Here’s an ad for a seminar on sustainability.
Waste. It’s more than an environmental taboo; it’s a total disregard of valuable resources. And that affects everyone’s bottom line. Brand reputations, market share and valuation depend on meeting objectives. How do you achieve optimal energy, environmental, and fiscal practices?
And here’s the issue I have with it: (more…)
Here’s a short video in which I speak about the overall trajectory for integrating large amounts of renewable energy onto the grid. It’s a discussion of my book, Is Renewable Really Doable? on the local cable access channel in Ventura, CA.
As I like to say, this is a subject that has a great number of “moving parts.” Sure, there are technological issues, as we develop better and less expensive ways of harvesting the energy from solar, wind, geothermal, hydrokinetics and biomass. But there is a complex and ever-changing set of economic and political issues as well.
I hope you enjoy the video.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhOwKQIOCK8]
Soon we’ll publish another in our continuing series of free reports in which we aspire to provide an understanding of the most important trends that face civilization today. Based on a survey conducted in January 2012, we attempt to answer the question: How sustainable is our way of life? As always, I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to each of the participants.
As I go about my work in preparing the report, it’s obvious that we really DO live in interesting times. At the risk of oversimplifying: What a horserace this is: ignorance and greed vs. enlightenment and technology — and they’re neck-and-neck. (more…)
I’m in the process of preparing my report on the latest 2GreenEnergy survey, in which participants were asked to provide their viewpoints on sustainability, and predict the future concerning the most probable scenario facing mankind. In the process, I noted that Clifford Goudey provided this wonderful website on the changes in Earth’s sea levels through history. Thanks, Clifford.
In connection to climate change, I often warn that, where people can make compromises, physics doesn’t. From there, I sometimes find myself going off into long-winded explanations and examples. But I recently found that Voltaire, one of my favorite people in history, had said this 200+ years ago with his own inimitable brevity: “Men argue; nature acts.”
Renewable energy is becoming a catch word. Green is becoming trendier color. Every odd product is claiming greenness and energy efficiency. Why should we care about green energies? How they make our life worth living? Is it just another marketing gimmickry or does it make sense in life?
No doubt, there are controversies. Few people despise green energy products. They claim such products are ineffective and nonviable. However, others praise and try to adore anything with even a faintest relation to green energies. We will see 5 undeniable advantages any green energy product can offer. (more…)
My friend and 2GreenEnergy financial guru Bill Paul runs the organization “Earth Preservers” that is doing fantastic work in bringing the fundamentals of clean energy and sustainability to a world that desperately needs to come to grips with these basic facts. Here, Bill, in an Earth Preservers TV “EPTV” Newsmaker Interview, speaks with Bill McKibben of 350.org, arguably the world’s leading environmental activist. McKibben covers subjects including the Keystone pipeline and the understandable disappointment that young people have with the Obama administration vis-à-vis the environment.
He also clarifies the idea, forwarded by the right wing, that subsidizing green energy development violates the idea of a “free market,” arguing that anyone who honestly believes in free market capitalism should demand that the oil and gas industry pay to clean up its own waste. If you ran a restaurant and threw your garbage out into the street at night after you closed, we’d come along and close YOU down. The oil and coal companies dump their garbage into the skies, and make it YOUR problem. An interesting analogy, to be sure. Please check it out.
The CleanTech Forum in San Francisco this week exemplified a dilemma faced by many conference organizers. The folks who run this show want good content that will please the people who paid good money to fly here and attend. But the sponsors, who put up their own money, want to be part of that content; in particular, they want more than signage to make people aware of their generosity; they want the opportunity to speak to the audience.
That, in and of itself, is generally not a problem, since sponsors normally have the basic decency and self-restraint (more…)
I’m up here in Marin County, California, north of San Francisco for my interview with Sim Van der Ryn later this morning, and a few thoughts are passing through my head. One is that this part of the world will never be “developed” in the sense of turning it into a homogeneous theme park of Applebees, Walmarts, and tract housing. Of course, “never is a long time,” but, even though I’m only about 40 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge as the crow flies, the terrain up here makes it tough to get to.
When you go to Paris and see McDonalds all over the city, it’s easy to understand why the French resent us. But I think the incredible landscape here in Marin County, replete with its ancient trees and craggy hills, will keep this part of it safe from modernity for a long time to come.
I’ll post more on my talk with Sim shortly after the interview.
I’m proud to call Dr. David Doty a friend; he’s a man with a great heart, as well as an even greater intellect — and I eagerly learn like a sponge when I’m around him. But I also try to supply advice where I think I can add value, which is on the business side.
Windfuels, Dr. Doty’s concept of synthesizing high-quality gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from off-peak wind energy, is his primary focus at this point in his career. This is an enterprise for which he’ll need investors to come on board to support the construction of pilot plants of increasing sizes, along the way to scaling Windfuels to massive proportions. But what sort of people should these investors be? (more…)
