Home › Blog › Page 1666

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

A recent guest post called attention to IBM’s announcements and recent initiatives in Smart Energy-Management and Sustainability Solutions for the enterprise.

I thank our guest for the post. I did a great deal of work for IBM over my three-decade career as a marketing consultant. In fact, about a million years ago, I wrote extensively about PC-mainframe connectivity, and brought thousands of attendees to IBM seminars. Seems like another lifetime.

Seriously, I have the highest respect for IBM’s commitment to smart grid. Keep up the good work.

Tagged with: ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Maybe it just comes with the territory, but I run across a couple of people per week who rattle off calculations that suggest that renewable energy makes no sense in terms of its basic physics and mathematics. The website http://renewable.50webs.com/ and its owner Christopher Calder who claim that “Renewable energy is a disaster, not a solution!” seem to be an example:

It is a mathematically provable fact that you cannot replace oil, coal, and natural gas with windmills, solar panels, and biofuels. Renewable energy schemes other than traditional hydroelectric power are resource hogs that take up huge amounts of space while providing very little usable energy in return. Contrary to popular belief, solar, wind, wave energy, and biofuel schemes are not “energy efficient,” and their ultra-high cost is an accurate measurement of that inherent inefficiency. Solar photovoltaic cells are so inefficient that it would take about 60 square miles of expensive solar panels to generate just one gigawatt of electricity.

The guy goes on for pages like this, and seems not to be at all mollified by my comments that the cost of PV continues to fall and will be equivalent to coal by sometime between 2014 and 2018, or by the concept that IBM, GE, Siemens, and the world’s most successful investors are pouring billions of dollars into this “hoax.”

Who is this guy?  Better question:  For whom does he work?

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Many leaders from various industries and geographies indicate that the emerging sustainable economy will be the biggest economic game changer in the next two decades. Last week, I attended West Coast Green 2010 conference in San Francisco and learned about IBM’s announcements and recent initiatives: the new Smart Energy-Management and Sustainability Solutions for the enterprise.

Smarter Buildings/Sustainability Solutions (courtesy of IBM)

The new technological offerings address energy efficiency and sustainable buildings in commercial settings and are part of IBM’s expanding collection of solutions that are designed for creating smarter urban infrastructures.

IBM’s sustainability offerings are based on homegrown solutions that were developed internally to manage the corporation’s environmental responsibility. Then, IBM expanded their learnings, strategies and solutions to alliances as well as customers.

(more…)

Tagged with:

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Thanks so much to Marc Vendetti for recommending the website The Story of Stuff.  That is truly brilliant stuff.  I hope everyone will do as he suggests, take 20 minutes, and check it out.

Tagged with:

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As a marketing consultant, sometimes my job is to avoid making a stupid mistake. As I mentioned the other day, we’re doing a project for an importer of natural and sustainable silk bedding, and discussing the enagement of a celebrity spokesperson who actually favors silk over polycotton.

In my recommendations, I wrote: The choice should be made in favor of an attractive woman with a youthful appearance, preferably one who is known for a considered, deliberate (rather than frivolous, irresponsible) approach to life.  Though the initial list of candidates is fairly long, it’s gets short quickly once this criterion is applied.  As much as we may admire Dustin Hoffman, I think it goes without saying that the world would much rather imagine Scarlett Johansson lying on a silk sheet; the reader is invited to review this photographic comparison if he’s having trouble agreeing with me here. 

Tagged with: , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s a video that describes the most recent in our series of “Tough Realities” reports. I hope you find it valuable; you can download it here: The Tough Realities of Renewable Energy. (more…)

Tagged with: , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Last January, AeroVironment closed the deal with Nissan to supply electric vehicle home-charging stations and installation services to customers of the LEAF.  Since that time, they’ve been particularly difficult to get on the phone to discuss an appearance on the 2GreenEnergy Report, or my other favorite topic, advertising on EVWorld.com.   Fortunately, I ran into my old friend and long-time AV exec Charlie Botsford at the Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica last weekend; he had drawn “booth duty” and he gave me some new names to contact. 

I never quit.

Tagged with: , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I just got a glowing note from the editor of Globe-Net.com, a wonderful website on the business of the environment from a Canadian perspective, asking permission to reprint one of our white papers. The answer is always yes.  Of course, we appreciate a backlink in the attribution — it never hurts to build up those little puppies.

Tagged with: , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I thought I’d mention that a friend has asked 2GreenEnergy to perform a small marketing project for a company called Chrysalife, an importer and distributor of high-end silk bedding. 

To be honest, I knew next to nothing about silk bedding and its numerous health benefits; if you Google the subject, you’ll learn all about the idea that silk enables the human body to rest and rejuvenate more thoroughly when we sleep.  Silk, often called “nature’s perfect bed,” is a smooth, non-irritating protective fiber, resulting from billions of years of evolution as Earth’s most comforting and soothing substance.Here’s another point: where polyester is one of the zillions of substances that is derived from petroleum, silk is natural and sustainable.  

Tagged with: , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I just pulled back into my driveway from a few hours at the Smart Grid Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I’m a huge believer in the long-term importance of smart grid technology, but I have to say that there is altogether too much chatter about it at this point. The result of a 40-minute talk on network standards for smart grid communication? There are no standards; they’ve yet to emerge. Oh really? Couldn’t that have been summed up in a 15-word email? Or skipped entirely? (more…)

Tagged with: , , ,