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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

I was giving a speech earlier this month about Energy Security, and while preparing the speech came upon some stark realizations about electrical generation in the US:
1) Solar is equivalent to an insignificant rounding error for electrical generation in the US.
2) Coal will remain by far the dominant form of electrical generation assuming the status quo for at least 5 years and will probably be the first or second generator for 10 years.
3) Assuming current trends, solar not be out producing petroleum product (petroleum liquids, petroleum coke) for about 4½ to 5 years.
4) Growth of 40% per year in 5 years solar will still be a rounding error for electrical generation in the US.
5) With growth of 60% per year in 5 years solar will finally achieve the status of being a rounding error for electrical generation in the US. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’m down in Los Angeles for a series of meetings tomorrow, one of which I’ll conduct at the Huntington Library, where, for the princely sum of a $120 per year membership, I get unlimited visits during which I can bring a guest for free.  As I’ve learned through experience, it’s a terrific place to discuss the business of renewable energy – far better than a cookie-cutter Starbucks or some sterile office building.

While we’re strolling through the building that houses the European art, I routinely point out this wonderful portrait of James Watt. If this is a true representation of his personality, it’s easy to see why people naturally took him and his steam engine so seriously.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

To my shame, it was just now that I watched the movie “Fuel”; here’s a link to the film on YouTube. 

I only wish I had the talent to make media so wonderfully accessible, so beautifully immediate in its impact.

Are there inaccuracies and oversimplifications? A few, regrettably.  But they got almost all of it right – especially the core message: at the root of our oil addiction are the most powerful people on Earth, who have essentially bought the U.S. government in their quest to ensure their cruel monopoly remains in place.  

My hat’s off to Josh Tickell and his team.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

As we scour our civilization in an effort to identify and rid ourselves of all things unsustainable, perhaps we should look past cleantech for a moment and examine a wider circles of our lives – perhaps including our involvement with medicine.  Rightfully, we’re all very grateful for the advancements in medical technology that are enabling us to live longer and healthier lives. But don’t we have an inkling that, just as we look back on the standards of medical practice 100 years ago with a mixture of pity and horror, the world even a few decades hence will regard what we’re doing here and now in the same way?

In particular, posterity will remember our generation for its fanaticism with the diagnosis of “disease” and the over-prescription of drugs for an enormous and ever-growing set of physical and mental conditions.  This morning, 8 million school children in the U.S. alone received a dose of Ritalin, an extremely powerful psycho-active drug given to quiet the child’s mind – and thus his body, creating greater docility in an effort to address the effects of an ostensible disease, ADHD.  Elsewhere today, tens of millions of adults will pop pills to deal with a wider range of other “diseases” — from restless leg syndrome to sexual dysfunction. For more on this, Google “pharmaceutical companies invent diseases” and check out some of the 1,120,000 sites that offer additional detail.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

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If you’ve ever wondered if there really are high net-worth individuals who happily invest their own money in start-up ventures, and calmly allow the entrepreneur to pursue his business, I’m here to tell you that such creatures do, in fact, exist. Here’s a picture taken a few weeks ago in Seattle, in which a friend and I are standing on either side of this glorious couple, Mr. and Mrs. William Eberlin, the angel investors in the ETM (Energy Transfer Merchant), a high-end EV charging station.

Note the Nissan LEAF and Tesla Roadster in the background of this ribbon-cutting ceremony for the ETM.  

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Here’s a grainy but clearly audible video in which EVWorld editor Bill Moore interviews me over a Skype session on my book, Renewable Energy — Facts and Fantasies.   He’s a good guy, and asked some terrific questions.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

It would be nice to make sense of the current trend in private investment in renewable energy. This article in TechCrunch, speaking on venture capital in particular, suggests that it’s quite robust:

“The Energy and Utilities industry raised $635 million for 33 deals, an increase from the same period last year when 23 deals raised $381 million. Renewable Energy companies claimed almost all of the industry’s investment as 30 deals raised $621 million.”

Yet other data seem to point in the opposite direction. Can anyone help sort this out?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

For those interested in keeping up with the debate on natural gas fracking, here’s a terrific article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Perhaps most disturbing is the underlying message: it’s impossible to know whom and what to believe.   

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

Ben Thorp is one of the true gentlemen in the biofuels industry, humbly but energetically chairing the non-profit BioEnergy Deployment Consortium. Retired from business after an enviable lifetime of successful engagements, he’s dedicated himself to the proposition that biomass needs to be a) understood, and then b) implemented on a pragmatic basis. Yet this represents a considerable challenge.

“There are 11 definitions of the term ‘biomass’”, he told me. “What fits for a business plan to a VC firm might fail completely in an application for a loan guarantee or a permit application.  And how about this: is MSW (municipal solid waste) really ‘renewable energy?’ In some places it’s regarded as such, but not in others.” (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Nate Hagens is a well-known authority on global resource depletion. In my quest to come up to speed with his thinking on the subject, I interviewed him for my next book, and make an ongoing attempt to read the specific articles to which he directs me. Here’s one that seems to encapsulate his thinking, which I would summarize as follows:

Human evolution has brought us to a place where we “feel good,” i.e., get a hit of dopamine, when we come to own stuff, e.g., fast cars, big houses, etc. While this phenomenon worked nicely when energy and capital were abundant, it’s hit the wall in the 21st century where both these commodities have become scarce.

Hope you enjoy the article; it’s excellent.  

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