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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Here’s another example of a portable solar photovoltaic solution, currently being deployed in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. There is no doubt in my mind that disaster relief is a great target segment for such a solution. The incidence of disasters is up-trending due to the confluence of climate change and population growth; there are more incidents of extreme weather, and they affect more people.  Other key applications, it seems to me, are military, off-grid events, and movie sets.

Having said this, the challenges to the businesses in this space are competitive differentiation and barrier to competitive entry.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I recommend that everyone track with the wisdom of Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist of Boston-based institutional money manager GMO LLC. I’ve written about Grantham many times, because I think his viewpoints on global warming are so insightful. He has $1.3 billion under management, and, with that type of loot on the table, he can’t afford to be wrong about the over-arching trends that shape our future, for better or for worse.

Here’s an article on his forecasts of a very serious global food shortage, brought about largely by climate change, that he believes will expand until long after the world’s population peaks at 9 billion around 2050. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Electronic waste has become one of the most serious environmental threats in the world. From manufacturing equipment and large appliances down to mobile phones and small devices, electronic waste that is dumped or incinerated can lead to problems, with toxic chemicals being released into the ground and the atmosphere. For example, with over a billion people now owning mobile phones worldwide, and changing their phones every 18 months or so, the majority of these phones become harmful waste. Like many others I decided to recycle my blackberry, but is the government doing anything to encourage this behavior? Measures like the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directives work to regulate and ensure that E-Waste is properly dealt with.

WEEE Directives: An Overview (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Here is our webinar for July, in which I interviewed Dan Bates, CEO of WindStream, a company with an exciting advancement in micro-wind.

I begin by taking a step back from wind power, and micro-wind in particular, and noting that the imperative to move to renewable energy is growing daily. At the risk of over-dramatizing, with every rotation of the Earth, more people are becoming aware of the damage that our reliance on fossil fuels is causing – at many different levels. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

A friend sent me this video on eco-friendly tomato farming (she says “tomawto,” I say “tomayto”). What these people are doing is wonderful, but trust me, the reduction in carbon footprint associated with this does not stand up well against aeroponics, and its cousin, bioaeroponics.

I’m making a concerted effort to help my friends at Tower Harvest (see webinar) get their products for sustainable farming into manufacturing and distributed internationally.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

I’m looking forward to today’s webinar on micro-wind.

Personally, I’m a big believer in the subject, and I came across a few people in the last few days who think micro-wind is poised to explode in the next six months. Others are not so sanguine, however, like the guy who commented on the webinar: “What can you say to convince me that this isn’t another brand of the same snake oil that we’ve been sold for the last decade?”

Sir, I appreciate your candor. I happen to know that my guest, Dan Bates, CEO of WindStream, will have some good answers.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

As noted here, another prominent global climate change denier shifted his position.

Again, I wouldn’t know how to hold a belief that runs counter to the almost unanimously accepted scientific position. I could no more convince myself that all these people are wrong than I could believe that my blood flow is controlled by tides, or that the Earth is the center of the universe.

　

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Here’s a piece to which I’ve referred a few times: Harvard’s report suggesting the cost of externalities of burning coal in the U.S. is roughly half a trillion dollars annually. Of course, these are the easily quantifiable cost items, like dealing with the lung disease. And, though the report makes an attempt to estimate the cost of the long-term environmental damage, this is approximate at best.

How many extreme weather events will be caused by global climate change, and what will be their price in terms of property damage and human fatalities? What will be the cost of dealing with tens of millions of “climate refugees?” Droughts that cause food and water shortages? Loss of biodiversity? Ocean acidification?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the (hot, dry) wind.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The Writer’s Almanac reminds us that it’s the birthday of the French thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville whose visits to the fledgling U.S. in the early 19th Century culminated in his famous book, Democracy in America. According to the Almanac:

During his tour, the aristocratic Tocqueville was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked. He wrote: “There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state…They are adequate for the ordinary run of society. In spite of their petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners, they clearly can provide practical intelligence, and that is found to be enough.”

I’m not sure that he’d draw the same conclusion at this point. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

As an extension to Faunhofer’s Center of Sustainable Development (CSE) already well established Albuquerque solar research annex, a new outdoor test field, OTF-1, will be opened to assess field performance and durability of new solar modules.

This will enable solar manufacturers to study their solar panels in greater detail, obtaining much needed experimental data, in order to meet performance standards and lifetime expectations, and eventually push them even further. Albuquerque has more than 310 sunny days on a typical year, so building the testing facility here makes good sense. (more…)

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