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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I had a talk just now with an old friend — an extremely senior business visionary who helped me put a few things into perspective about the innovations that are reshaping our world. Coming out of decades of work for Deloitte Consulting and other top names in strategy, she explained:

There’s the BUY-side, the supply chain, which has been quite important through the last few decades. A change in tax law, for example, can mean huge savings by completely re-constructing this part of the business. However, it’s not where the energy is today.

There’s the IN-side, the core business. Here are all the changes you’re making within the enterprise. Again, not where the world’s attention is aimed now.

And there’s the SELL-side. This, of course, was always important – but now it’s where the world is truly focused. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I got a wake-up call this morning – literally, at 5 AM, the time for which I had set my alarm so as to be the guest on Greg Marshall’s radio show on WMKT in Northern Michigan. The experience re-enforced my respect for the abilities of great extemporaneous speakers, e.g., the politicians who go to town hall meetings with hoards of loud and angry constituents, and deal so cooly with any of hundreds of different unforeseeable questions and demands – all the while remaining calm and on-message.

After a discussion of retraining miners whose jobs will disappear as clean energy replaces coal, a lady called in, virtually in tears, pleading, “Our economy up here can’t take more job loss. Folks here don’t have two nickels to rub together. Please don’t take away the few jobs we have left!” (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Here are two views on our use of paper:

1) As many times as we see a note on our emails that reads “Please consider the environment before printing this email,” we print more — and recycle less — than we should.  But as archaic a method for relaying information as it is, paper isn’t going away anytime soon.

Yet, as articulated in this masterful video, “The Story of Stuff,” we need to get a grip on unnecessary consumption.  I’ve often written that I only wish I had the power to get everyone in the world to spend the 20 minutes required to take in this message by one of the world’s greatest humanitarians and environmentalists, Annie Leonard.

2) Since, in reality, it will take a while to curb unnecessary consumption, it’s good that Canefields USA is here, offering paper made from sugar cane waste (“bagasse”) rather than wood, with energy that comes exclusively from wind turbines.  I’m proud that Jeff Allen, Canefields’ CEO, represents me as the company’s chief marketing officer.

I appreciate your confidence, and I promise that any good I’ve done there to this date is but a downpayment on what I’ll accomplish in the future.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

This article is written in order for people to learn and understand more about the science, technology and environmental effects of the different lighting products available to consumers at present.

Let us begin with incandescent bulbs (including halogen):

Incandescent bulbs produce light by heating a metal filament. When electricity passes through the *filament, its temperature rises through resistance, creating a hot glow of approximately 2300 deg C that emits the light. This is also the primary reason why the light is a warm white because most of the energy comes from the heat. This is an outdated technology and is extremely inefficient because it produces 90% heat and 10% light, this has the consequence of releasing more harmful gasses into the atmosphere than required. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Systems can last for 40 or more years. By going solar, you can lock in your current and future energy costs in at today’s lower rates.

The first crude modern solar photovoltaic Solar cells were created in the Bell Telephone Labs in 1952 – 1954 by Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson. They were trying to find a way to power telephones in remote areas of the country. They were able to produce a solar cell that was 6% efficient at converting sunlight into electrical energy.

Solar energy is not diminished by harvesting, unlike fossil fuels. The amount of energy we capture today in no way diminishes how much we can take tomorrow, or how much is left for our children and grandchildren. Every single day enough solar energy falls on the earth to supply all of the world’s energy needs for four or five years. Solar energy shows up directly in the form as sunlight which can be harvested by panels that can create either heat or electricity. Our allotment of solar energy can also show up indirectly as wind, the result of uneven heating on the earth’s surface. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here is Part Two of Cameron Atwood’s article discussing: Where are we going now? Where do we want to go? Where do we need to go? What stands in our way?

 

Taxpayer Sacrifices for Our Continued Inefficiency and Dependence

There are many closely related grounds for urgently arriving at a more enlightened energy strategy. In another example of cruelly regressive wealth transfer and force projection, $1.05 trillion has been borrowed from present and future taxpayers to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 – averaging a drain of more than $116 billion per year.  (This doesn’t include the tragic human cost, or the loss of productivity and treatment costs as a result of that butchery.)

(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Secretary of State Clinton and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, courtesy of Masdar

The exciting World Future Energy Summit (WFES) opens January 17th and continues through January 20th in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.  WFES is one of the few international events that brings together policy makers, government leaders, private industry, the financing sector and the public sector. The summit will include a Business Forum, specific days devoted to specific clean tech industries and innovation, and economic/analyst/government forums.

Held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the summit is hosted by Masdar, a firm devoted to energy sustainability. More than 600 exhibitors, 33 international delegations and 25,000 visitors are expected. We recently wrote about Masdar and its graduate-level institute devoted to sustainability solutions.

“Financing has always been a pivotal step, and a challenging one, for renewable energy project innovators (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

A reader whose political sensibilities obviously do not parallel those in “The Story of Stuff” writes in:

As for “Stuff,” I don’t doubt that most of what [Annie Leonard] says is true and it certainly is deplorable, but I missed her solutions unless she proposes an anti-consuming society, which wouldn’t work here or anyplace else.

Thanks for your observations.

I see that you and she diverge on the issues.　But even as wide as the gap there may be, I’m sure a common meeting ground is the notion of sustainability itself.　 (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Retired engineer Lucas Jones writes:

Automotive structure will have to go to a much lighter composition. Currently Carbon fiber is near the top, but there is a lot more than that available. Nobody seems to be talking much about Boron for instance. Structures where the voids are filled with energy absorbing materials like EPP will significantly reduce weight while improving safety. Whole new methods will have to be devised to manufacture vehicles. Maybe methods
currently being used to produce Boats can be adapted. Certainly manufacturing in a specialized structure with highly trained staff will be necessary. Robots will have to be devised to increase speed and productivity.

There is no need to use an inefficient mechanical transmission in a modern vehicle. A simple copper wire is all that is needed. The wire goes from the battery to the motors via a controller and pushing on an accelerator or letting off is all that is needed. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Two pieces on sustainability for your consideration: 

1) I don’t know anyone who doesn’t admire the insight — not to mention the popularity — of best-selling business author and NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman.  Here’s a good article he wrote in 2009 on the importance of sustainability.

2) While Friedman is very bright, he colors within the lines of our conforming cultural viewpoints; this, in fact, is my only complaint of his work.  I’m reminded of the conclusion to his groundbreaking work The World Is Flat, which, in my mind, was a rather Pollyanna-ish reminder that Americans are creative souls, and thus the forecast of more Googles and Microsofts to lead us through the 21st Century.  I’m not so sure. 

So here’s a video made by a far more outspoken critic of our modern way of life, Annie Leonard, called “The Story of Stuff.” I wish I had the power to get everyone in the world — at least the US — to spend the 20 minutes required to take in this message, rendered to perfection by one of my true heroes.  She and I have been in touch, and I’m going to try to interview her for my next book; it will certainly be my honor.

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