Offer Your Opinion on the New EPA Vehicle Ratings

September 7, 2010

I just wrote a post on Renewable Energy World in which I suggest that everyone learn about – and weigh in on — the new EPA ratings. When implemented shortly, this will represent the first change from the famous city and highway MPG ratings that were put into effect decades ago. To its credit, the EPA, in conjunction with the Departments of Energy and Transportation actively solicit our input on the new system under consideration.

My main concern is that the proposed plan has the potential to confuse more than to clarify. When the ratings began, their only real purpose was to inform people as to the fuel costs they would incur with their new vehicle. And certainly, if there has been any change in that concern over the years, it’s been amplified by the economic downturn. Now, however, there is a companion concern: the level of environmental damage done per mile.

So my recommendation is simply that the ratings provide as clearly and simply as possible two numbers: Read More »

By Craig Shields | Posted in Electric Vehicles | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The Economics of Electricity Markets

August 26, 2010

In his recent article on Renewable Energy World titled Electricity markets are weird: why a carbon price isn’t enough, Sean Casten provides several scholarly reasons that establishing a carbon tax is tricky business. I encourage everyone to read this; it’s really worthwhile.

But at the end of the day, Mr. Casten seems to be to be splitting hairs. Where we are now is a million miles from where we need to be in terms of providing a level playing field for renewables. I simply ask Congress to get us into the right galaxy – then we can start talking about Pareto-efficient markets and cost/price causality. As long as the fossil fuel energy industry receives multi-billion dollar government subsidies, favorable treatment from the Bureau of Land Management, and immunity from the costs of the environmental damage it’s causing, I can’t see the reason to get too heavily into the microeconomics here.

We need to make wholesale changes in the way we view the costs of energy. Until that time, the energy industry is looking on at this discussion and snickering as they continue on their path of rape and ruin.

　

　

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Business | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Power Transmission is a Real Problem for Renewable Energy

August 24, 2010

I like to post articles on Renewable Energy World, as they have pretty decent traffic among people interested in a wide range of clean energy topics.  Today, I commented on Stephen Lacey’s piece Is the Transmission ‘Problem’ Real? in which I indicated that he’s correct: to some degree, the argument that the grid needs to be upgraded in order to accommodate more clean energy is specious. 

I go on to mention that I’m more interested in renewables on a national or continental scale. And, while I’m aware that Bill McKibben and thousands of other smart people see a future dominated by individual energy farmers, each, putting his unused electrons back onto the grid, I question whether this adequately addresses the matter of scale. With our growing population of energy-hungry consumers, utility-scale renewables appears to me to be the only way to get this done. 

And this is where transmission really is an issue.  As we know, renewable resources are localized: the sun shines hottest in the southwestern deserts, the wind blows hardest in the plains, the mountains have the best geothermal resources, etc.  A significant upgrade to the grid — preferably to high-voltage DC — is required to make this happen.

Yet, as usual, the difficulty here is almost exclusively political. In particular, we’re being told that, for legal reasons, we can’t have a national high-voltage grid. And unfortunately, the US Supreme Court didn’t help the cause in its recent ruling, either.

I really don’t understand the problem.  We have national pathways for the transportation of automobiles, railway cars, natural gas, etc.  Can someone provide a reason — other than sleezy politics — that we can’t use our crystal clean eminent domain laws to get this done? There should be nothing new or scary about this.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , , , | Comments (13)

Solar Thermal/CSP Bravely Swims Upstream

July 17, 2010

Though the Intersolar show in San Francisco last week was represented far more heavily by PV than solar thermal, there are indications that concentrated solar power (CSP) is enjoying a significant up-tick in public attention. In particular, CSP, rather quiet in the last decade, is expected to experience 46% CAGR in the coming 20 years.

As Heidi Hafes of CSP Today writes in Renewable Energy World, almost 11 gW is “under development.” The problem appears when we pull apart exactly what Ms. Hafes means by that. As she points out, this is a minefield full of delays and blind alleys — in many cases, created by the forces that oppose renewables. She writes: “Three out of four Americans support putting solar power plants on public lands. Yet while oil and gas companies have received more than 74,000 permits to operate on federal lands in the past two decades, utility-scale solar developers have received zero.”

The political supremacy of the fossil fuel industries, achieved in large part through the work of its 7000 lobbyists, has successfully extorted enough votes in Washington to make the migration to renewables very difficult indeed. And if you think they’re good at corruption inside the Beltway and in our state capitals, they’re even better at covering their tracks with public relations. Unfortunately, most people will never even notice the outrageous doubletalk of the oil companies’ vigorously repositioning themselves as “energy” companies – to be perceived as “part of the solution” — to use Chevron’s obscene language. Most people will find it perfectly credible that BP wants to take us “Beyond Petroleum.” And they’ll fall in love with Shell’s extensive new ad campaign, launched directly into the teeth of public outrage of the entire oil sector.

As EnvironmentalLeader.com reports:

The campaign, which Shell is calling “Let’s Go,” repositions Shell as an energy, rather than oil, company, with one television spot implying Shell is investing more money on cleaner-burning natural gas than any other oil company. The campaign will be rolled out across TV, print, and online mediums, and also features two new websites: shell.us/letsgo and energygalaxy.com.

That’s simply nauseating.

It’s hard to encounter this and not be reminded of the famous words of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  Of course, Goebbels didn’t exactly meet a happy end; he remained loyal to Hitler until the end, and, in April 1945, he killed his family and himself while Berlin was falling to Soviet troops.  Maybe there’s some sort of lesson to be learned there.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Solar Thermal | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Renewable Energy World at Intersolar — and an Affirmation of Concentrated Solar Power

July 14, 2010

PhotobucketAs planned, I used my trip to the Intersolar show to connect busily with many industry colleagues, including my friends at Renewable Energy World.  And, true to form, these folks weren’t exactly lounging around either. I found the company’s president, Jim Callahan, hard at work in the company’s booth on the third floor, speaking to industry VIPs, while Stephen Lacey was conducting back-to-back on-camera interviews with spokespeople from a variety of disciplines and technologies in their impromptu but ultra-professional Internet TV studio on the first floor.

I was sad to note that most of the show was devoted to PV (vs. concentrated solar power), but I happened to come by the studio at a point where Stephen was chatting with a top representative of CSP, Charlie Ricker, Senior Vice President of Business Development for BrightSource Energy. Stephen asked, “So are you one of these people who believes that we’ll ultimately see hundreds or thousands of square miles of CSP in the southwestern deserts, and transmission lines to the population centers all over North America?” I was delighted that Charlie replied, “Yes, I believe that’s a very real goal.”

I like to think I’m a man who can hold a viewpoint regardless of its popularity. But it’s always good to hear confirmation from smart people like Charlie.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Solar Thermal | Tagged , , , , , | Comment (1)

Patriotism and Clean Energy

July 4, 2010

PhotobucketIn a blog post offering my “Tough Realities for Renewable Businesses” report to readers at Renewable Energy World, Bill Fitch writes a comment befitting of the 4th of July and the patriotic spirit that normally accompanies it.

I’m reminded of a friend’s T-shirt that defines the word patriotism as “not letting our leaders ruin our country by ignoring the principles on which it was founded.”

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

May 16, 2010

PhotobucketThe other day, I wrote a short post on Renewable Energy World extolling the virtues of concentrated solar power, and predicting that CSP would someday (probably in my grandchildren’s lifetimes) dominate the landscape of world energy production. Almost immediately, someone asked me why I held that belief, and I realized that I should have provided a bit of my reasoning. In brief, here it is:

1) The ultimate winner in energy will be safe, scalable, reliable, and inexpensive. This kills most energy technologies more or less immediately. Fossil fuels aren’t scalable, nuclear is neither safe nor inexpensive, etc.  And a great number of green energy technologies, e.g., run-of-river-hydro, don’t scale well. 

2) With a few exceptions, the sun’s radiation is the ultimate source of all energy on Earth. Thus, the most obvious line of investigation for energy policy is determining the most direct way to convert the warmth of the sun into useful energy.

3) Most of the dozens of renewable technologies attempt to capitalize on this fact. The sun makes the wind blow, the rivers run, and builds the chemical bonds that are broken down when we convert complex organic molecules back into simpler ones (e.g., burning wood in our fireplaces, explode gasoline in our cars, or gasify waste in processing plants). But the most direct, efficient way to harness the sun’s energy is transferring those photons as directly as possible into electricity. This leaves us with solar photovoltaics and CSP.

4) It could be argued that PV is even more direct than CSP. And, if it weren’t for the problems in building large volumes of semiconductors for PV, I believe it would have won. But PV is ultimately doomed to significant manufacturing issues and materials shortages that, I believe, will limit scalability.

5) CSP, by contrast, uses low-cost and abundant materials, which can be deployed in areas that are relatively unimportant to plant and animal habitat (deserts). Of course, all energy-related technologies — even the dozens of breakthroughs in extracting coal, oil, and natural gas — are improving day by day. But CSP is still in its infancy. The gains in efficiency, the way in which solar thermal heat is stored to produce reliable baseload power, and the way in which that energy is effectively transmitted via high-voltage direct current to population centers — is improving every day.

I know there are people who disagree, but CSP is my pick for the late 21st Century. I only hope we still have a planet that supports life by that point.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Solar Thermal | Tagged , , | Comments (2)