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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

My drive up to the Bay Area yesterday included a meeting with Ahura Energy CEO Fareed Sfard in the quaint town of Saratoga.  But what once was originally a sleepy stagecoach stop is now the home to a company that claims to have set the world on fire with a huge breakthrough in renewable energy.

In fact, Ahura’s innovation in the field of concentrated solar power (CSP) promises grid parity (an equivalence in price of electricity with that of coal, the dominant source of electrical energy in the US today) more or less immediately.  The secret sauce?  Proprietary low-cost actuators that track the sun through the sky without the expense of the electric motors and controls that normally go along with this set of technologies, eliminating the major cost components that hold back even our most advanced CSP system designs.  An enormous claim, to be sure.

“I have a saying that goes like this,” I joked with Fareed as we spoke; “It’s always cheap until you build it,” referring to the fact that, at this moment, most of Ahura’s technology is working only at far smaller scale than that necessary to prove real-world application.

My host smiled and nodded politely, undeterred by my remark, which he certainly could have taken as a cheap shot.  But I wasn’t worried about his taking offense; I had seen though our many previous conversations that he is a man of science, with a gracious bearing.

Further, let’s acknowledge two facts.  Here is:

1) A guy who ran 12 factories of the biggest contract manufacturer in the world (Solectron) which put more products into the market than anyone on the planet over a period of 3 1/2 years. I believe this is particularly relevant, as those were products with complexity and tolerance requirements with 3 or more orders of magnitude more complicated than what Ahura has here — which is “light assembly” (vs. real manufacturing).

and …

2) A bill of materials which truly is incredibly simple and inexpensive.

We’ll see what happens, but I actually am betting he can come up with the goods.

Please let me know if you’d like to learn more.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I drove to San Francisco and back yesterday for a series of meetings – almost 600 miles round trip. One of the highlights was a meeting in downtown with Dr. Ricardo Angel, Senior VP of Venture Capital for GE’s Energy Financial Services. Dr. Angel is interested in a few of the projects that I represent, but he’s asked me not to divulge the specifics.

Having said that, I think it’s lame to write even a short post like this with no detail at all, so I’ll mention that the rate for parking in his (admittedly fabulous) building is $3.00 for each 15 minutes. Ouch.

I can also leave you with this: GE is, without a doubt, a company that sees that the world actually is going green, and wants to make a buck or two from the process. These guys don’t miss much when it comes to betting on new technologies that have the potential to scale well.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science
Courtesy Kathy Heshelow

Courtesy Kathy Heshelow

DogTime Media surveyed 40 million dog owners in April 2011, and came up with the ten best habits for reducing their dog’s impact on the environment. DogTime Media is the largest vertical media community, and focuses exclusively on pet enthusiasts.

Small actions can make a difference in the U.S. where 71 million households have at least one pet.

(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Over a period of almost 30 years, I ran the delivery organization of the marketing consultancy I co-founded, Mueller/Shields. I found this terrifically rewarding in a number of ways – one of which was knowing that I was at least partially responsible for the many romances that I could see springing up.  Every week or so, some young guy (one of the 100-or-so folks I employed at the company’s peak) would start dating a girl from a neighboring cubicle he had met over at the water-cooler or looking for a new toner cartridge in the supply closet.  (Lord knows what happened in that supply closet when I was traveling.)  Young love — it made me feel good all over! And at least one marriage came as a result: Scott Reily and Silvia Herberger.

Here, on a much more mundane level, it appears that I’ve helped to arrange a marriage of a different kind.  From this article, it appears that Tomberlin (manufacturer of recreational low-speed EVs, whose articles I arranged to be placed on EVWorld.com) is sourcing some of its drivetrain components from an EVWorld.com advertiser Fallbrook Technologies (whose pilot ad program I sold and administrated a few years ago). I know, I’m a hopeless romantic. But it’s May, the roses are in bloom, and once again, I can just feel young love in the air.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I’m incredibly moved by acts – or even words – of brilliance. And that’s why, as saddened as I am that Obama has disappointed so many of the progressives who brought him to power, I believe that all Americans should applaud the job he did in his talk the other night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Though I’m told I normally do an adequate job, I’m by no means an excellent public speaker. I appreciate the kind words, but I’m always working hard to improve my skills in this arena that I find so incredibly difficult.  And, as it turns out, I’m not alone.  Did you know more people are afraid of speaking in public than dying?  As the saying goes, we’d rather be in the casket than eulogizing the deceased.

I hope you’ll check this out, and see not only Obama’s consummate command of political rhetoric, but the comic timing of a Jay Leno or a Bob Hope. As I listened to it, impressed as always, I counted my blessings that I’m not directly related to Donald Trump.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I’m always a bit cheesed off when my Monday morning calls to my business partners reveal that they had more exciting weekends than I did. While I was getting a bit of exercise and catching up on my writing, my partner at EVWorld, Bill Moore, was hanging out with one of the world’s most influential people: Wang Chuanfu, BYD’s founder and chairman, whom he met and interviewed at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting in Omaha.

I would have ridden my bicycle there to meet Chuanfu.  In 1995, he built a company from scratch that now employs more than 200,000 people, and aspires to be the world leader in electric cars.

And I’m not betting against him, even though the company takes a very interesting and controversial approach to business: vertical integration, taken to the max. They do the mining, build the battery cells, assemble the packs, and then integrate the packs into the cars. On top of that, they’re all over the clean energy required to charge the batteries in the most eco-sensitive manner possible, investing heavily in renewables — especially solar.

Does this extreme level of verticality seem improbable in a world of global commerce where micro-specialization is the order of the day? So it would appear to me. But I’m not one of the world’s wealthiest people — nor did I spend the weekend with one.  Grrr.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In light of the vitriol and partisan game-playing in Washington that seems to stall decision making, perhaps a bipartisan group can make an impact on the energy discussion?

A think-tank established by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), aims to do just that. It was formed to develop and promote solutions that can attract public support and political momentum for real progress. It engages top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise.

BPC already has a number of projects and initiatives under way, including the Economic Policy Project, National Security Initiative, National Security Preparedness Group, Nutrition Initiative, and the Debt Reduction Task Force.

Now, the Energy Security Project is being formed. Senators Trent Lott (R-MS) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) along with former National (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94CSE4IQEA&w=425&h=349]
In this episode of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report, I discuss one of the dozens of different kinds of biomass to energy technologies — in this case, processing chicken manure.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

Oakland, CA-based BrightSource will soon be raising $250 million in an IPO to complete a 393-megawatt solar thermal project in the Mojave Desert. The project is under attack, however, as the land involved in the deal is home to the desert tortoise. In fact, BrightSource has already shaved 500 acres (and about 50 megawatts) off of its original blueprints to accommodate concerns from environmentalists.

But don’t we need to weigh the environmental impact of the project – equivalent to taking 90,000 gas-powered cars off the road, against the plight of a certain number of desert tortoises? It seems ironic that we’re so compassionate towards our reptiles when we don’t seem as adamant in our dealings with coal-fired power plants, the noxious output of which causes the premature death of tens of thousands of human beings every year.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

EV buff Dick Schoen argues: “EVs, the 110 models coming into the US from forty or so manufacturers worldwide, cannot successfully commercialize without free public solar charging.”

I reply:

Dick: Thanks for writing. I have a great deal of respect for you and your thinking, and I would love to live in a world in which EVs are commercialized with free public solar charging.  But personally, I don’t see it. In fact, though I’m not happy about this, I see the grid-mix as being pretty much incidental to the success of EVs in the marketplace. I’m betting that we’ll see something like this:

2020: 10% penetration of EVs

Early adopters, corporate fleets

Charging mainly at private or semi-private locations: home, workplace, corporate facilities

A few “opportunity-charging” locations, mostly Level 2, and even fewer (far from ubiquitous) fast-charging (Level 3) locations

Slightly cleaner grid-mix brought about largely by state RPSs (renewable portfolio standards).

2050 – near 100% penetration of EVs in every class of land vehicle except the largest trucks

Battery packs completely affordable, as we experience scale and incremental improvement in performance over a 50-year period (currently 8% per year, compounded; this adds up mightily of 50 years)

Design standards for batteries that are optimized for fast (Level 3) charging

Thousands of such stations deployed in all “developed” countries

A much cleaner grid-mix, as old coal plants are decommissioned and the cost of renewable energy continues to fall

As I’m fond of saying, the issue isn’t “Will it happen?” It’s “Who’s going to make a buck in the process?”  I aspire to be one of them, and I’m rooting for you too!   Thanks for writing.

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