| Corporations that foresee diminishing markets for their traditional goods and services must find new products or markets to stay competitive. Technology based industrial firms with production assets usually foster a culture of continuous new product improvement and development, but this will not solve the problem of a diminishing market, e.g. Defense. Future prosperity of the entity may depend upon either entering or creating new markets. The goal is to develop new systems that leverage assets, corporate culture, and also, address the prevailing public context.;Key corporate assets are mid-level engineers who have both technical and management savvy, and also, understand the relationship between career and corporate success. They are the ideal candidates to form groups of intrapreneurs to use the resources of their corporate entity to develop and implement innovative concepts. This is often done for new products anyway, but to enter new markets with a particular competitive context, or to develop systems to serve emerging markets, a fresh, lean, new venture subdivision might be required. This dissertation describes a new process for industrial corporate engineers taking a concept, and determining if it is viable to propose to senior leadership to form a new intrapreneural venture within the corporation. Proposals involving consideration of technical, managerial, social and political elements leveraging long-term system operation solutions are emphasized. Since competitors realize similar opportunities, understanding the advantages and shortfalls of corporate culture is critical.;The focus in this dissertation is renewable energy and the unique way to produce, manage and deliver products that are already in demand as either fuel or power. The context is public support and decision making that considers many factors beyond traditional cost vs. revenue benefit for the provider and direct user only. Positive and negative external impacts influence decisions and impact economic analysis through subsidies and guaranteed market share. There are three critical engineering issues with meteorologically based renewable power: mis-match between supply and demand; dispersed generation; and distance to urban markets. However, in agricultural areas with abundant natural resources, the concerns with these critical engineering issues are mitigated, even if they are distributed at low intensity. Moreover, such areas have byproducts that may be used as feedstock to produce fuels that can compensate for the troughs in power production, be used directly, or both.;An integrated system of matching renewable power to agricultural demand is geographically based. The example used here is the Northern High Plains, a rich source of wind power. A flyover reveals that thousands of acres in the Dakotas is used for dairy and oilseeds, both with high local energy demand and production of organic byproducts. Power is now supplied by locally based Rural Electrical Associations (REAs), which only distribute the power produced primarily by coal-fired power plants using the Missouri and Red Rivers for evaporative cooling. In the current context, this presents the opportunity for an integrated system to provide REAs with power from local sources, and also produce biogas fuel for power production and local heating. Furthermore, it may be possible to use excess renewable power to process biogas or seed oil for sale as motor fuel, or export as gas. A significant feature of such an integrated system is long-term operation and system integration. Hence, industrial firms may have an institutional advantage in competition with traditional infrastructure EPC (Engineering-Procurement-Construction) firms.;The process and steps taken by a cadre of engineers in an industrial corporation to develop an intrapreneural proposal from a basic idea is described in this dissertation using the integrated rural renewables facility and operating entity as an example. Not only are technical, organizational, managerial and financial issues intertwined, but an immense amount of research in unfamiliar fields (agriculture, climate, etc.) is required to develop a unique and technically competitive offering. |
