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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I’m spending the day in San Diego at the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012, meeting people, listening to talks, and doing an on-camera interview with industry guru Jon LeSage at Green Car Digest.

I just had an interesting conversation with the Qualcomm’s Senior Director of marketing, Joe Barrett, who told me about his company’s acquisition of the wireless (inductive) charging technology that they’re taking to market under the name “Halo.” I have to admit, Qualcomm really is in a good position to take this forward, given their size, and their success in establishing standards in a large and (vaguely) related industry: cellular telephony. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Throughout the history, earthquakes are known to cause high level of destructions and damages to our planet. Depending on the intensity of seismic waves, an earthquake can just shake our ground or literally cause ground rupture. The severity of damage is high in the case of ground rupture as it can dislocate large engineering structures like bridges, chemical plants, power plants, and very importantly nuclear power plants.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

A couple of times a year, I order up a free “press pass” and head out to a conference on electric vehicles. Tonight, I’ll be driving south, staying with a friend in Los Angeles, then getting up early and continuing down to San Diego for the first day of the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012. 

I don’t think I’ll be the only one asking tough questions of the panelists, insofar as anyone can see that the EV adoption curve isn’t what most people (including me) had predicted a few years ago. What really happening here?

By my wits, it’s summed up in the new Ford Focus Electric ad, featuring photographs of the gasoline-powered car and its new battery-powered brother side by side. They look identical, but the electric version is $40,000 — about two-and-a-half times the sticker price of the other ($16,500). So the customer now can have a who-cares car, worry about running out of charge, and pay an extra $23,500 for the privilege.  That’s something to get excited about, isn’t it?

If I were trying to show customers the folly of electric vehicles, and get them to stick with the good ol’ gas-burners for as long as possible, this is exactly the way I’d do it. Sure makes you wonder who composed that ad, and why.

I notice that the head of market strategy at Coda has been asked to make a presentation.  Seriously?  Isn’t this like learning about sobriety from Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan?  And in the case of Coda, the consumer value proposition contains all the nonsensical elements of the Ford Focus Electric — but wait, there’s more!  Not only is the car even far less attractive than the Ford, but the customer is expected to buy the car (and its warranty) from a company whose continued existence is incredibly unlikely.   Sounds like the deal of the century.  

Sorry for the sarcasm; regular readers will recognize that I actually support electric transportation.  But I’m also a big fan of sanity and reason, ingredients that, for some reason, are distinctly lacking here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It’s the birthday of the British novelist Kingsley Amis who wrote: “If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.” I’m wondering how many of us read his novella Lucky Jim in our English classes when we were young; I thought it was really good.

I have to laugh about this quote, though, because I’m sure there are people who say that this is essentially what we do here at 2GreenEnergy: annoy people – in our case with our frequent accusations of corruption, greed, stupidity, and injustice. I’m aware that a healthy percentage of these articles condemn at least something, whether it’s a group, a person, an idea, or some combination.

In fact, that’s the reason I’m so anxious to get cranking on our “corporate role models” piece (coming soon), which will counterbalance this by heralding the good things that so many people are doing within the corporate settings in which they work.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Paul Hawken, certainly one of the most influential environmentalists of all time, tells his followers:  “(Working on for the welfare of the world’s people) is not a way to get rich; it’s a way to be rich.” That certainly rings true here. I’m just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of making a difference, but I find it immensely rewarding to speak with people all over the globe on a daily basis, and help orient them in the right direction with their clean energy ideas.

Having said that, I believe that anyone associated with bringing real solutions to the energy scene will eventually be well rewarded, considering that the market is so large and so inevitable. At the end of the day, the world must adopt clean energy solutions; it has no other option.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

Craig Rainey writes:

I just arrived back from a trip to Maui, HI and it continues to amaze me that they have 7000 acres of sugar cane, producing two crops/year, 90% refined into alcohol on island, over half of the cars on the road are flex fuel and they are importing gasoline from off island. Am I the only person out there that thinks that it just might be better for the island to adopt the Brazilian model?

I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Maui, and if I were they, I’d investigate skipping the carbon model altogether. They have an enormous amount of run-of-river hydro, with their huge elevations and incredible rainfall, as well as ocean thermal at their disposal. I believe that a truly fair-minded look at their energy and transportation scene would yield an attractive return on these renewables and electric transportation.

In fact, one of the dozen or so clean energy investment opportunities that I happen to favor is just perfect for the high head conditions that occur when rain falls in the mountains and runs quickly to the sea.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m sure many of you have seen the inspiring video below (it has over 5 million views), in which boaters free a humpback whale from a fishing net in which it had been caught. It makes the following passage from Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et al all the more outrageous. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Frequent commenter/author Frank Eggers writes on my piece on subsidies for nuclear:

Nuclear power has been demonstrated to be far safer than fossil fuel power. Coal plants cause health problems that, while severe, are difficult to pinpoint because generally they simply greatly increase the health problems which would exist anyway whereas nuclear accidents, though infrequent, have a more concentrated and obvious effect.

Frank:  I’m not one of the hysterical anti-nuke people who grossly over-estimates the danger. Having said that: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Patrick OLeary of Futura Solar writes:

Renewable energy faces an institutional bias. Upfront costs mean upfront tax payments. No stream of bills to pay means no stream of tax revenues to collect.

Also consider the impact of solar on peaking power electric rates. Without that spike of money, Electric Utilities go back to being sleepy industries, sans the corporate bonuses.

You make some excellent points here. The “institutional bias” is exactly what makes this so tough; outside of the health and safety of all living things now and in the future, there is little incentive to make a shift in our energy policy. (I know that sounds sarcastic, but I don’t mean it that way.)

Creating that incentive means making some extremely high-level changes in the way we buy and sell energy. And the big boys don’t want to see that (or any other) change, thus making this a bit difficult.  Fortunately, it’s worth the struggle.  

Btw, the ideas on your website look cool. Keep up the good work.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I hope you’ll check out our newest piece of functionality: http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/. 

Most thoughtful Americans wonder why the United States is more a roadblock than a leader in energy-related technology.  It really IS a strange phenomenon, isn’t it?  There are numerous, obvious reasons that we need to move steadily away from fossil fuels: respiratory disease and environmental issues are two of them — but what about national security?  Why precisely are we so steadfast in borrowing an incremental billion dollars a day and handing it over to empower our own enemies, so that we can sustain our addiction to oil?   (more…)

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