brian Walton, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at Husson University in Bangor and director of the Richard E. Dyke Family Business Center, recently participated in a White House roundtable focused on addressing the climate crisis through the development of clean energy and climate technologies.
The invitation came after the company won the National Energy Technology College Awards Competition, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Technology Transition, for its innovative hybrid climate and clean energy incubator and accelerator idea.
This win advanced them to the second stage of the competition, where they placed second and were invited to share their plan with senior staff from the White House, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, universities, venture capital firms and law firms.
The grant will enable Walton to connect existing clean energy programs and patents from DOE-affiliated laboratories with startups and technology clusters to commercialize research, while also conducting educational activities to get more students on Husson's campus, under the guidance of DOE mentors, into energy technology commercialization and entrepreneurship.
Walton, an investment strategist, also serves as chairman of the board of directors of Maine Venture Fund.
“My specialty is business development, so I bring a fresh perspective to climate change technology issues, with a focus on sustainable business planning,” Walton said.
Q&A with Brian Walton
We asked Walton some questions about the state of climate change tech. Below is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: What is climate change technology?
Brian WaltonClimate change technology, or climate tech, encompasses a wide range of technologies and innovations to address the challenges posed by climate change. Essentially, it involves the development and implementation of solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and adapt to a changing climate. Examples include renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal; energy efficiency efforts such as electric vehicles and battery storage, LEDs, smart cities, and automated sensors that track the efficiency of solutions; and carbon capture and storage.
Other items worth mentioning include climate adaptation technologies such as flood-resilient infrastructure, drought-tolerant crops, early warning systems for extreme weather events, and climate data and monitoring technologies that provide accurate monitoring and data collection essential to understand the impacts of climate change and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation measures.
MB: How do you contribute to the commercialization of research?
Black and White: Think of me as a “technology broker.” I look at the proprietary intellectual property collected by the Department of Energy that the public doesn't have access to. For example, the Department of Energy has thousands of patents in its repository, originating from 17 national laboratories. Yet the Department needs someone outside the organization who understands intellectual property law, understands industry market dynamics, is willing to help the Department develop public-private partnerships with compatible entrepreneurs, and, frankly, can trust to take the lead in New England and see it through.
“However, we see it” refers to the fact that once the technology and entrepreneurs are identified, they need support to adopt the technology in their business growth, and this is where my background in business planning comes in handy, because I nurture and accelerate companies regardless of their stage, facilitate specialized advisory services, provide investment and fundraising support, establish performance metrics, and develop a customized management consultancy level experience. In fact, I create individual incubators around each innovation and entrepreneur, helping them go from idea to market or from market to exit, depending on their respective growth stage.
This is one of the reasons my approach is unique – most incubators don't customize programming or allow entrepreneurs to receive support for up to three years. Combining engaging multimedia programming with unprecedented access to industry resources makes this a truly innovative approach.
MB: Can you give us an example of this work?
Black and White: I've worked for large greenhouses like Vertical Harvest, which relocated to Maine and built an $80 million facility in Westbrook that sequesters carbon with an energy-efficient cogeneration plant. I'm helping companies like Vertical Harvest overcome the challenges of relocation and securing funding so they can provide food to address fresh food challenges along the East Coast.
One project I'm particularly excited about is a group called Agricultural Conversion Systems in Ohio. They're very interested in relocating to Maine because of the abundance of industrial land there, the relative ease of doing business there, and because I advised their CEO on another technicality a few years ago. ACS has a process that allows them to convert waste plastics and waste tires without releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. This is important because there are over 300 million tires in landfills across the country, and essentially one tire per person in the U.S. Removing that waste in an environmentally friendly way is a huge win for the environment and the climate, because traditional methods of destroying plastics and rubber are notoriously bad for the environment.
MB: What does the future hold?
Black and White: It would take an entire day to analyze the future of this sector. There are three core technologies that Mainers are discussing:
- Photovoltaic technology: The future holds promise for advances in efficiency, durability, and integration with energy storage solutions. Innovations such as perovskites [a family of high-performance and low-cost materials] Solar cells, building-integrated photovoltaics and solar tracking systems are expected to further reduce costs and expand adoption.
- Carbon capture and storage technologies: The future will require innovations in capture efficiency, cost reduction, and use of captured CO2 for industrial applications. Advances in direct air capture and carbon utilisation technologies offer a promising path to expanding the deployment of carbon capture and storage and achieving carbon neutrality.
- Smart Grid: In the future, we expect the grid to become more resilient, modernized, and flexible. Innovations such as advanced grid analytics, distributed energy resources, and blockchain-based energy trading platforms are expected to transform the power grid and facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources.
MB: Any other developments?
Black and WhiteThis hybrid incubator and accelerator will be based at Husson University, but we want to work with all Maine schools, entrepreneurs, and anyone serious about solutions to our climate and clean energy challenges. We also welcome collaboration with financial institutions that partner with industry, especially foundations that support corporate social responsibility programs and environmental stewardship.
