My aim, of course, is to introduce this subject to as many people as possible, in the hopes that we can drive up the number of informed discussions, so necessary to the success of the democratic process.

Please feel free to send this link to anyone in your life who you feel may benefit. Thanks.

Here’s the link:  http://2greenenergy.com/renewable-energy-basic-concepts/

As I like to say, this is a subject that has a great number of “moving parts.” Sure, there are technological issues, as we develop better and less expensive ways of harvesting the energy from solar, wind, geothermal, hydrokinetics and biomass. But there is a complex and ever-changing set of economic and political issues as well.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Though this sounds simple – and mankind has been harnessing that simplicity for thousands of years, it gets tricky now that there are seven billion energy-starved people on this small planet, and we’re desperately looking for sustainable ways of providing that energy.

Indeed, it’s not as easy as it seems. Anytime we insert a device into moving water, we face immediately a variety of issues, both ecological and logistical. I.e., we’re both changing the natural habitat in some ways that are hard to understand completely, and we’re also setting ourselves up to face huge costs associated with maintenance, as devices rust, and encounter things like biofouling, shifting current patterns, dynamic sea- and riverbeds, etc.

Hope you enjoy.

Ocean current energy, a form of hydrokinetics, is one of the often-overlooked flavors of renewables, one that holds a great deal of potential. Low hanging fruit here, it appears, are the large and predictable currents that flow with very little variability over time. The Gulf Stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States comes immediately to mind to us Americans, as it’s what makes the Atlantic warm and enjoyable for summer vacations as far north as the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Lesser known to most of us here in the U.S. is the Mozambique Current in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar.

When I’m in the studio next week, I plan to shoot a short video that discusses various attempts to harness that energy in a cost-effective, ecologically safe manner. I’ve come across the developer of a device that is anchored (not moored) to the ocean floor, and thus can move around within the limits of its tether to find the region of maximum current. I’d like to see this guy succeed; his has one of the best ideas in hydrokinetics I’ve come across to date. If you’re interested, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

Whenever I speak on renewable energy, I’m careful to leave my audience with a sense of the “tough realities.”  We all want simple answers to our questions, but in the case of clean energy, none exist.

There are dozens of different flavors of solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal, each improving in terms of cost and efficiency, but at different rates.  There are economic issues, as none of these flavors can compete with the dirtiest form of coal, if we don’t take into account the “externalities” like lung disease and environmental damage.  And Lord knows there are political issues, where we have serious candidates for president of the U.S. who, if elected, boldly pledge to dismantle our Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.  If this occurs, it would effectively end the efforts of the largest economy on Earth to migrate away from fossil fuels and nuclear. 

Here’s another in a series of infographics that attempts to put all this into perspective. Hope you enjoy.

I’m working on another in our series of renewable energy infographics, to present the basic concepts in a way that’s immediately understandable for newcomers to the subject.  My current project is writing up “The Pros and Cons of Renewables.” The main point: all forms of energy, clean or dirty, come with a certain financial and ecological cost.

One of the main challenges associated with the migration to “new energy” is infrastructure, as unfortunately, renewable resources tend to exist far from our population centers, which requires an expensive build-out of our electrical grid. This article on Hydrokinetics in Alaska is a case in point. They have 350,000 miles of roaring rivers and tides that are incredible. Southern California, whose population is 40 times that of Alaska, is as hungry for those resources as a bear, fresh out of hibernation, fishing for a salmon.