FunRide’s Pat Mahan was on the 2GreenEnergy Report, discussing the demographics that make car sharing work. I’ve observed that ZipCar, the 600 pound gorilla of car sharing, tends to do well in certain cities, and not so well in others. What constitutes the difference? What is there about FunRide that may render my observation irrelevant? Their fleet is 100% AFVs (alternative fuel vehicles) — but does that make a difference? If so, why?
From time to time I come across content on other sites that I recommend to 2GreenEnergy readers. Here’s a webinar called “Is There Hope for Solar?” — produced by my new-found friends at The Energy Collective.
I’m headed up to San Francisco to the Intersolar show tomorrow morning for a couple of days of meetings, and, of course, checking out the show itself.
I just realized that I’m entering my fourth decade of attending trade shows now. I remember seeing a gawky kid with glasses at a show in the early 80s, and someone said, “Oh, that’s Bill Gates. He has a software company. I wonder if it will go anywhere?” Since then, I can’t count how many events I’m traipsed through in Europe and North America, on some mission or another.
One thing I find interesting is what I call the “tone” of the show. Of course, the promoters of all shows represent that theirs is the most exciting event in the universe — even in subject matter areas that most people find dull as dishwater. But beneath the loud music and the flashing lights, I try to read the true feelings that underlie the show.
A good example is the auto shows, which I often attend to see the alternate fuel vehicles and to meet the people associated with them. The car shows in Los Angeles and Detroit these last couple of years still have the glitz and the pretty girls — but there is something palpably wrong: people aren’t buying cars, and the OEMs are obviously scaling way back — on everything: promotions — even entire product annoucements. People still wear smiles — because it’s their job to do so — but you can almost hear them thinking, “Wow, this is terrible.”
It will be interesting to see what Intersolar is like. Obviously, the solar industry is under some real pressure, with precipitous drops in PV prices with the attendent distressed margins, and a horrible environment for capital formation. Then you have what could be called the recalcitrance of the traditional energy industry. As I’ve often said, these fossil fuel people aren’t going away anytime soon — ecological disaster or no. I would think that this, combined with the overall economic climate, would tend to cast a kind of pallor over the place.
On the other hand, the solar thermal industry — far less mature than PV — boasts some terrific breakthroughs in technologies that are very interesting indeed.
We’ll see what happens — and what that “tone” will be like. I’ll update you on my travels. If you happen to be there and want to say hello, please hit “contact.”
Although this paper has been written primarily to deal with energy concerns in the United States of America, much of the information will be useful for other countries also.
Regardless of whether we are concerned about global warming, we know that burning fossil fuels damages the environment and causes health problems. Therefore, we should be working diligently to develop alternative energy sources to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Moreover, we should be sure that those alternative energy sources are capable of ending our dependence on fossil fuels and not simply reducing the amount of fossil fuels which we use. To do so, they must be capable of providing continuous power 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
The proposed alternatives to fossil fuels include wind energy, solar energy, and nuclear energy. Hydroelectric power is also useful, but I am excluding that because we have already developed practically all of our available hydroelectric sites here in the United States. When considering alterative sources of energy, we should also consider what would be practical in countries outside of the United States since sources of power which would be practical in the United States may not be practical elsewhere.
To be able to understand adequately the challenges of developing alternative sources of energy, we must have an adequate understanding of how our current sources of energy operate. Accordingly, I shall begin by explaining some of the operational details of coal, gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants. After that, I will explain the advantages and disadvantages of wind and solar power. That will facilitate a better understanding of the challenges of integrating wind and solar power with the existing sources of power. Then, I will explain why nuclear power is probably the only source of energy that can economically and reliably provide the large amounts of power required by an industrialized world. Last, I shall address the problems of eliminating the use of petroleum to power our transportation system.
Lance Miller, president of DieselTek, speaks with on how start-ups form in clean diesel — or anywhere, for that matter. Lance corroborates my own belief that great partnerships are built on core, innate trust and affinity than on a cold, rational appraisal of a partner’s value in some sort of mathematical equation.
As it turns out, both Lance and the company’s founder and CEO, Eric Wheeler, have had their hands on mechanical devices — and had life circumstances that steered them towards entrepreneurship — since they were boys.
I consider myself a pretty outspoken environmentalist. And I make no apologies for this. It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could take all the beauty that God has created and treat it like a sewer. That being said, I’m also a capitalist. I firmly believe that there is no greater system than a real and honest free market, where hardworking folks can thrive and succeed. It is also a real and honest free market that can enable our transition to a cleaner and stronger energy economy.
DieselTek’s president Lance Miller discusses his company’s clean diesel solutions and its marketing challenges with me on a recent edition of the 2GreenEnergy Report. The principal issue here is a “noisy” environment, in which numerous competitors with inferior products (but significant marketing budgets) have confused the audience — and created a climate of great doubt and skepticism of the clean diesel industry generally.
Fortunately, DieselTak has a compelling response. I hope you’ll check it out.
Pat Mahan explicates his organization’s long-term plans on the 2GreenEnergy Report. I really loved having Pat on the show. He was comfortable and relaxed, but really took the obligation to articulate the value of car sharing — especially sharing alternative fuel vehicles — extremely seriously. Check out FunRide to lean more.
I’m completely convinced that this whole idea occupies an important part of the “sustainability wedge.”
Want a good, quick read? Check out (FedEx Chairman) Fred Smith’s testimony to the Senate Fiance Committee — and note in particular Joseph Lado’s comment under it. In my estimation, this is precisely on target, and exactly the type and level of indignation that rhetoric like Smith’s needs to provoke.
As Lado points out, there is nothing wrong with forming a group like The Electrification Coalition — but we need to note that it was formed last year. FedEx has been tinkering at the edges of this problem for years, generating fantastic publicity (famously driving a single van across historic Route 66), while making very little real progress — over a period of a couple of decades — in terms of changing out its fleet in favor of EVs.
In his letter to Fred Smith, Lado asks:
The reality is that the United States has had an oil dependency problem creating strategic, economic and pollution problems for nearly 4 decades now. When are you going to stop playing at green and make the real plunge? Please. Make a commitment, even better yet make a pledge to not purchase another petrol powered vehicles to replace retired fleet vehicles. Purchase instead, good, reliable, working and tested electric vehicles, to replace them.
It’s great to see stuff like this. The problem, of course, is that Fred Smith’s testimony has received many thousand times the volume of coverage than Joseph Lado’s insightful response.
Lance Miller of DieselTek discusses clean diesel technology with me on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report. I tried not to trivialize Lance’s position as a representative of his company, but frankly, it sounds easy, since everyone involved wins! The customer has a low-cost way to get into compliance with strict government mandates, his truck runs better, and he saves money on fuel. What’s not to like?
I’m headed up to San Francisco to the 
![](http://i708.photobucket.com/albums/ww83/craigshields/windjeff2.jpg "About Jeff Siegel, Contributor to "Renewable Energy Facts and Fantasies"")
The book’s chapter “
Want a good, quick read? Check out (FedEx Chairman) Fred Smith’s testimony to the Senate Fiance Committee — and note in particular 
