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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

There are at least two kinds of “EV deniers” (as I call them), i.e., people who doubt that electric vehicles represent an improvement for the environment over gasoline. The first concept is that for the foreseeable future, an increase in the electric load means burning more coal. I.e., coal plants that would otherwise have been tamped down during off peak hours are instead running full-throttle through the night. Frequent commenter Glenn Doty points out that even California and the other states that have no coal buy power when they need it, and this ultimately means that somewhere, more coal is being burned.

Classically, I’ve addressed this by saying that we do indeed face the need to shut down coal plants; this is part of the reason that I favor a significant role of government in support of the migration to renewables and the ancillary areas: smart-grid, efficiency, conservation, energy storage, etc. I’ve also pointed out that the true externalities of fossil fuels are almost completely ignored in most of the arguments. E.g., as bad as coal is, it could be argued that it’s not as bad as oil because of international security issues. The costs (both financial and human) of war, terrorism, and civil unrest and injustice are enormous, and normally totally dismissed. As oil becomes scarcer, these problems will only get worse.

The other major class of objection (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

My friend Cameron sent me a piece on union labor and public education, which spawned this conversation that some readers may find interesting (though it has nothing to do with clean energy). 

Cameron: Imagine if all elementary schools were well-staffed with well-qualified and well-paid teachers of critical thinking and facilitators of creativity, and imagine if everyone who wanted to do so went to university, and got degrees in their chosen field (selected with effective guidance testing), and imagine if all had access to the best nutrition and healthcare, and sound financial advice… we’d be one kick-ass society in less than a generation!

Craig: We disagree on a few things (which is totally cool, btw). E.g., I don’t think that anyone is well served by the teacher’s unions. The net result is that it’s practically impossible to root out bad teachers — of which (trust me on this) there are many. When the budget cuts came to the California schools, guess whose jobs were preserved? Those with ability? No, those with seniority, regardless of the quality of their work. The overall quality of teachers went down even further.
(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Last evening, waiting at a restaurant bar for the remainder of my party to arrive, I happened to run into professional poet Richard Jerrette. He told me about his recent cycle of poems, “Beso The Donkey,” and we briefly commiserated over our martinis (mine, technically a Gibson, with an onion) about how difficult it is to get important industry figures to review one’s writing.

I told him about my experience with my first book, how I had spent several 12-hour days identifying and contacting the most obvious people: editors of magazines and websites on energy and environmentalism, as well as the world’s top names in the space that I deemed relevant: Al Gore, Oprha Winfrey, Jon Stewart, etc.   (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just started a fine historic novel that my brother gave me for Christmas, The Hangman’s Daughter; the first 100 pages are really good. In addition to the story itself, a murder mystery set in mid-17th Century Bavaria, the author reminds us of the horrors and brutalities of living at that time, e.g., the persecution of witches and the outrageously illogical ways in which this took place. “If she has a birthmark, she’s probably a witch.  Stick it with a needle; if she bleeds, then she’s definitely a witch.” How would you like to have been born female with a birthmark in 1650?

To me, the remarkable aspect of this isn’t that people were at one point so stupid to think like this. The truly amazing thing is that this was fairly recent. Almost exactly 2000 years earlier we had Ancient Greece with its fantastic developments in mathematics, science, education, philosophy, theater, focus on virtue, jurisprudence, democracy and the like – not to mention logic. Aristotle (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

Ocean current energy, a form of hydrokinetics, is one of the often-overlooked flavors of renewables, one that holds a great deal of potential. Low hanging fruit here, it appears, are the large and predictable currents that flow with very little variability over time. The Gulf Stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States comes immediately to mind to us Americans, as it’s what makes the Atlantic warm and enjoyable for summer vacations as far north as the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Lesser known to most of us here in the U.S. is the Mozambique Current in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar.

When I’m in the studio next week, I plan to shoot a short video that discusses various attempts to harness that energy in a cost-effective, ecologically safe manner. I’ve come across the developer of a device that is anchored (not moored) to the ocean floor, and thus can move around within the limits of its tether to find the region of maximum current. I’d like to see this guy succeed; his has one of the best ideas in hydrokinetics I’ve come across to date. If you’re interested, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I’m very proud of 2GreenEnergy’s dozen or so “associates,” who perform a huge variety of tasks for our clients – everything from raising capital, to performing engineering reviews, to marketing and public relations, social media, project management to IP protection. My aim is simple: When someone asks if we can do something for their clean energy business, I want the answer to always be a resounding Yes.

One of the associations we recently formed is one with Dan Sturges, in which we deliver cutting-edge thinking in transportation for city planners who may be looking for a better way of moving people and goods around a local area. For a century, we operated off a central paradigm in transportation:

Virtually everyone 16 years or older has his own car, a huge piece of steel that weighs (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

My friend and colleague Tom Konrad does not share my belief that the consumer adoption of EVs is, to some degree, driven by perception of the long-term prognosis for electric transportation.” He writes:

If I’m buying an EV, why should I care if it’s the way of the future or not? My car will work as long as I have electricity and roads, the supply of neither of which is under threat. Owners of natural gas vehicles may need to worry about charging infrastructure, but while a robust charging network for EVs would be nice, it’s not absolutely necessary. If it works today, it will work 10 years from now.

I think, though it’s just a theory, that most people don’t want to own a form a transportation that few other people use — especially in this case.  To the degree EVs do not catch on, there will be very little build-out of charging infrastructure, and very low resale value for used cars.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Is Renewable Really Doable, by Craig Shields

You have a curious, inquisitive mind. Plus, you have a good heart. You have a deep, abiding concern for the world around you and the people who inhabit it.

It’s for that reason that I thought I’d send a quick reminder that the launch date for my book (Is Renewable Really Doable?) is right around the corner: Thursday, March 15th.

That’s the magic date when I’m offering a one-day-only bonus — the thought-provoking new report currently for sale at $59.95 (“Insights in LCOE – The Levelized Cost of Energy,” by industry analyst Mike Hess) – absolutely free – when you buy one or more copies of my book from Amazon.com.

Here’s an opportunity to put that inquisitive mind of yours to work, to discern the truth behind some of the world’s key issues: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

An inventive sort from Mauritius writes:

Please review my idea, detailed in the attached. The electric steam engine combines many old innovations into one new single innovation, just like the first mobile phone in 1967 combined the radio, microprocessor and the battery to give a mobile phone, the Electric steam engine combines the advanced batteries of modern electric cars and the age old knowledge of steam, temperature and pressure management and finally, a new turbine system.

I respond:

That’s creative, but the problem is efficiency. Have you built one? How efficient is it, overall? The act of charging a battery and discharging it, i.e., converting electric energy into kinetic energy via an electric motor, is in the 90s; you’re going to find it very hard to compete with that.

I sure would like to visit your beautiful and quite well-run country.   I understand you folks rank 12th out of 183 in terms of economic openness, regulatory efficiency, rule of law, and competitiveness.  That’s impressive.  

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Frequent commenter John F. Robbins writes a post  on the 2GreenEnergy Facebook page re: my announcement that I’ll soon be interviewing sustainable design guru Sim Van der Ryn:

When I led a group called Alternate Energy Assn (AEA) in SW Ohio in the late 1990s, we brought him to Cincinnati to speak. He was very inspirational, but also challenging. In his book (Sustainable Design) he says a sustainable building should motivate occupants to behave differently, more sustainably. (more…)

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