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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

PhotobucketI know I’m not alone in my mistrust of the media. Yet I have to think that Time Magazine nailed the biofuels issue in their 2008 article on sustainability and the Amazon rain forest. Particularly telling is the revolting political behavior that forms the basic motivation to create huge biofuels programs – even those that represent a net negative effect on our fragile ecosystem. Once dominant forces become involved and the money to be made passes a critical mass, there is really no power on Earth that can re-insert a bit of reason into the process. Is this really a good idea? Are we causing more problems than we’re solving? No one dares to ask.

According to my understanding, the Chinese have seen through some of the fallacies that can be associated with sustainability — and this is one of them. In China, it’s a felony to convert land that can be used to grow food into space for biofuels. The Chinese want clean energy, and they’re investing heavily to get there, but apparently they’ve thought through some of the consequences of their actions, and they’re not moved by irrational herd-mentality, laissez–faire economics, and American-style back-office corruption that would rape their land and take us all a step further backwards.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

In the process of writing my book on renewables I read quite a few others, including Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air (2009) by Dr. David JC MacKay. This is a fanstically worthwhile project by a professor of physics at Cambridge with a wonderful sense of humor, who presents his case in an incredibly bright and witty manner.

The premise of the book is answering the question: Could the people of the UK sustain themselves with renewable energy generated within the UK itself? The discussion then proceeds to do what I thought about doing in my book, i.e., lay out all the basics of energy for a newcomer to the subject. It really is done in a most clever and entertaining way, yet it does not lack the rigor that one would expect from a professional of this calibre.

I tried to take a different tack in my book, however, insofar as, in truth, the question at hand is moot, for several reasons surrounding the economics and politics of energy. For instance:

To answer the question, don’t you first have to know what are you willing to pay for energy: financially, aesthetically, and ecologically? And isn’t that a factor of how you calculate the costs of our traditional energy solutions?

and

Aren’t there special conditions in the UK (population density, latitude, average wind velocity, etc.) that would tend to produce a different answer to this question had the author been writing about the US, or China, or any other country/landmass in the world?

Of course.

Yet, trust me, this is a great read from a terrifically intelligent and insightful fellow. If everyone could just read his chapter on global warming, the world would be a much better place.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p7xGijaucE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

EV World Associates’ Sam Smith explains the future of electric vehicles to me on an episode of 2GreenEnergy Report.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKWSS-KlHdY&w=445&h=364]

EV World Associates’ Sam Smith tell me why he thinks the time for electric vehicles has finally arrived — on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYiv19RADZ8&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

In another snipet of the on the 2GreenEnergy Report, EV World Associates’ Sam Smith talks about the auto OEMs and their rationale for participating in the electric vehicle market .

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

PhotobucketEarlier today I interviewed Bill Paul in our continuing series of webinars – this one on Smart Grid. I could tell that the audience was engaged; they asked terrific questions and really liked the pace of the whole 60-minute session.

To me, the most interesting aspect of the discussion was Bill’s assertion that “this may not happen.” Though he’s bullish on Smart Grid technology overall, Bill sees many impediments standing in the way of implementing it fully – especially in the US. He points out that there are legal issues associated with privacy, and that the power companies themselves are, as usual, in no hurry to bring about a change – especially one that will result in less total power sold. Bill goes on to point out that, while Finland has one regulatory body that can (and did) simply mandate Smart Grid, we Americans have 50 states, each of which has the power to push this hard, or pull even harder in the opposite direction.

Countering Bill’s concerns, I point out that:

1) Even after a rough start out here on the West Coast, people are going to love Smart Grid – especially to the degree that they adopt electric vehicles into their lives and start to spend a couple of bucks per day fueling their cars with electricity (versus about 4 times that much for gasoline). Time-of-use metering that enables people to buy power at 8 cents a kWh versus 30 cents is going to be perceived as very attractive.

2) Smart Grid is going to happen; it’s simply a matter of time. As I like to say, “Do you think we’re going to be driving Hummers in 100 years?” The only real questions are when it’s going to happen, and who is going to profit from it.

It was Bill’s vast subject-matter knowledge — but also this friendly disagreement — that made today’s webinar such a success. To those of you who may have missed this one, I hope you’ll join us next time.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0TnJz8HWtA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

Sam Smith, of EV World Associates (an organization of which I’m a part) talks to me about electric vehicles and their history on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We all share a deep sadness and disgust over the Gulf oil spill. Of course, the pragmatists among us are less interested in affixing blame than we are in resolving the issue, and ultimately containing and cleaning up the mess. To this end, I have to say that I find a few aspects of this particularly troubling:

We seem to have little interest in reaching out to other countries (Norway, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, etc.) that have extensive experience in dealing with crises like this.

We are wrapped tight in red tape from the Army Corps of Engineers and OSHA, hobbling our efforts to stop the disaster.

President Obama: I know you’re trying your best to demonstrate leadership in this terrible moment in human history; we all recognize and appreciate that. But I urge you to understand that this is not business as usual, and take bold steps based on the points above. Bypass the deeply entrenched jingoistic and bureaucratic jungle in the federal government, and get the job done.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Bc1eDlqmI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

Here’s another segment of a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report in which Paul Scott of Plug-in America discusses electric transportation with me. Here, he talks about the environmental trade-offs represented by electric vehicles.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

The Ammonia Fuel Network’s Executive Direct John Holbrook was good enough to send me a few DVD’s in which Bill Leighty made presentations on the numbers that surround ammonia a fuel. I was struck by a number of things.

First, Bill is a consummate presenter to an academic audience. He’s measured, rational, and extremely credible – without a hint of bombast – or really any effort to use emotion to convince the audience of anything at all. Even in a subject matter in which the entire survival of our species is at stake, Bill just plows though the material as if he were discussing Hannibal and the Punic Wars. This dispassionate approach carries into the choices he makes to frame the discussion of the imperative to move to renewables. “We only have 200 years of coal left,” he says, choosing an indisputable but fairly unexciting fact. It was as if, if we only had more coal, everything would be just fine. I would have been up there waving my arms and talking about Chernobyl, skyrocketing cancer rates, global climate change, and empowering terrorists. I could almost Bill thinking: I could do that too. But why?

Second, I realize that I’ve been a bit glib about energy storage and transmission. Although there is very little discussion here about concentrated solar power and molten salt energy storage, there is considerable exposition on the cost of electricity transmission – which is considerable. I began to realize how challenging all this HVDC grid build out really is, given the costs, the NIMBY (not in my backyard) effect, and the consequent political and legal difficulties.

An elegant solution here would be one that addressed several different problems in one. And I challenge anyone to review these presentations and not be impressed with the elegance with which liquid ammonia offers a reasonably low-cost answer to the challenges we will ultimately face as the penetration of renewables grows larger and the issue of firming (delivered reliable power, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year) becomes more thorny. We have about 20 GW of wind installed in the US today, representing about 2% of our total capacity. And already the wind industry to running out of places to plug its power into the grid. Without a solution to store and transport that energy, the renewables industry will quickly hit a wall – and ammonia just may be the answer.

If you’re interested in the presentations, please let me know.

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