To apply for an entry-level engineering job at One Energy, we require applicants to answer a couple questions. One is a very technical question, the other is a more philosophical one. For the latter, we usually come up with an open-ended problem and ask them to provide out-of-the-box solutions that just might be crazy enough to work.
I thoroughly enjoy reading the answers that these applicants (typically current students or recent graduates) come up with. I’ve read that the static electricity from cat fur could be the next renewable energy, that potatoes could help power our electric grid, and that backpacks that store cow farts could help reduce global warming. These wild ideas come from the world of academia, where anything is possible.
Before I joined the private sector, I was in graduate school, where I witnessed plenty of unbridled minds as both a teacher and student myself. I watched students think obscurely and take time to imagine the ‘what ifs’ without fear of failure or the restrictions of reality. These ideas are so important, yet when I joined private industry, I learned very quickly that these ideas are largely ignored.
There has always been a disconnect between the world of academia and the world of private industry. Recently it has felt like that disconnect has been growing exponentially. It seems like the amazing research that is being done in our learning institutions is getting further and further from making its way into our homes. I’ve witnessed the impact this has had on the wind industry. The immovable wall that is “industry standard.” The inability to adapt quickly when new research comes out. The refusal to share data.
I believe the disconnect comes down to two things: academia’s failure to consider real world application, and industry’s failure to provide the context and information necessary to solve the most immediate problems.
Academia can go down rabbit holes. They tend to spend too much time trying to find the optimum solution instead of the solution that is needed and can be implemented. Academia needs to ask the simple questions of: “why?” and “how?” Why is the research needed? Why is this a problem that needs to be solved? And how will the solution be implemented? How will this be used in real life? They need to take their wild ideas and scale them to fit the real problem.
But if academia needs to be asking more questions, they need someone to respond. Private industry has not made itself accessible enough to the students and professors trying to solve problems. Far too often, research conducted on a campus has the ability to move entire industries forward, but is left collecting dust on a shelf. There is not enough collaboration between academia and industry, but there is also not enough collaboration within the industry itself.
It’s no secret that private industry does not like to share information, even if that information may benefit everyone. Fear of falling behind a competitor has sometimes led to the industry falling behind its potential. That fear has also had the side effect of widening the gap between the thinkers and the doers.
We, as an entire scientific community must be more open book. We need to share more often and more proactively. Academia needs to understand what the private industry needs, and the private industry needs to recognize the importance of academia’s ingenuity.
Open book in the scientific community starts with having conversations. Just last week I spent time talking to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory about how they could focus their research to best suit industry needs. At One Energy, I push my team to be overly available to research groups. We spend months helping students with their engineering capstone projects. We utilize the latest academic research to continuously make our methods better. We share data when most other industry players would not. We make our software open source so other brilliant minds can weigh in to make it better. We talk about transparency and we also live it. And transparency doesn’t just mean within our own company – it means across the entire wind energy community. If we’re going to solve the next big problem in the industry, we have to help the academics trying to help us. If we don’t, our industry will fail to meet its potential.
Jessica Grosso is the Head of Project Planning and Technology at One Energy.
