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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Those keeping track of the law suit against Chevron in response to the damages it caused in Ecuador will be interested in this recent article in Rolling Stone magazine. The bottom line is that it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll still be on this planet to see the case resolved, insofar as Chevron has pulled out all the stops in its attempt to overturn the ruling, upheld by an appeals court, that it owes $9.8 billion in damages.

Having said this, I don’t want to dissuade readers from checking out the article; it’s very well prepared, and it’s full of human drama.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

British philosopher John Locke was born on this day in 1632.  Locke is best known today for his beliefs in private property and natural rights, as well as for his theory that the purpose of government is to protect those rights; all this paved the way for most of what, 350 years later, we refer to as “Western Civilization.”

Of course, as always, the “devil is in the details,” and this becomes obvious as the world population expands (there are 14 times more people on Earth today than there were in the 17th Century), and technology develops to the point that these “rights” begin to put pressure on one another.  Do people have a right to clean drinking water, or should water be private property?  To what degree do people have rights to behave in ways that have adverse effects on the environment?

One can argue that Locke’s ideas raise more questions than they answer, yet we nonetheless need to credit him with getting us started off in a productive and fair-minded direction.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Wind and Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)One of our cleantech investors here at 2GreenEnergy has expressed a great deal of interest in playing a key role in our wind energy project that will implement CAES.  When I heard that news earlier this morning, I responded:

Good.  It’s exciting stuff.  When Wind/CAES takes off, it’s going to be a rocket-ride; I can tell you that much.  The gating factor to the integration of huge amounts of wind (already almost 5% of the U.S. grid mix) is cost-effective storage, and CAES just could be the answer. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Koch Industries Ramps Up Opposition to Renewable EnergyThe contribution to the U.S. grid mix from renewable energy last month was 7.3%–not counting hydro-electric dams, which accounted for an additional 7.0%.  At this point, I guess it’s fair to say that clean energy in the U.S. is not huge, but it’s most certainly not negligible.

And that fact is not lost on the world of traditional energy.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Efficiency

How Much Can Energy-Efficient Appliances Really Save You?The past decade has seen an energy revolution. Everything is becoming more and more efficient, appliances included. That means they take less of your energy bill and are friendly to the environment. But do the savings behind this new efficiency justify the purchase of a new appliance? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Mayday Reform Candidate Wins -- Saving American Democracy Looks PossibleThose who had given up hope that corruption in the U.S. Congress could be eradicated might want to rethink their positions. Check out Mayday, and dig this:  Our first Mayday reform candidate, Ruben Gallego, declared victory last night in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District. Last night’s win shows that voters care about this issue, no matter what the pundits and people in Washington want to say.

By supporting Ruben Gallego, voters made it clear that they want to fundamentally change the way elections are funded. Our experiment is working. And last night’s victory will be the first of many.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Hegel's Dialectic and Modern EnvironmentalismAccording to the Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (pictured), born in Stuttgart, Germany (1770). He started out studying Christianity, and he was particularly interested in how Christianity is a religion based on opposites: sin and salvation, earth and heaven, church and state, finite and infinite. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Bullish on Renewable Energy? The theme of my new book project (working title is “Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose”) is that the economic factors that are making clean energy cheap are heading forward at a rate far faster than most people believe. But could there be a fly in the ointment? If so, it is regulation, and our inability or unwillingness to reregulate our power utilities.

Here’s an excellent article on the subject, which I came across in this morning’s edition of SmartGridNews, edited by our colleague Jesse Berst, who was the subject of our webinar on Smart Cities.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Is Climate Change Irreversible? My third book (Renewable Energy—Following the Money)  featured an interview with Rajendra Pachauri (pictured), the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  The fond respect I had maintained for Dr. Pachauri for the many years before I met him at his office at Yale University deepened even further during the course of our talk on energy policy and climate change.  I knew within seconds after I had sat down with him that “Raj” (as he insisted I call him) was a likable, passionate, and intensely intelligent man.  Yet it would come over the course of the next hour or so that he would have my sympathy, as well as my respect.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

Greenwashing: I Can’t Define It, But I Know It When I See ItHere’s a post that won’t take much work; I just copied and pasted it from a laughable press release a reader sent me.

ANAHEIM, Calif., Jan. 29 (UPI) — Five trains in operation at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., are running on biodiesel created from cooking oil taken from tourist venues, an official says.

Disney Director of Environmental Affairs Frank Dela Vara said the biodiesel fueling five Disneyland Railroad trains was created from oils once used at the California resort’s various hotels and eateries, The Orange County (Calif.) Register said Wednesday.

“The improvement here is that it’s no longer using food for fuel. There are no soybeans grown in the Midwest to fuel our trains, just cooking oil that we’re already generating,” Dela Vara said.

 

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