Category: Uncategorized
Onshore Wind at Grid Parity by 2016
| December 6, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Uncategorized, Wind Energy |
According to Bloomberg, New Energy Finance, improved efficiencies and declining costs will make the average wind farm cost-competitive with coal, gas, and nuclear by 2016 (the best ones already are there). According to Justin Wu, the firm’s lead wind analyst:
The press is reacting to the recent price drops in solar equipment as though they are the result of temporary oversupply or of a trade war. This masks what is really going on: a long-term, consistent drop in clean energy technology costs, resulting from decades of hard work by tens of thousands of researchers, engineers, technicians and people in operations and procurement. And it is not going to stop: In the next few years the mainstream world is going to wake up to wind cheaper than gas, and rooftop solar power cheaper than daytime electricity. Add in the same sort of deep long-term price drops for power storage, demand management, LED lighting and so on – and we are clearly talking about a whole new game.
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We’ll Have Clean Energy When We Have Justice
| December 2, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics, Uncategorized |
A wonderful gentleman, Peter Kusterer, blogger extraordinaire from North Carolina called me the other day, and we chatted for some time. At the conclusion, he graciously asked me to send him any concluding thoughts I might have before he published his report on our talk. I thought I’d put them online:
Peter:
I so enjoyed our talk the other day. At the close, you asked me to summarize my thinking on our prospects for clean energy and how this affects the trajectory for our civilization. In a nutshell: Read More
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From Guest Blogger Jim Stack: Electricity Used to Make Gas
| December 1, 2011 | Posted by jstack6 under Uncategorized |
Did you know that is takes electricity and water to make oil into gasoline ? This is part of the refining process. The following facts are from a great article that Peder Norby did on oil refining. He walks the talk driving his MINI-E electric everyday and making the electric for it on his Solar system.
He shows how it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas that you can drive in an EV! Read More
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From Guest Blogger Jim Stack: Green Holidays
| November 25, 2011 | Posted by jstack6 under Sustainability, Uncategorized |
How can you have a Green Holiday ? It’s not easy since we often travel to visit friends and family. We also do a lot of cooking and eating.
You could travel less, take a greener form of transportation and of course car pool with others. Even calling to say Hi instead of traveling could be a smaller carbon footprint.
When eating we can eat healthier and a little less. Maybe just once piece of that great pie your aunt cooks special for you. Of course eating more fruits and vegetables is always greener and very healthy.
What are ways you use to be greener on Holidays ?
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Geothermal Heat Pumps Face Strange Barriers to Adoption
| November 8, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Uncategorized |
Geothermal (Ground-Source) Heat Pumps (GHPs) make use of a completely different set of principles than the kind of geothermal we commonly discuss. Where the latter relies on the transfer of thermal energy from one fluid to another, like an egg placed in boiling water, the former relies on the principles of refrigeration, i.e., the evaporation and condensation of a substance in an enclosed space.
But considering that many people are unaware of this, how large an effect does public ignorance have? It’s huge, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, which dubs this effect a GHP “energy crisis” in their recent report: Read More
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Please comment here:
| July 27, 2011 | Posted by adam under Uncategorized |
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What’s your overall reaction?
| June 9, 2011 | Posted by adam under Uncategorized |
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Sustainability and Two Views of Paper
| January 18, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Uncategorized |
Here are two views on our use of paper:
1) As many times as we see a note on our emails that reads “Please consider the environment before printing this email,” we print more — and recycle less — than we should. But as archaic a method for relaying information as it is, paper isn’t going away anytime soon.
Yet, as articulated in this masterful video, “The Story of Stuff,” we need to get a grip on unnecessary consumption. I’ve often written that I only wish I had the power to get everyone in the world to spend the 20 minutes required to take in this message by one of the world’s greatest humanitarians and environmentalists, Annie Leonard.
2) Since, in reality, it will take a while to curb unnecessary consumption, it’s good that Canefields USA is here, offering paper made from sugar cane waste (“bagasse”) rather than wood, with energy that comes exclusively from wind turbines. I’m proud that Jeff Allen, Canefields’ CEO, represents me as the company’s chief marketing officer.
I appreciate your confidence, and I promise that any good I’ve done there to this date is but a downpayment on what I’ll accomplish in the future.
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Two Worthwhile Pieces on Sustainability
| January 15, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Uncategorized |
Two pieces on sustainability for your consideration:
1) I don’t know anyone who doesn’t admire the insight — not to mention the popularity — of best-selling business author and NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. Here’s a good article he wrote in 2009 on the importance of sustainability.
2) While Friedman is very bright, he colors within the lines of our conforming cultural viewpoints; this, in fact, is my only complaint of his work. I’m reminded of the conclusion to his groundbreaking work The World Is Flat, which, in my mind, was a rather Pollyanna-ish reminder that Americans are creative souls, and thus the forecast of more Googles and Microsofts to lead us through the 21st Century. I’m not so sure.
So here’s a video made by a far more outspoken critic of our modern way of life, Annie Leonard, called “The Story of Stuff.” I wish I had the power to get everyone in the world — at least the US — to spend the 20 minutes required to take in this message, rendered to perfection by one of my true heroes. She and I have been in touch, and I’m going to try to interview her for my next book; it will certainly be my honor.
