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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

(Continued from earlier post…)

Smart Grid

Implementation of smart grid technology will enable better efficiency and integrate renewable energy sources, say the respondents. They prefer programs that focus first on improving and incentivizing smart grid technology, followed by funding energy efficiency measures.

92% of the respondents favor government incentives to improve control and management of the smart grid technology, and 89% support incentivizing the development of the grid. 85% also favored minimum energy efficiency standards for all products that use energy.

Most of the industry stakeholders believe a smarter grid is critical to our future electricity supply and consumption. In fact, 81% said that smart grid technologies are extremely or very important for the future of electricity, while only 17% said it was somewhat important and 2% not important. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

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I’m on my way up north for a few meetings in the Bay Area, the first of which is an interview with Ray Lane, Managing Partner of Kleiner Perkins, the legendary venture capital fund. Ray has generously consented to let me interview him for my next book on renewables, in which we’ll cover certain economic issues.

I was just putting the final touches on my interview script, which I hadn’t planned to publish, when it occurred to me that readers may find some of this interesting:

Ray: I first met you at the Detroit auto show in late 2009. You impressed me by taking the stage and essentially pointing out exactly what had noticed, i.e., that the other presenters had sugarcoated the work that we in the US had done in the industry of clean energy and transportation. Can you elaborate? What’s happened since, in your estimation? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Question: 2GreenEnergy client Canefields USA, LLC has negotiated a supply of 50,000 metric tons per month of raw sugarcane (waste) “bagasse” fiber from major sugar producers in Brazil, from which it will produce eco-friendly carbon-neutral paper. Approximately how much per ton has Canefields agreed to pay?

Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s another segment of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report. Here, host George Alger asks me about the politics behind the migraton to renewables. Of course, I could have spoken for days on the subject without taking a breath. Fortunately for us all, the show’s only 15 minutes long.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5G2iYigW7I?rel=0&w=480&h=390]

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

One of our core tasks here at 2Greenenergy is bringing expertise to the analysis of high-level issues in renewable energy. A few months ago, the government of Bangladesh contacted us with an extremely open-ended request: come study our resources — both physical and economic, and make a comprehensive set of pragmatic recommendations.

To that end, we’ve brought in our partners at SunBD, a global consultancy with numerous projects under their belts in Asia and Europe, as well as North and South America. As always, we’re recommending a two-part attack on the challenge: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

In this episode of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report, host George Alger asks me about the externalities of fossil fuels.

Those are some big words we’re throwing around here! What do they mean? What needs to be done?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roZpKmFlGZA?rel=0&w=480&h=390]

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

What do top green energy executives and industry leaders think of the clean energy future? That’s what Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services wanted to know. In September and October 2010, Bloomberg polled leaders for the company ABB to learn about their perspectives and insights about the future of energy.

The survey results were presented in several white papers, including, “A Smarter Energy Future“ and “Energy Efficiency (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Here’s the audio file in which I interview Stephan A. Schwartz for my new book.  I hope you appreciate his insights into human consciousness and social ideas as much as I did. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Stephan A. Schwartz for my current book the other day. I’d been looking forward to this opportunity for weeks, and the conversation was certainly no disappointment.

I’ve always admired people who take on groundbreaking projects in any discipline, and I have to say that I find Stephan’s research into the nature of consciousness to be particularly fascinating. The concept that our minds consist of both a “local” aspect (present here and now in time and space) and a “non-local” element that has no apparent position in or connection with time and space is not at all new; in fact, it’s been a part of numerous attempts to explain our existences with religion and parapsychology for thousands of years. But explaining all this with advanced physics, math, and biology is really cutting-edge stuff.

About 20 minutes into the interview, I said, “Stephan, I hate to change course here; I could talk about this for a week and not tire of it, but (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I get occasional emails from professional engineers telling me that I’m harming our site’s credibility by suggesting that cold fusion is legitimate science.  Here’s a fellow who’s not too sanguine on the subject:

Cold fusion has yet to be lifted out of the pit of porn science….The most accurate information that I have read about cold fusion or low energy nuclear reactions was “Cold Fusion: still too ridiculous for Marvel Comics…. I caution against promoting all “interesting” energy topics when the science is dubious. In my opinion, it weakens the message you are trying to present by linking the questionable (at best) with proven technology.

I appreciate the tip, and clearly the guy is correct that we need to respect the difference between proven technology and science fiction.  But (more…)

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