A Few Ideas for Reports on Renewable Energy

2GreenEnergy super-intern Louis de Saint Phalle writes:

Dear Craig: I am out of good ideas for articles, is there anything you would like to dispatch me on?  Hope all is well.

I thought I’d publish my response:

Hi, Louis:  Oh, you know me; I NEVER run dry.  🙂  Here are five quick ones off the top of my head: 

• The oil companies seem to acknowledge that burning fossil fuels creates catastrophic climate change, as I discussed here: http://2greenenergy.com/2014/10/30/shell-climate-change-real/.  What’s up with this?  What do they plan to do about it?

• The pro-nuke people scoff at renewables, primarily because they claim that solar and wind can’t scale.  Are they right?

• The extra CO2 in the atmosphere has lowered the oceans’ pH from 8.2 to 8.1, and it’s getting lower each year.  That might not sound like a lot, but if it hits 7.8, the only animal life left there will be jellyfish, and the Earth will have lost 20% of the protein available to feed its people.  Personally, I prefer salmon to jellyfish.  Can you elaborate on this?

• Electric transportation, though some argue that it actually represents a net negative to the environment now (because of coal), will be extremely beneficial soon.  This will happen when either a) coal is no longer the least expensive form of baseload, or b) most EVs are charged directly with distributed solar and wind.  How soon is this likely to happen?

• Are there any key breakthroughs in any of the flavors of renewables, or related technologies: storage, efficiency, smart grid, etc.?

Hope that helps.  Thanks for staying in touch, and for your wonderful submissions.

Are you still in Washington D.C.?  How do you like it by now?