Home › Blog › Page 1567

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I may have mentioned that I’m on a personal quest to figure out the dynamics of our society’s migration from fossil fuels to renewables.  To that end, I conducted a 90-minute interview over lunch today with Wally Rippel, Cal Tech physics star of the 1960s, whose half-century career took him to places very few of us can imagine in terms of understanding the issues: technological, economic, and political, that form the underpinnings of where we are as an energy-consuming society. 

In preparation for my next book, I’m anxious to get as many different viewpoints as I can on our society’s apparent resistance to change with respect to energy, and this was a terrific experience.  More soon.

 

 

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I have three meetings tomorrow, starting with a book interview about 140 miles from here with my old friend Wally Rippel.  Wally’s been following the controversy on cold fusion pretty much since its inception 20+ years ago, and there is no one whose judgement I trust more to help me navigate this tricky subject.

Of course, whenever I write something like this I get comments to the effect that cold fusion is theoretically impossible, a hoax, a rip-off, etc.  Guess what: I’ve heard that. J

But before you write, please recall that this is what they were saying about heavier-than-air flight a few months before the Wright Brothers made a bit of news in Kitty Hawk.

And even its learned opponents know that there is nothing “theoretically impossible” about cold fusion.  So will it come to fruition as a workable technology on this planet? I’m not sure. But the upside potential is so large and the cost of paying attention to the many hundreds of serious scientists pursuing the matter so small, I really can’t imagine the reason for all the animus on the subject.  

In any case, more on this later.

From Wally’s office, it’s on to a mid-afternoon meeting at the Huntington Library.  I’m often shocked at how frequently people meet their guests at the neighborhood Starbucks, when they could have chosen places that would have been more meaningful.  My advice: enjoy the moment.  Seen enough of conference rooms?  I’m sure I have.  Take your business guest to places that inspire creative conversations. 

Then, it’s on to dinner in Orange County, if I can get across town at that hour, for a talk with an entrepreneur in the electric vehicle space.  He’s an inventor I’ve met before, whose development may make a meaningful contribution to the penetration of  EVs in the next few years. 

If my mother is reading this, I know she’ll be thinking, “I hope he gets a good breakfast in the morning.”  Thanks, Mom.  I promise. I’ll do that.

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The Paris-based International Energy Agengy (IEA) issued this report on electric vehicles recently, which suggests that national governments around the world are competing to be the leader in the new transportation technology of the 21st century, setting ambitious deployment targets in the millions: 1.5 million by 2015, 100 million by 2050; or half of all light-duty vehicles sold in mid-century.

But like EVWorld.com editor Bill Moore, I’m wondering exactly what this means. I’m thrilled to have someone targeting an aggressive growth curve – and, in the process, acknowledging that without such a migration, we’re dooming our population to the ravages of climate change and other ecological disasters. Yet I think we need to realize the difference between a target coming out of a think tank and a phenomenon that actually happens in the real world.

The largest variable, arguably, is consumer demand. Carmakers can be counted on to respond to a population clamoring for a certain mode of vehicle, and enterprising businesses will have no trouble sorting out the charging infrastructure in a great hurry once demand is in place. Yet, as Moore observes in his article on the IEA report, “a body at rest tends to stay at rest,” reminding us that people resist change.

Will this be the huge issue that everyone seems to fear?  It’s true that people buy things (especially cars) that are an expression of their self-image. Trust me, I didn’t spend 30 years as a marketing consultant without running into that one. But we’ve all seen that the self-image and sensibilities of large percentages of our population can change very quickly. And we’ve even seen very rapid change in automotive designs (e.g., the VW Beetle, muscle cars, station wagons, SUVs, and crossovers).

Will that happen here? I can’t say for sure, but there’s certainly no reason that it couldn’t.  Also, keep in mind that it’s possible that “going green” could become the cool thing to do.  If we can offer the consumer a high quality EV with a decent range, at a decent price, I’ve predicted that they’ll sell like hotcakes.

So could these Parisian boys be right?  There are a great number of “ifs” going forward, but I’m hoping so.  　

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

If you’re available on Wednesday, July 27th, I hope you’ll attend a very special webinar that I’ll be conducting with Kathryn Alexander, the CEO of Ethical Impact. Kathryn is one of the kindest and most enlightened people you’ll ever run across, and one of the world’s top experts in corporate sustainability.

In the course of the last few years, I’ve become increasingly aware of the truly excellent work that some of our most visible corporate citizens have done in this arena — and Kathryn’s been a part of many of these most fantastic transitions.

I hope you’ll join us as we talk about topics like:

♦ The Ecological Laws that act as Environmental Imperatives that have guided life and all interdependent systems on this planet for millennia.

♦ How acting in concert with nature shouldn’t be seen as a cost item, but as an opportunity to create inventive new profit centers.

♦ The practical systems of innovation that are based on the ecological laws and wisdom of nature.

♦ Biomimicry, and how can your business processes be enhanced by learning from 3.7 billion years of nature’s own research.

♦ How you, as a business leader, can extract yourself from old-line thinking, begin to think like nature, and seed innovation into the DNA of your organization.

Again, I hope you’ll be able to attend.  Here’s the sign-up form:

http://2greenenergy.com/free-webinar/

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Here’s a short animated video aptly called “The Price of Gas” that takes the viewer through the comprehensive costs to the environment of exploration, extraction, shipping, refinement of crude, and the distribution and consumption of gasoline. Very nicely done, IMHO.

It’s the work of the nonprofit organization Center for Investigative Reporting, who, since their inception in 1977, has worked to reveal injustice and strengthen democracy through journalism.

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Just got off the phone with Brooks Agnew, CEO of Vision Motors, with its unique, low-cost design for electric pick-up trucks. I really enjoy Brooks; he’s got a terrific temperament for dealing with the frustrations that are inherent in getting a project like this off the ground. And fortunately, he was able to provide good news on a number of fronts.

In particular, the GSA (General Services Administration) has placed an order, and the Department of Defense is looking at 41,000 units. The DoD’s reasoning is simple: saving lives. Fuel in Iraq and Afghanistan is kept in portable bladders that have to be guarded 24×7. On average, one life is lost every time one of those bladders is moved around in the field.

As I told Brooks, “I’m not sure our government is too motivated by issues like climate change, ocean acidification, peak oil, or even the respiratory health of the world population, so I wouldn’t expect the EV push to be based on any of those factors – or even a reduction in fuel cost. But our military most certainly cares very deeply for the safety of its soldiers. I’m very glad to see this moving forward.”

Still, the company needs to raise equity capital, to enable the debt financing, that will in turn, get them out of their modest quarters and into mass manufacturing.  “We have some terrific prospects here too,” Brooks said cheerfully.  You gotta like a guy with this type of spirit.

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

2GreenEnergy Business Director George Alger sent me this interview in which Bill Gates speaks on renewable energy.

George:  Yes, he makes some good points, and he’s a fan (as am I) of Donald Sadoway’s work at MIT.

But as you can see from the comments, not everyone agrees with a lot of what he says.  I, for one, completely disagree with a great deal of this.  His position that biomass holds huge promise while solar is “cute” and “for rich people” is pretty far out there on the fringe.

It’s as if he said that Dorothy Hamill was his favorite ice hockey team.  But when you have a guy of that stature, he can say that 2 and 2 are 5, and it will garner huge amounts of attention.

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

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s the 2GreenEnergy July survey – this one with a twist: it only applies to people with business aspirations in clean energy and electric transportation.  If you’re a hobbyist, an observer, or a fan, that’s absolutely fine, but you’ll want to skip this one.  But if you are, in fact, striving to establish or expand a profit-making entity in this arena, please go here:

http://2GreenEnergy.com/Survey/

… and provide your viewpoints of one of the most critical issues facing you (and me): how to deal with the incredible promise – and challenge – associated with doing business with China.

Thanks in advance.

Tagged with: ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Every day we read about the global dominance that China is achieving in cleantech, and wish the US could get on the stick as well. Here’s a link to a wonderful presentation by HSBC that explicates China’s commitment to green technologies nicely.

China’s 12th Five Year Plan includes seven Strategic Emerging Industries (SEI), six of which are related to clean energy and sustainability.  While we in the US are arguing about trivia and eviscerating our environmental regulations, the Chinese will be investing as much as $1.5 trillion between now and 2020 in: (more…)

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that renewable energy rose to a historic high in the first quarter of 2011 – now producing at a greater rate than nuclear power. Renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, hydro, and wind) provided 11.73% of U.S. energy production (vs. nuclear’s 11.10%).

Of course, most of our renewable energy is large hydroelectric dams and corn ethanol, which have their own ecological issues; less than 2% is solar, wind, geothermal, run-of-river hydro, algae, etc. But hey – one takes good news where one finds it.

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