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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Question: How cheaply can we generate electricity if we don’t care what we do to the planet in the process?

Answer: Can be found at here:

Relevance: A friend told me about his trip to Inner Mongolia (see photo linked below), and said he’d never been happier to get out of anywhere. He explained that because of the density of the coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities, you couldn’t see a mile in any direction, even on the clearest day. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

At the rate of a few times a week I’m asked about global climate change, and I provide a brief summary, including the concept:

This is complicated. No one knows exactly how changes in the constitution of our atmosphere will affect global temperatures and weather conditions. I can tell you a couple of things for certain, though: 1) Special interests are working overtime to paint this picture in their favor. 2) The vast majority of climate scientists warn us that this is a very large and serious threat. 3) If there is a problem, as these people almost uniformly tell us, it’s going to be a runaway train, i.e., something that will be much harder to fix later than it would be now. 4) Prudent people buy insurance to protect themselves against devastating events — even if those events are of low probability; they don’t need to be certain they will have a house fire to buy fire insurance. The analogy here is very strong.  

As of today, however, I tell them one other thing: Take 12 minutes out of your life and watch the late climatologist and Stanford professor Stephen Schneider’s video on YouTube.  I wish there were a way to get everyone on Earth to check this out.   

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

As solar companies strive to provide consumers with the sun’s renewable energy, they too are doing their part to help those in need. Many U.S. solar companies have reached out to the third world in effort to provide them with solar equipment that will help improve lives on the daily, from lighting schools, to power communication equipment. Countless rural towns throughout Africa do not have direct access to a power grid because of the sheer cost to transport the electricity over far distances. However, solar companies are changing this. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The adoption curve for electric vehicles is largely based on consumer attitude for the subject, which itself is for the most part formed by word of mouth: what people hear from others, and what they see around them. It is for that reason that I take great delight when I see news of large corporate fleets switching to electric transportation. Frito-Lay is the 7th largest fleet in the U.S., and will soon be deploying 176 electric delivery trucks in Orlando, FL. Good stuff.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I was in a four-hour-long meeting this morning, learning about a new approach to energy storage. I can’t talk about the technology (which, frankly, I think is sketchy) but that’s not the point.

The point is this: I sat at a table with a bunch of smart people from the technology firm, as well as representatives from a private equity company (my client) that’s interested in investing, and all of a sudden, in the chat that ensued during a five-minute break, it became clear that certain of these people think of themselves as environmentalists, and certain others distinctly do not.

I thought hard: What’s the mindset of a person who thinks of himself as a “non-environmentalist?” Is there some downside that I’m not seeing to caring about the health of our planet? Are there people who favor toxicity or an end to biodiversity? Is there a legitimate approach to our lives here that has no responsibility for the welfare of future generations?

Then the icing on the cake: I came to learn that some of these “non-environmentalists” have grandchildren.  Sorry, I’m lost.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s Sting’s “Fields of Gold” – certainly one of the most powerfully moving pieces of music ever composed. And here’s what someone wrote about it on YouTube: “I heard this song in the hospital when I was there because I was suicidal. It was the most internally touching moment of my life. This song is my freedom song.”

For a moment, try to imagine how good it would feel to have such a positive effect on another’s life. We live in a world of sorrow, but it’s a world of beauty and possibility too.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized, Wind Energy


According to Bloomberg, New Energy Finance, improved efficiencies and declining costs will make the average wind farm cost-competitive with coal, gas, and nuclear by 2016 (the best ones already are there). According to Justin Wu, the firm’s lead wind analyst:

The press is reacting to the recent price drops in solar equipment as though they are the result of temporary oversupply or of a trade war. This masks what is really going on: a long-term, consistent drop in clean energy technology costs, resulting from decades of hard work by tens of thousands of researchers, engineers, technicians and people in operations and procurement. And it is not going to stop: In the next few years the mainstream world is going to wake up to wind cheaper than gas, and rooftop solar power cheaper than daytime electricity. Add in the same sort of deep long-term price drops for power storage, demand management, LED lighting and so on – and we are clearly talking about a whole new game.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

A friend asked me to respond to this piece about the Occupy Movement and its activity re: home foreclosures.

Yes, there was gross corporate malfeasance in home mortgage lending that led to the crash of 2008 and the ongoing meltdown, and yes, it was orchestrated by the people at the very top of the food chain, who knew from the start that they would come away  with billions of dollars at the expense of the commoners.  The wealthiest, smartest, and most ruthless preyed on those least able to defend themselves — again — then walked away scott-free, and now lay in wait to pull off the next  crime of the century.

But don’t the people who invested in homes they couldn’t afford have responsibility here too?  Growing up unable to do basic math or to think for oneself isn’t exactly a virtue.  And what exactly happened to caveat emptor?

Forgive me; I was born with the curse of seeing both sides to a story.   (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We all want to know why the developed countries don’t do something about global climate change, given that it’s we who have the power to control the destiny of civilization, as the preponderance of energy consumption falls disproportionately to the wealthiest few.

So why is it so improbable that these top-tier GDP/capita countries will stand up and do something? It would mean social planning and an aggressive role of government, in a time during which these are all dirty words.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Good news for those of us hoping to find life elsewhere in the universe: today’s announcement of the discovery of Kepler 22b. It’s 600 light-years from here – too far to walk – but it has remarkably similar characteristics to our Earth.

I remember making the hour-long drive due north from Trinity College in 1975 (in Hartford, where I was an undergraduate at the time) to Amherst to listen to guest lecturer Timothy Leary. When he took the stage, Dr. Leary immediately gave us the mnemonic “SMIILE” by which we could remember the three elements of his talk, if we cared to, for the rest of our days: SM = Space Migration, II = intelligence increase, and LE = life elongation. I’m not sure I’ve seen a great deal of intelligence increase since the 70s; in fact, I could more easily argue the opposite. But the other elements of Leary’s talk seem to be walking into full bloom.