Reshaping the Future of AI and Renewable Energy
Released in December 2024
“Evolving Energy” is igniting a movement in clean tech, systems thinking, and planetary intelligence.
🌿 What if the future of clean energy isn’t just technological—but deeply human?In Evolving Energy, clean tech innovator and systems thinker Tim Sasseen explores how we can reimagine sustainable energy—through the integration of AI, human intuition, and natural evolutionary principles.
Blending 25+ years of experience in hydrogen, microgrids, and distributed energy with insights from neuroscience, venture capital, and ancient wisdom, Sasseen offers a compelling framework for how we design, govern, and invest in the energy systems of tomorrow.
Key Ideas You'll Discover:
- Why rigid codified systems—like corporations, laws, and legacy tech—can’t solve today’s energy challenges.
- How flow states and human-centered governance unlock radically better decisions than data alone.
- The pitfalls of applying software-based VC models to clean hardware innovation—and how to fix them.
- How to design AI tools for energy technology, business, and policy that are aligned with our biosphere.
- A hopeful, evolutionary model for a TechnoNatural future rooted in regeneration, adaptability, and compassion.
Who It’s For: - Innovators, investors, and policy leaders in clean tech and sustainable energy
- Visionaries at the intersection of AI, systems thinking, and ecological design
- Entrepreneurs and engineers seeking to lead with purpose in a time of transformation
Timothy Richard Sasseen is a clean energy executive, engineer, and thought leader with over two decades leading market-shaping innovations in hydrogen fuel cells, renewable microgrids, and sustainable transportation. From California to Costa Rica, Tim has combined deep technical rigor with visionary thinking to help redefine the future of energy—one flow state at a time. Available on Amazon.
Overview of Chapters
Chapter 1: Codified Systems vs. Evolutionary SystemsTim contrasts codified systems — rigid rule-bound structures like civil law, corporations, and artificial intelligence — with evolutionary systems, which adapt through natural processes like death and sexual selection. He argues that modern societal and business structures resist change, leading to stagnation and misalignment with nature. To survive and thrive in a changing world, he proposes that our systems must become evolutionary: designed to die, renew, and evolve. He introduces intuition, flow states, and natural alignment as key to reforming AI and energy governance systems with human and ecological values at their core.
Chapter 2: Capital Ventures into EnergyThis chapter critiques how venture capital (VC) models — so successful in software — struggle in the world of physical, energy-intensive hardware. Clean energy development moves on biological timescales, with complex material and regional factors, making VC's demand for rapid exponential growth incompatible. Tim dissects VC valuation models and reveals how reliance on comparables and financial abstractions undermines real technological innovation. He calls for AI-assisted, fundamentals-based investing, focused on traits like sustainability and social harmony, rather than short-term profit, echoing principles of evolutionary selection.
Chapter 3: Energy Tech Development & Flow State GovernanceHere, Tim introduces the concept of flow state governance — a visionary leadership style grounded in intuition, harmony with natural energy flows, and internal clarity. He contrasts it with the codified, bureaucratic structures of corporations, which suppress innovation by avoiding risk and accountability. Drawing on his personal experience in Costa Rica, Tim illustrates how living in flow enabled more authentic, adaptive, and successful outcomes — from clean energy projects to family resilience. He makes a case for a governance model that prizes faith, embodied awareness, and aligned intention over rigid rationality.
Chapter 4: Disruption, Part 1 – Why Matter Matters in EnergyTim argues that modern energy systems are built on codified assumptions, like centralized grids and ubiquitous electricity, which ignore the material and situational realities of energy. He critiques the dominance of photovoltaic (PV) and battery technologies as extensions of the electromagnetic paradigm. Instead, he calls for energy innovation that aligns with material flows and environmental contexts — highlighting wind and hydrogen as technologies with evolutionary compatibility with nature and infrastructure needs.
Chapter 5: Disruption, Part 2 – Transportation and The Battery RoadblockThe transportation sector, unlike stationary power, has lagged in clean energy transformation due to the limits of battery technology. Tim chronicles the challenges faced by battery electric vehicles (BEVs) — such as power density, charging time, and grid impacts — and champions hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a scalable, high-impact solution. He shares first-hand involvement in pushing California’s Innovative Clean Transit regulation, which included hydrogen, and helped reshape the zero-emissions bus sector.
Chapter 6: Designing the AI of Energy TechnologyAI and additive manufacturing are portrayed as transformative tools to collapse the development cycle for energy tech from months to days. Tim envisions innovators using generative AI as a “Design Assistant,” guiding prototype creation in harmony with environmental constraints and user goals. He emphasizes flow-state thinking and human purpose as necessary guides for AI deployment, ensuring that tech innovation remains aligned with nature rather than detached from it.
Chapter 7: Designing the AI of Energy BusinessAI’s entry into finance and strategy introduces risks of entrainment—a scenario where AI-driven firms all converge on the same derivative strategies. Tim critiques VC culture’s use of “comparables” as echo chambers and warns of destructive feedback loops when AI reacts to AI. He suggests that business models must integrate human discernment and be structured with evolutionary mortality, such as time-limited corporate charters and ESOPs (employee ownership), to stay dynamic and accountable.
Chapter 8: Designing the AI of Energy PolicyTim envisions a future where AI assists policymakers as “Policy AI Pilots” — synthesizing complex, cross-sector data to make informed decisions about grid design, climate resilience, and equity. He highlights Buckminster Fuller’s Geoscope concept as a distributed model for visualizing energy flows via AI. He advocates for universal data access, warning that privatized datasets will create AI inequality and undermine democratic governance.
Chapter 9: Reasons for Hope for a TechnoNatural FutureIn this final chapter, Tim lays out a hopeful vision where AI, technology, and humanity are harmonized through flow-state governance, evolutionary business models, and natural law. He argues that as we remove self-interest from codified systems and align with deeper human instincts, the outcome isn’t just decarbonization—but universal connection, compassion, and love. It’s a manifesto for a thriving, post-carbon civilization.
Chapter 2: Capital Ventures into EnergyThis chapter critiques how venture capital (VC) models — so successful in software — struggle in the world of physical, energy-intensive hardware. Clean energy development moves on biological timescales, with complex material and regional factors, making VC's demand for rapid exponential growth incompatible. Tim dissects VC valuation models and reveals how reliance on comparables and financial abstractions undermines real technological innovation. He calls for AI-assisted, fundamentals-based investing, focused on traits like sustainability and social harmony, rather than short-term profit, echoing principles of evolutionary selection.
Chapter 3: Energy Tech Development & Flow State GovernanceHere, Tim introduces the concept of flow state governance — a visionary leadership style grounded in intuition, harmony with natural energy flows, and internal clarity. He contrasts it with the codified, bureaucratic structures of corporations, which suppress innovation by avoiding risk and accountability. Drawing on his personal experience in Costa Rica, Tim illustrates how living in flow enabled more authentic, adaptive, and successful outcomes — from clean energy projects to family resilience. He makes a case for a governance model that prizes faith, embodied awareness, and aligned intention over rigid rationality.
Chapter 4: Disruption, Part 1 – Why Matter Matters in EnergyTim argues that modern energy systems are built on codified assumptions, like centralized grids and ubiquitous electricity, which ignore the material and situational realities of energy. He critiques the dominance of photovoltaic (PV) and battery technologies as extensions of the electromagnetic paradigm. Instead, he calls for energy innovation that aligns with material flows and environmental contexts — highlighting wind and hydrogen as technologies with evolutionary compatibility with nature and infrastructure needs.
Chapter 5: Disruption, Part 2 – Transportation and The Battery RoadblockThe transportation sector, unlike stationary power, has lagged in clean energy transformation due to the limits of battery technology. Tim chronicles the challenges faced by battery electric vehicles (BEVs) — such as power density, charging time, and grid impacts — and champions hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a scalable, high-impact solution. He shares first-hand involvement in pushing California’s Innovative Clean Transit regulation, which included hydrogen, and helped reshape the zero-emissions bus sector.
Chapter 6: Designing the AI of Energy TechnologyAI and additive manufacturing are portrayed as transformative tools to collapse the development cycle for energy tech from months to days. Tim envisions innovators using generative AI as a “Design Assistant,” guiding prototype creation in harmony with environmental constraints and user goals. He emphasizes flow-state thinking and human purpose as necessary guides for AI deployment, ensuring that tech innovation remains aligned with nature rather than detached from it.
Chapter 7: Designing the AI of Energy BusinessAI’s entry into finance and strategy introduces risks of entrainment—a scenario where AI-driven firms all converge on the same derivative strategies. Tim critiques VC culture’s use of “comparables” as echo chambers and warns of destructive feedback loops when AI reacts to AI. He suggests that business models must integrate human discernment and be structured with evolutionary mortality, such as time-limited corporate charters and ESOPs (employee ownership), to stay dynamic and accountable.
Chapter 8: Designing the AI of Energy PolicyTim envisions a future where AI assists policymakers as “Policy AI Pilots” — synthesizing complex, cross-sector data to make informed decisions about grid design, climate resilience, and equity. He highlights Buckminster Fuller’s Geoscope concept as a distributed model for visualizing energy flows via AI. He advocates for universal data access, warning that privatized datasets will create AI inequality and undermine democratic governance.
Chapter 9: Reasons for Hope for a TechnoNatural FutureIn this final chapter, Tim lays out a hopeful vision where AI, technology, and humanity are harmonized through flow-state governance, evolutionary business models, and natural law. He argues that as we remove self-interest from codified systems and align with deeper human instincts, the outcome isn’t just decarbonization—but universal connection, compassion, and love. It’s a manifesto for a thriving, post-carbon civilization.
