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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Pro-Nuke, Anti-Wind PeopleAnother fellow from the pro-nuclear energy group writes more on his “anti-wind” viewpoints:

I crunched a lot of numbers relating to the Budischak & Kempton 2013 study of cost minimization using wind, solar and storage technologies, which study was well received by renewables advocates.  My number-crunching came to a startling conclusion about land use:  To supply the entire USA electric grid with 99.9% up-time, using the recommended Budischak & Kempton overbuild strategy, would cover ALL of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio with wind & solar farms.

You should understand that no one who knows anything about the subject whatsoever would advocate trying to supply the entire U.S. electrical grid with 99.9% up-time using nothing but wind and solar energy, any more than they would try to feed all 317 million Americans with nothing but lobster tails.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

Solar CookingThere are well over 4500 blog posts here at 2GreenEnergy, but, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first one on solar cooking.

Like so many other elements of solar energy and sustainable living, this is a subject that has been around for many decades, but the technology gets better every year: devices are lighter, more convenient, less expensive, and more efficient than ever before.  This one comes with its own sun tracking, and can maintain a temperature of 450 degrees F all day long.  These campers are making a paella–pretty sophisticated stuff.

Perhaps a great Christmas gift?

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Lower Your Kitchen's Carbon FootprintGlobal warming continues to be a growing threat in 2014, despite several years of effort to diminish the effect our energy usage has on the environment. It is vital that each household does as much as possible to reduce its carbon footprint.

There are a number of ways to reduce your energy consumption within the home and the kitchen is probably the best place to start. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

What Will the World of Clean Energy Look Like in 100 Years?I wrote a post recently on nuclear energy and how its advocates tend to denigrate wind and solar.  Commenting on it, my colleague Mario Gottfried offers a note about nuclear reactors’ lasting 100 years.

100 years? Obviously, neither Mario nor I will be here to verify this, but I can’t imagine that Earth’s civilization of the year 2114 (if it exists at all) will have the vaguest resemblance to the world of today.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Energy Storage Benefits Renewables--and All Other ResourcesA reader notes: “Fossil fuels (and nuclear fuels) provide energy storage. To replace them with renewable energy sources like wind we’ll need to incorporate a means of storing the energy.”

This isn’t completely incorrect, but it’s misleading, and it provides me an opportunity to clarify, in a summary fashion, the whole issue of energy generation, storage and consumption.
(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

An Update on Wave EnergyHere’s a good article on wave energy, i.e., the conversion of the mechanical energy from ocean waves into electricity.  For what it’s worth, I’m hoping that this arena will one day succeed, and I agree that if it does, this “Pelamis” technology will most likely be the thing that gets it there.  In fact, one of these devices is on our list of “renewable energy investment opportunities” for anyone who wants to get behind what I think is the “best in class” of this form of hydrokinetic energy.   (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Can Nuclear Succeed Without the Failure of Wind and Solar Energy? “It is not enough to succeed; one’s best friends must fail.”

– variously attributed to Gore Vidal, La Rochefoucauld, Somerset Maugham, Genghis Khan (pictured), and Larry Ellison

 

People who think this way must have very sorry lives.  Personally, I’ll be very happy to succeed and take as many people as possible with me–especially my friends. But sadly, many advocates for nuclear energy seem insistent that other forms of low-carbon energy fail–at least insofar as a great number are so profoundly and irrationally anti-wind and anti-solar.

Here’s another in a series of discussions on this subject, this one with a very intelligent (though misinformed) gentleman: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Our Words Would Suggest that the Human Race Is a Peace-Loving SpeciesOur civilization’s words imply that we value peace. I mention that today, as it’s the 42nd anniversary of the last appearance of a human being on the moon, during which Commander Eugene Cernan and crew member Harrison Schmitt unveiled a plaque which read: “Here man completed his first explorations of the Moon, December 1972. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.” (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

Briquetting machine manufacturers are finding an alternate solution to fulfill the shortage of fuels and that is briquetting machine.  Briquetting machines is the agricultural recycling machinery that can recycle biomass waste or agricultural waste without any binder and turn them into useful briquettes and how is it possible that is described here. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Zero Point Energy

A friend sent me this article on Zero Point Energy, the theory that even empty space contains a non-zero amount of energy. This is ultimately a result of the fact that exactly zero energy would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Personally, I’m always skeptical of any mention of quantum physics as it might apply to human good, especially “zero point energy,” because (more…)

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