Home › Blog › Page 1545

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This afternoon I plan to take my daughter and a few of her friends down to the magnificent celebration of Earth Day that the city of Santa Barbara puts together each year. The show grows in scope each year; last year’s boasted many hundred exhibitors displaying concepts in energy efficiency, clean transportation, renewables, and cleantech more generally.

Wherever you are today, I hope you’ll take a few seconds and contemplate what “reduce, re-use, and recycle” can mean to you, your family, and your community.

 

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Just in time for Earth Day, this morning I finished up Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et al. Gosh, I wish there were a way I could get everyone to read this critically important work with its incredibly wide-ranging implications about our future here on this tiny, beleaguered planet.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Chairman of the World Commission on Environment and Development writes, “This book is essential reading for everybody who is concerned with the central issue of our times: how to achieve a transition to a sustainable global future.”

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

I’ve often written about how astonishingly little of the Earth’s surface needs to be covered in a solar collecting technology, e.g., solar thermal, in order to provide 100% of the world’s energy needs. Linked above is a wonderful graphic that makes this clear.

Don’t get me wrong: the task of deploying that much solar thermal is not something that we can do overnight, but it sure provides something to think about. We receive 6000 times more energy from the sun every day than we need to supply all our energy needs. It sure seems a shame that we can’t come up with a way of making this happen, and that, as a consequence, we keep depleting our ever-shrinking supply of fossil fuels, while destroying our natural environment.

 

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Tired of the big money in politics? Tired of corporations running the country? If so, you’re not alone – and, according to the “Move to Amend Coalition,” a grassroots national organization spearheading resolution efforts across the country, people of all political persuasions feel exactly like you do. And if it’s true of people generally, it’s true of Vermonters in spades, who just made their state the first to call for an amendment to abolish the doctrine known as “Corporate Personhood” which gives corporations constitutional rights meant to protect people.

 


Tagged with: , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Just a quick note to let you know that our project to assemble audio/visual learning aids aimed at renewable energy is complete (for now, at least), and ready for distribution to any young people or newcomers in the subject you feel may benefit. It’s a compilation of a few short videos, in which I lay out each of the five major “flavors” of clean energy (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydro), and briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. Also included are “infographics” that further explore these technologies and the issues that surround them.

My aim, of course, is to introduce this subject to as many people as possible, in the hopes that we can drive up the number of informed discussions, so necessary to the success of the democratic process.

Please feel free to send this link to anyone in your life who you feel may benefit. Thanks.

Here’s the link:  http://2greenenergy.com/renewable-energy-basic-concepts/

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

At yesterday’s Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Conference I had a wonderful conversation with a senior player at Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I began by validating him for coming to a show like this; to me it shows, at a minimum, a kind of progressive, forward-thinking approach to the business.

When I asked him about the pros and cons of adding electric vehicles to the line-up, I got some very interesting and thought-provoking answers that I thought I’d share: (more…)

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m on the board of advisors for the Clean Business Investment Summit (CBIS), held each year in August, linking the very best business plans with the hungriest investors. I just got back from a meeting in which we discussed keynote speakers, and, of course, the names of the top people at Patagonia came up. Fortunately, some of them are “friends of friends,” and so I think there is a reasonable chance that this will work.

If you happen not to be familiar with the incredible leadership that these folks have shown in sustainable manufacturing, I hope you’ll check out the video I linked here.

 

 

 

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Scientists tell us that the threat of climate change (not to mention the other issues associated with the depletion of natural resources in the face of population growth) is the most important event facing mankind in the entire history of humanity. That’s quite a thought, when you reflect on it. After 10,000 years of our living in organized society, we’ve come to the point at which our ability to limit the damage we’re doing to our environment over the next few decades will mean the difference between our success and failure as a species. (more…)

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

A reader from Savannah, GA and I spoke on the phone the other day and became fast friends. In response to my piece on subsidies for solar, he writes:

I keep going back and forth on this very difficult issue. On balance, I’m against photo-opp seeking politicians and their bureaucrats (pol-crats) picking winners and losers.

Still, the last decade’s big gush of subsidy bucks (grants, credits, feed-in-tariffs) may be cited as birthing a gold-rush style ramp-up of solar PV production that maybe would not have otherwise happened. (more…)

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s another quick note from San Diego, where I’m spending the day at the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012.

I just had a great conversation with Allan Schurr, IBM’s Vice President of Energy and Utilities. I performed quite a few projects for IBM over the 30 years that I functioned as a marketing consultant for the tech sector, and thus they’ll always occupy a warm spot in my heart — even if they did achieve their dominance in the late 20th century with the borderline abusive business tactics for which they were well known at the time.

Nowadays, we have a kinder, gentler — and I would say smarter IBM, a company dedicated to adding true value with its level of innovation, business strategy, and industry expertise. I’m delighted to see that IBM embraces electric transportation, and focuses on integrating its many information-related pieces, e.g., smart-grid. IBM’s done a great deal of work in early-adopter Denmark, where, for instance, an EV comes home at the end of a workday, gets plugged in, and waits patiently for the wind speed to cross a certain threshold, at which its charger switches on, thus minimizing the use of fossil fuels and maximizing the penetration of wind into the Danish grid-mix.

Great stuff, guys. Keep up the good work.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,