Unbuilt Energy: Ideas I Don’t Have Time to Build, But You Might
You Have the Energy — Now Build the Future
A living archive of startup and product ideas I don’t have time to build—shared in case someone else does. I’ll also be starting a new tag to consolidate these product ideas for anyone. Please leave a link in the comments if the product has already been developed.
Some of my best thoughts live as sketches, not products. This space is where I share real-world problems and imaginative solutions—hoping the right person picks up the blueprint.
Idea 1: A Portable AC That You Can Drink: Desert Survival Meets Sustainable Design
Every year, tens of thousands of people venture into the desert for Burning Man. It’s more than a festival—it’s a test of endurance, creativity, and radical self-reliance. For a week, you’re off the grid in the blazing heat of Black Rock City, with one directive: bring everything you need to survive.
Food. Shelter. Shade. And perhaps most importantly—cooling.
That’s where this idea began. Amid prepping for Burning Man, I found myself obsessing over a single question:
How do you cool yourself sustainably in a place with no grid, no infrastructure, and no mercy from the sun?
Most of us bring ice. Maybe fans. Some hardcore folks set up solar-powered swamp coolers. But the problem is always the same—too much heat, not enough efficient energy storage.
💧 The Insight: Water as Both Coolant and Consumable
Water has one of the highest heat capacities of any substance. It takes a lot of energy to raise its temperature—and in reverse, it can absorb a lot of heat as it cools down. That’s why lakes stay cool even on hot days. That’s why our bodies sweat.
So I asked:
Could we design a portable air conditioning unit that uses the water you already need to bring—for drinking and showering—as a thermal battery?
The basic principle would leverage thermodynamics:
A sealed tank of clean water.
The water heats up during the day due to the free thermal energy provided by the sun.
The water cools down to ambient temperature at night due to the temperature gradient. The change in temperature can be harnessed into an AC system.
A heat exchanger system (like a mini radiator or phase-change module) converts this into usable AC.
A fan that pulls in hot air, passes it over the cooled water, and circulates cooler air.
A gravity- or solar-powered pump to cycle the system.
By day, it runs like an evaporative cooler and a solar generator.
By night, you can drink the water.
By week’s end, your “coolant” has nourished your body, not just your shelter.
🔄 Efficiency by Design: Every Drop Does Double Duty
In an extreme climate, every calorie and joule counts. Most systems treat water and air as separate problems. But this system combines them:
Hydration: You’re already bringing gallons of water to survive. Why not let them work for you thermally too?
Cooling: Use the water’s stored coolness to drop internal temps 5–10°F.
Portability: Lightweight frame, solar-compatible, gravity-fed for passive function.
Sustainability: No chemical refrigerants, no disposable ice packs, no grid power.
And unlike many desert hacks, this one could scale.
🌍 Beyond the Playa: A Global Problem, a Global Opportunity
The truth is, Burning Man is just a microcosm. Across the world, people are dying from heat—and most don’t have AC.
From Southern California to sub-Saharan Africa, access to cooling is becoming a basic human need. Yet conventional ACs are bulky, expensive, and environmentally destructive.
A portable, drinkable AC system could be revolutionary:
Refugee camps without electricity.
Urban heat islands during power outages.
Rural communities with no grid access.
In a hotter future, we’ll need smarter, hybrid solutions—tools that do more with less, powered by design, not fossil fuels.
🛠️ What This Needs
I’m not building this (yet). But if someone wanted to, here’s what I’d explore:
Low-power pumps or heat exchange fans, ideally 12V DC or solar.
Heat pump and AC system architecture design
Phase-change materials embedded in water chambers to prolong cooling.
Highly insulative materials to reduce heat leak.
Food-safe materials to maintain drinkability.
Modular build to allow for add-ons (mist function, solar panel, UV filtration).
If you’re a mechanical engineer, designer, or climate-tech entrepreneur—this is for you. I believe in open-source ideas. Maybe you’ll take it further than I ever could.
Let’s turn the desert into a design lab.
⚡️ (Related) Idea 2: What If Rain Could Power the Future? A New Lens on Untapped Energy
I’ve been thinking a lot about energy lately—where we get it, how we store it, and how much we waste.
This came up during a conversation with a friend, as we talked about all the brilliant minds who left Tesla to build the next generation of climate and AI infrastructure. JB Straubel went into battery recycling with Redwood Materials. Drew Baglino is exploring energy transformers. The next industrial revolution is here—and it’s powered by electrons, not oil.
But something clicked when we talked about how much energy we miss every day.
Rain. Motion. Friction. Flow.
What if the next breakthrough in energy isn’t in new materials or massive solar farms… but in reclaiming the tiny lost opportunities for generation?
🌧 The Overlooked Energy of a Raindrop
Water falling from the sky is stored solar energy in motion.
The sun heats oceans → evaporation.
Clouds condense that vapor → potential energy.
Rain falls → kinetic energy.
But once it hits the ground, we waste it.
Now imagine:
What if every rooftop, tent, or tree canopy could capture the energy of falling rain?
Micro-turbines. Piezoelectric fabrics. Fluid-induced actuators.
Even a modest system could power small electronics or LED lighting during storms.
It’s not meant to replace the grid.
It’s meant to supplement it—in refugee zones, in off-grid villages, in climate emergencies.
🚶🏽♂️ Kinetic Energy: Humans as Walking Batteries
Think about how much energy we produce just by living:
Walking.
Biking.
Lifting.
Dancing.
In 2017, a Dutch company designed a dance floor that powered lights from movement.
Japan turned sidewalks into power generators by harvesting human footsteps.
Gyms could harness weightlifting motion to power small batteries.
These aren’t gimmicks. They’re reminders that the body is a generator.
A sustainable ecosystem might treat each human as part of the grid—contributing energy by design.
🌬 Fluid Power, Rethought
Another idea we tossed around was this: what if we focused on fluid energy generation in more creative ways?
We already know how to harness wind and tides. But what about:
Vertical hydraulic catchments from rain gutters.
Compressed air tanks powered by foot pumps or cycling.
Vortex turbines in city drainpipes during floods.
Most fluid motion is treated as waste or nuisance. We build systems to drain, dispose, or suppress it.
But fluid is predictable. It moves with gravity. It flows around obstacles.
It’s a perfect candidate for micro-energy systems—especially in underserved regions.
🤖 And Then There’s AI: A Hungry, Heat-Generating Beast
All this matters because AI is eating electricity.
Running GPT models. Training diffusion systems. Storing memory.
Data centers are projected to triple in energy use within the decade.
But what’s often overlooked is thermal management.
Cooling these systems is as big an energy draw as running them.
If we’re going to keep up, we’ll need a lot more power generation, not just smarter storage.
And so the question becomes:
“What energy is already around us, flowing freely, that we’re just not tapping yet?”
🛠️ What This Needs
This isn’t a single product—it’s a design lens. A new way to see energy.
Some possible next steps:
Build small prototypes of rain-powered LEDs or sidewalk chargers.
Partner with artists and engineers to create urban energy sculptures.
Launch design challenges for refugee-friendly energy kits using motion or fluid.
Create hackathons for AI thermal management powered by off-grid renewables.
It’s not about billion-dollar power plants.
It’s about thousand-dollar ideas that add up—and help the world.
If any of these ideas inspire you, go. Do it. I don’t need credit. I just want to see good things built.
This is how we share the blueprint for a better world—one unbuilt idea at a time.