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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Have you ever had the experience of getting to the end of a long day, looking back to breakfast, and thinking that it seemed like a week ago?  That was today for me.  The IEEE Energy Innovation meeting in Boston, a drive to Albany to meet with Canefields (paper from sugar cane waste), and a flight to San Francisco for meetings to that start early tomorrow morning . 

This morning in Boston seems like another lifetime.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

As I mentioned, I’m back in Boston for a couple days, attending the IEEE Energy Innovations show, and meeting a few industry colleagues who happen to be in the this part of the world.  In a nutshell, the show itself has less relevance to our world than I hoped it might.  The breakout sessions are extremely technical – as I suppose I would have predicted.  But the main sessions are also a bit strange.  Here’s an example:

Victor Reis, Senior Advisor, Office of the Undersecretary of Energy for Science, spoke for 30 minutes this morning on the future of energy.  His principal message (actually his only message) was how appealing small modular nuclear reactors are: how safe, scalable, and relatively inexpensive.  He explained at great length how the DoE itself could be the first customer—going into elaborate detail about how they had been the first customer of massively parallel computing many decades ago—leaving the audience scratching its head to ferret out a meaning.  When he ended his talk half an hour later, in which he had projected the future of energy in the US out 40 – 45 years, we all realized in collective horror that he had done so without ever mentioning renewable energy once!  Not a world about solar, wind, geothermal – nothing.  Just a steady drone on SMRs.

After a smattering of polite applause, I asked another presenter how this was possible, and he just smiled, as if to say, “If you can’t figure out that this guy has an ax to grind, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Bizarre times.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

We are very glad to see that the solar industry is developing fast in the US. It is now a major economic driver for the country. When generating great amount of electricity, the solar industry is also creating many job opportunities for the US. As for this solar industry I mean PV, because most of equipments use electricity rather than thermal energy, so you will see solar street light rather than solar Thermal Street light. All states are trying to improve their local solar deployment. It is obvious that the California is leading the solar development of the country, accounting for about 50% of the PV install in the country.

America is Becoming a Solar Nation

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

One of my reasons for coming back to Boston is to meeting various folks from the industry who happen to make this wonderful town their home.  Today I bought a birthday lunch for industry colleague Kevin Gulley, publisher of GreenCollarEcomony.com, an enterprise that I’ve admired for some time.  It’s always fun sharing observations.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketI was listening to an interview with Pulitzer-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof just now, probably best known for his coverage of Darfur.  In the discussion, he said that when he was first given a column, he thought he could change people’s minds, but soon realized that the best he could do was to shed light on certain ideas that otherwise would not have received any attention at all. 

First, let me say that I do not compare my writing — its quality nor its importance — to Kristof’s.  But I do have to say that I smiled when he made that remark.  I’m sure I haven’t changed anyone’s mind on the imperative to break our addiction to oil, the validity of global warming, etc.   If I’ve done anything here, it’s to provide a forum for discussion — and I thank the many people who have been a part of that forum with their questions, their comments, and their guest blogs.

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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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