Top Renewable Energy Author “Bullish” on the Future: Craig Shields' Fourth Book Takes Unexpected Turn
January 15, 2015
“There are many possible events that could accelerate the demise of fossil fuels—but none is required to phase them out in favor of renewables, a process that will be driven primarily by pure market economics—and far faster than most people understand.” – Craig Shields, 2015
SANTA BARBARA, CA Though Craig Shields was pleased that his first two books became #1 best-sellers in their respective categories on Amazon.com, looking back, he has some reservations about their content. “They were solid and factual books, enabling readers to learn a great deal about the so-called tough realities in clean energy, but they didn’t indicate a singular direction,” Shields confides. “Someone needs to point the way.”
True enough. Shields, is editor of the popular blog-site 2GreenEnergy.com, and author of three previous books on renewable energy: Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies (2010), Is Renewable Really Doable? (2012), and Renewable Energy – Following the Money (2013). All three share a common theme: a set of interviews with subject matter experts, each leaving the reader with essentially the same cautious conclusion: the migration to clean energy, while it is extremely important, faces these so-called “tough realities.”
With his current release, however, all that has changed. “Bullish on Renewable Energy – Fourteen Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose” takes a radically different tack. Most obviously, it’s composed almost exclusively of original writing. But more importantly, the book points to a remarkable truth: according to Shields, “The battle has been won. The forces of market economics are in the process of changing so rapidly that planet Earth is headed for a clean energy future far faster than anyone could have predicted.”
In its simplest form, the book is nothing more than Shields’ presentation of his fourteen reasons why he believes that to be the case.
From “Bullish on Renewable Energy”
80% of the world’s energy is derived from burning hydrocarbons—processes that are clearly unsustainable—but I contend that we’re living in a time where fossil fuels will be replaced with clean energy in a very short period of time. But the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels will prove to be simple economics, rather than changing public sensibilities. Today, power purchase agreements for wind energy in certain parts of the U.S. are being signed at $0.02-$0.03/kilowatt-hour, a deal that is still extremely profitable for the developer of these wind projects…..Under the right conditions (that are becoming more prevalent every day), we can generate clean energy far less expensively than we can generate electricity with coal-fired power plants.
An excerpt from the Chapter: “The Coming Hockey Stick”
I’ve often compared what is happening in the energy industry with what happened in telephony a few years ago, i.e., the unpredicted boom in cell phone ownership/usage. In particular, we all remember how the great market research firms failed to make this prediction, forecasting some sort of linear expansion of cellular technology with a gradual and uninteresting effect on copper landlines. But a few years later we had five billion cell phones and a whole bunch of Brooks Brothers-clad MBAs with egg all over their faces. I fully acknowledge that there are important differences in the energy and telephony markets, mainly regulation. But, as we’ll see in the chapter on the power utilities, even this is unravelling quite rapidly.
Craig’s friend and colleague Jigar Shah is founder of SunEdison, author of Creating Climate Wealth, and former CEO of Carbon War Room, the global organization founded by Richard Branson and Virgin United. Shah was pleased to write a note for the book’s back cover that reads:
“I like Craig’s effortless command of the written language, but, more importantly, I appreciate his multi-disciplinary approach to sustainable energy. In an effort to achieve his goal, i.e., to help the world achieve a rich, comprehensive understanding of clean energy and its challenges, it is impressive how he weaves in a variety of perspectives: the physical sciences, economics, ethics, behavioral psychology, political science, mathematics, anthropology, philanthropy, and current events.”
Shah continues: “Someone described one of Craig’s earlier books as a ‘rocket ride.’ Here again, readers should fasten their seatbelts.”
Bullish on Renewable Energy is available on Amazon, as well as bookstores everywhere.
More on Craig Shields and his four books can be found at 2GreenEnergy.com (http://2greenenergy.com/).
