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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’m one of those people who constantly tries to see into the future – not that I have any eerie talent for things like that. The future of energy and transportation, for example, is clear as a bell. Does anyone think we’re going to be driving Hummers in 40 years? Could a reasonable person believe there’ll be plenty of cheap oil in 2050 when the world population has increased 22% from today and the number of cars on the world’s roads has doubled?

Alternative energy will become a reality; that’s not in question. The question is: who’s going to get rich in the process?

Here’s a fact: the people who made the last fortune in energy (1910 – 2010) want to make damn sure they’ll be the ones to do it again.

And here’s my prediction: Unless something unforeseen and incredibly dramatic happens, that’s precisely what’s going to happen.  Here are some details, lest you think I’m one of these tawdry fortune-tellers who speaks in fortune-cookie generalities: (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

My friend Bruce Severance called last night and announced his availability to rejoin the ranks for those who are engineering tomorrow’s electric vehicles.

I can’t even begin to list this guy’s credentials – both in terms of formal training at one of Southern California’s leading design schools – as well as tons of industry experience.  If anyone’s interested in hiring a top-notch thinker, engineer, and futurist – as well as a first-rate human being, please let me know and I’ll hook you up with Bruce.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

This fellow at CleanTechies replies in our discussion on the power of vested interests in determining our energy future:

Craig, surely there’s no doubt that you are right to a great degree. There are vested interests that stand to lose a lot of money by a transition away from fossil fuels. As Upton Sinclair said some 70 or 80 years ago, “It is extraordinarily difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it!” But are those established interests of the gods? No. I’m sure the makers of gas lamps tried to oppose Edison’s electric light.

Sir:  This is all true. And no one needs to convince me that people of the time, e.g., the Rockefellers, were at least as powerful — and ruthless – as any forces around today. But did they have their tentacles so far into the fabric of Washington? And, perhaps more to the point, had the American people been lulled to sleep by a corporate-owned media empire that deliberately derails them from finding the truth?

　

　

　

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

My post on Moore’s Law earlier in the week got picked up at CleanTechies.com, we’re there has been some interesting discussion.  In particular, one really bright gentleman debated some of the mathematics of exponential growth. 

To me, however, the issue is less academic.  I think the overriding issue here is not Moore’s Law as it applies to the development of technology in a free, market-driven world that genuinely has an appetitite.  Unless I’m quite wrong here, the migration to renewables will continue to be hamstrung by the forces that are far more powerful coming from big money and politics:  subsidies, political favors, etc. 

Why don’t we in the US have a federal energy policy that firmly takes us towards health, safety, and sustainability?  Are we to suppose that this is an accident?  No, there are enormously powerful forces behind our actions (or lack thereof) — forces that trump the natural tendencies that may exist within free markets.

Does this sound like an unfair accusation?  Ask yourself: What’s the purpose of those 7000 lobbyists who work for the oil industry?

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

In the news on the electric vehicle front is Terry McAuliffe, prolific political campaign fund-raiser and close friend of Bill Clinton. On Tuesday, McAuliffe will announce to world leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative a commitment to invest $1 billion to build neighborhood electric vehicles in economically depressed areas of the United States to spur the economy and create green jobs.

So how much appetite do we Americans have for cramped, cheap little cars that go 25 MPH?  I’d say it’s just a hair’s breadth this side of zero.  This enterprise will not succeed, but the only reason that it is even worthy of a conversation is the huge incentives that Mr. McAuliffe and his super-powerful buddies intend to ram through Congress. I.e., taxpayers will be forced once again to open up their wallets to make feasible a business that would have been laughed out of any corporate board room I’ve ever been in.

There is so much good that the public sector can – and must — do at this precious moment in time.  But these actions must be disciplined, well-conceived, and free of undue influence.  This example has none of these characteristics, and will justifiably raise the ire of an electorate that is already pretty fed-up with wasteful government spending.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s a question for you now that mid-term elections are here. Do you have what it takes for a career as a political speechwriter? Here’s a one-question quiz that will help you find an answer. Suppose I were running for Congress. Which campaign platform would you recommend for me? You can tell voters that I will fight to:

a) Protect women’s reproductive rights, put honesty back into government, return power to the voters, and end tax-payer bailouts for the super-rich.

OR

b) Establish a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS), even though it is fiercely opposed by the utilities who, in a deregulated environment have used their cozy relationships with the FERC-appointed quasi-governmental agencies to hide profits and create an environment in which only a fraction of clean energy is contracted for purchase at retail net metering rates, thus quietly but effectively removing incentive for capital formation in solar, wind, and other clean energy technologies.

If you picked b), I’d advise you to make another career choice.

Kidding aside, this is the exact situation in which we find ourselves at this point, which I explain on a post I just put up on Renewable Energy World called Mid-term Elections and Discussion of a Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

This morning, 2GreenEnergy’s chief financial analyst Bill Paul, known to many of you through his exclusive webinar series here, called my attention to this Bloomberg Businessweek article on mergers and acquisitions in the clean energy space.  Bill does seem to be able to get out in front of many of these trends, and correctly predicted this increase in M&A activity some time ago.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’ll be at the IEEE Energy show in Boston next week, a trip during which I’ll be meeting with numerous other 2GreenEnergy associates and clients – and also knocking out a few interviews for my next book on Renewable Energy Job Creation.

If you’re in the area, and you’re available for a cup of coffee, please let me know.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Frequent commentor Alex C. writes:

We need to get government OUT of control or manipulation over energy. The only role of government is to protect citizens from excessive pollution (excluding the CO2 global warming farce). Let the private sector invest and develop the technologies and let the most ECONOMICAL and CLEAN energy win. A job created by government taking of wealth does NOT create wealth…..it just destroys it.

Alex: I actually agree with most of this. The problem lies in extricating government fully — not just out of the clean energy side, but from the fossil fuel side as well, which, according to reports I find credible, receives 12 times the level of funding that renewables does. And it goes without saying that the nuclear energy industry couldn’t exist for 10 minutes without enormous government subsidies.  The U.S. nuclear industry has received $100 billion in government subsidies over the past half-century, and federal subsidies now worth up to $13 billion a plant. 

As I noted, this list of subsidies for fossil fuels takes many forms, some of them (deliberately?) hidden: (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I like to think of myself as a man who doesn’t have to be right all the time. But once in a while, it really ain’t so bad. I have to think that this article on young people’s auto buying/driving habits is an indication that there might be some substance to my theory that we’re facing a paradigm shift in this space, in which we, as a society, cease to define ourselves according to the price of the car we drive. Linked above is a video I made not too long ago in which I mention this phenomenon.

Again, not to brag, but the author repeats my thesis virtually verbatim:

Unlike their elders, Generation Yers own fewer cars and don’t drive much. They’re likely to see autos as a source of pollution, not as a sex or status symbol.

Ta-da!! Just kidding. Sort of. 🙂

Thanks to avid supporter Cameron Atwood for bringing this to our attention.

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