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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Today’s the birthday of the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. According to the Writer’s Almanac, when he was 17 and in his freshman year at Columbia University, Ginsberg was introduced to Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, whom Ginsberg later said encouraged him to think for himself and to worry less about conforming.

Of course, Western Culture had been flirting with non-conformist thinking since its inception (Socrates comes immediately to mind), yet I think it could be properly said that the beat poets “institutionalized” the concept, in a way, at least here in the US. Does anyone still believe that a good education is one in which millions of unanalyzed facts are stuffed into our heads? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Every time I speak with the gentleman who runs the teak reforesting business in Columbia, I become more astonished at how safe, sane, and civilized that part of the world appears to have become. Here’s a video on investing in Columbia which does a very good job in assuaging concern the viewer might have that he or his employees will wind up caught in the crossfire between two rival drug lords.

The video makes the point that Columbia values forestry projects very highly, offering 100% relief from income tax for the life of the project.

Again, I love the concept: Pay someone quite nominally to raise trees for you from saplings to maturity, absorbing atmospheric CO2 at the time your investment is growing – literally.  If you’re interested, please let me know, and I’ll put you in touch.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Dale writes:

Craig, you are proceeding from a liberal fallacy that only the uneducated doubt catastrophic climate change. I have BS in meteorology and an MS in environmental engineering, for the last 30 years I have been a practicing environmental professional. I have researched this subject extensively and I am convinced that we have nothing to fear from catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. We have much more to fear from energy shortages brought about by our ridiculous fear of CO2 than we do from any change in climate.

Dale:

Well, cool.  If you can enlighten us with respect to your discoveries, we’ll all sleep better tonight. Apparently, your work has landed you among the 2% – 3% of climate scientists who stand in disagreement to the countervailing theory.  I, with God as my witness, stand most sincerely ready to hear your position and the science behind it. And obviously, I’m hoping you’re right.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

In response to my piece on the electric vehicle adoption curve, in which I suggested that EVs represented more than a “niche” market, frequent commenter and senior physicist Glenn Doty wrote:

Most of those multi-car households have one SUV or pickup truck and one large vehicle. Why?

Why would the majority of households, when determining the vehicle they wish to purchase in a time of high gasoline prices, choose an SUV? The answer: versatility.

The Leaf is a car that does not fulfill the requirements of a vehicle: to get you where you want to go when you want to go there. So in order to own a Leaf I have to buy another whole car!

The exact same calculation will and must occur in a two-car household if family or business requires one member of the house to leave town (which of course also cannot be done in an EV).

Niche is a completely valid market expression for an expensive vehicle that one understands at the point of purchase cannot be used in thousands of conceivable cases in which a vehicle will be needed.

Glenn, you’re a brilliant guy, and I learn from everything you write. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s a report of macro-trends observed by venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins. To me, the most noteworthy thing about it is the concept that Kleiner managing partner Ray Lane explained in a conversation he and I had in his office last year: investment in clean energy is capital intensive and requires patience; investment in software (mobile Internet apps) has the potential for far greater and quicker returns.

Yes, therein lies the rub. Investors in clean energy are a different breed, and certainly patience is part of that characterization. But I would add “vision” in there too. After all, how likely is it that we’ll still be burning coal and driving Hummers a few decades hence? If we still have a civilization here, it will be precisely because we found a way (or ways) to put an end to unsustainable practices like these.

I predict that investors with vision will begin to line up behind the truly good ideas that call out to them, a few such concepts are linked here.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

When I first got into the renewable energy space, Robert Rapier was one of the first people to whom I reached out, as he’s been around this industry quite a while. I recall that he was quite gracious with me; we had a long and interesting chat on the phone.

Here’s Robert’s take on the enterprise of cellulosic ethanol, which, for what it’s worth, aligns 100% with my own: it won’t scale.

If it is to offer real value, a biomass to energy project needs to involve a feedstock that has a negative value to society, like municipal solid waste, manure, waste tires, etc.   (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s an article on emerging battery technologies that will greatly improve the calculus under which electric vehicles will be adopted into the mainstream, focusing on the work IBM is doing in lithium-air. After some level of technical analysis, the author notes:

IBM’s admission that the eventual return on its investment in lithium-air will be at least a decade away is significant for competitors and for governments’ electrification policies alike. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s an article noting that certain corporations talk out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to climate change. Isn’t that shocking? 🙂

Seriously, I hope I’ll soon be able to muster the resources to begin my “corporate role models” blog, as there are many millions of people doing some very noble things in the corporate work setting; and I’m anxious to start telling those stories.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I heartily recommend the PBS special: “Civilization: The West and the Rest,” which does a fine job in analyzing the six “killer apps” that resulted in the dominance of the Western culture over the remainder of the world. They are: political and economic competition, development of science, ownership of property, modern medicine, consumerism, and work ethic.

But while the show was brilliantly crafted and extremely thought provoking, I found it lacking in an important way. There is no doubt that these are the ingredients that made Western Civilization what it has become over the last 500 years or so — ingredients that have resulted in our easier, longer, and healthier lives. But are they a prescription for success in the future? The show boldly asserted this, but is it true? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

I’m happy to report that it appears I’m making progress in arranging funding for a facility to turn buffalo dung in Southern Pakistan into fertilizer and energy. As you’re reading this, there are 400,000 dairy buffaloes standing in an area of a few square miles. On average, that’s two buffaloes for each area the size of my modest office. Collectively, they’re generating about 8,000 tons of untreated solid and liquid waste per day, causing ridiculous rates of disease and environmental ruin over a huge region. Most of this waste forms a river and flows south into the Arabian Sea, a body of water that is now so polluted that fishermen have to row their boats through five miles of sewage every morning before they encounter anything still alive.

It turns out that I have an indirect “friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend” relationship with one of the country’s ex-presidents. And that’s what it’s going to take to get the job done here, as most people from other lands (like me) have an appreciable level of concern for Pakistan’s lawlessness.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

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