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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I have a great deal of sympathy for people who struggle with the math and logic of renewables. After all, I’m one of them.

It’s not that I’m bad at math per se; rather, it’s that there are dozens of different ways to use numerical calculations to compute the relative value of each of our energy alternatives. To illustrate the point, here’s an excerpt from a Washington Post article earlier this year whose purpose was to dispel five myths concerning clean energy:

Myth #1: Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.

Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. Even an aging natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet per day generates more than 20 times the watts per square meter of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant cranks out about 56 watts per square meter, eight times as much as is derived from solar photovoltaic installations.

But exactly how concerned should the reader be that a PV array is 8 times less efficient per square meter than a nuclear power plant? Does this have any real meaning? I’m not sure the issue with power plants is that we’re running out of room for them. Isn’t it a far more important concern, by a factor of maybe a thousand, that our current energy solutions produce waste products that are destroying the planet? (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Frequent blogger Cameron Atwood writes about the skyrocketing rates of cancer in our world, writing:

I want to call readers’ attention to:

http://www.gotapex.com/cooking-and-food-subforum/167290-100-years-of-cancer-history.html

…where there is an attached attempt to minimize but not dispute the data…

…and here:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_there_more_cancer_today_than_hundred_years_ago

…where the information is left to stand on its own.

In terms of concretely sourced data:

According to the WHO, 23.65% of all deaths in 2002 were from cancer worldwide.  13.6 million people died of cancer that year.

That data is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

According to the CDC there were 64 cancer deaths per 100,000 people in the US in 1900, and in 1958 there were 146.8 per 100,000 – more than double. By 1994 the rate of death from cancer in the US was 205.2 per 100,000 – more than triple the 1900 rate.

Those stats are recorded here:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf

I hope readers find this information helpful.

 

I completely agree with this. But here’s a challenge for you. Ask a few MDs and RNs about this phenomenon (which I’ve done dozens of times over the 20 years or so). You’ll get the same answer with laser-like consistency: cancer 100 years ago was just as prevalent, but it was almost never diagnosed, and most people who would died from cancer had they lived longer died younger due to other causes, e.g., gunfights, accidents, or other diseases.

I say bull-hockey. Is it the pseudo-food we eat, the toxins we breathe, the electromagnetic fields we live in 24/7/365 – or some combination of those — and perhaps other environmental pathogens?  I don’t know, but I find it astonishing that any educated person could suggest that our modern lifestyle is not causing cancer.

As wrote in the conclusion of my book:

I predict that it will become increasingly clear that the energy companies have acted very poorly in creating and covering up an enormous world health hazard. I forecast that in 50 years, these companies will be subjected to the same disdain that the tobacco industry is receiving today in terms of class-action lawsuits and broad societal condemnation……Over the coming decade, you’ll see all manner of smoking guns around deliberately withheld information related to fossil fuels and public health.

　

　

　

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I was listening to a radio article on the way home from dropping my daughter off at school this morning, which reminded me of a condition facing many new enterprises.  The piece focused on the Boston Blades, a team in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.  Apparently, the league faces a kind of chicken-and-egg phenomenon all too familiar to many start-ups:

Without a large fan base, media coverage is modest or nonexistent.  But without media coverage, it’s tough to build a fan base. 

And isn’t that the essential challenge facing so many small and cash-strapped organizations: how do you get public relations that attracts media attention to a new idea?  (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I love these newspaper writers who spend about 10 minutes learning about electric transportation before publishing an article that will affect the thinking and behavior of many thousands of readers. Couldn’t this journalist from Canada’s “Globe and Mail” have stuck with whatever she was covering last week — local gossip or junior varsity ice hockey games — before she decided to go after a subject of real importance?

In the first line of her article: The Long, Hard Road Ahead for Electric Cars, reprinted here by EVWorld.com, we have:

Only one week after the much-hyped rollout of electric cars at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Canadian news media carried reports about how Ontario electricity costs are expected to double over the next 20 years.

How much certainly do we have about electricity prices 20 years hence? And what does the Globe and Mail think might happen to Ontario’s gasoline prices as crude oil becomes increasingly scarce and the means of generating electricity with clean technologies continues to expand? (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

As I’ve covered in a few of the reports published here at 2GreenEnergy, notably the “Three Brass Tacks of Renewable Energy,” I’m a partner in a company with a unique approach to run-of-river hydro called Hydrokinetic Laboratories.  The company’s founder and majority owner is working hard to secure the required financing to build a prototype and take the idea forward. 

In the meanwhile, I notice a great deal of exciting work being done in this space.  And here’s a website, HydroWorld, whose purpose is to highlight breaking news in the arena; it’s owned by Pennwell, the folks who have so successfully supported  RenewableEnergyWorld.com, one of the most professional groups to grace the clean energy industry. 

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

John Boehner, soon-to-be Speaker of the House, told a crowd recently:

The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, when they do what they do, we’ve got more carbon dioxide.

I know there are people who don’t know the difference between carbon dioxide and methane, or what a carcinogen is, and I’m completely fine with that; ignorance in the general population, the result of a failing school system, “is what it is.”  But when stuff like this comes out of the mouth of one of the most powerful lawmakers on Earth, I’m not at all OK with that.  We need to do a better job in electing people who have a basic command of the core issues that affect our survival.

　

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

My friend Paul Scott (EV/renewables consultant and all-around good guy) announced that his employer, Nissan/Renault, began its transition to electric in earnest on Saturday. In his blog on electric transportation, he points out:

Nissan could have delivered the first LEAF to a celebrity to get maximum coverage but, to their credit, they delivered it to Olivier Chaloudi, CTO of a tech company in the Bay Area who happened to be the first person to put down a $99 deposit. I like that!

I love the pure joy with which Paul writes.  He’s not afraid of calling out the bad guys, but there is no nastiness in any aspect of his bearing — least of all his wonderful command of the written word.  Tell it like it is, Paul.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

As a civilization, we’re in trouble whenever politics trumps science — and we’ve seen plenty of that lately. That’s why the world is so frustrated with the inaction of the COP meeting in Cancun, as we listen to diplomats drone on in vague, glib language while scientists beg for resolutions to save us from what virtually all of them believe to be impending disaster. Clearly, mankind is never well-served to put its scientists in a position of subserviance to big money/power, where they feel they must toe the line on any issue, whether it’s global warming, cold fusion, “clean coal,” etc.

Yet, while I’m a bit reluctant to raise this issue, I would argue that we face an even bigger problem when religion and science cross paths.  (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I had a chat with a friend at lunch just now who asked me for a summary of the migration to electric transportation.  I tried to sum it up as follows:

We know pretty-much where we’re going and why we’re going there.  100 years from now, we won’t be driving gas-powered cars and trucks.  We can’t, for several reasons — peak oil chief among them.  I.e., we couldn’t find that much oil even if we weren’t concerned about the other enormous problems as well: national security, environmental damage, lung disease, etc. 

So I suppose you could say that we know where we’re heading (electric vehicles) — and why.  But we don’t really know when, how, or who.  In other words, we’re still trying to figure out:

When, i.e., how quickly, will all this happen?

How  will all the key issues (charging infrastructure, battery chemistry, etc.) work themselves out?

And, the question that underlies all the others: Who is going to make a buck in the process?  (Figure that last one out, and you’ll have a huge clue to the others.)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

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I notice that Shai Agassi of Project Better Place was interviewed on NPR again this morning. Holy cow, that guy has wonderful PR; it’s hard to turn around without running into him presenting his idea (ubiquitous electric vehicle battery swapping stations).

But does it seem practical for a landmass the size of the US? Agassi’s talking point is the “ABCs” of EVs: Automobiles, Batteries, and Charging, in which he reminds us that all the money we’ve invested in the first two will not win the day if we fail to deal properly with the third. Of course this is true – and battery swapping is a wonderful solution for certain parts of the world, e.g., countries like Israel (its first customer). Israel is extremely dense, and surrounded by oil-rich enemies.

I’m no fan of big oil myself, but I just can’t see battery swapping stations all over a landmass like the continental US — 3.5 million square miles, 600 times the size of Israel.  And I certainly don’t buy the idea that the entirety of the charging infrastructure has to be in place before consumers will accept EVs. 

Far more credible, in my opinion, is the following scenario: (more…)

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