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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

Energy Efficiency Is Just One Aspect of a Smart HomeI had a magnificent lunch today at a French Cajun place in Santa Barbara with a new business contact.  This gentleman runs one of the units of the Nikola Tesla Foundation in Los Angeles, focusing on connected homes.

His main area of interest is not energy efficiency per se, but the medical aspects of “smartness,” e.g., monitors that detect strokes and heart attacks, facilitating telemedicine, and so forth.   I believe that some of the people I’ve connected with over the years may be beneficial to his projects, so I plan to make a few introductions.

The first contact who pops into my mind is Jesse Berst, the editor of the Smart Grid News.  I interviewed Jesse for our webinar on Smart Cities a while back; he did a great job, and he’s fabulously knowledgeable — as well as very connected — in the industry.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Make Your Office Eco-FriendlyA safe working environment is effective and economical for your business. An office is the heart of any business organization, as all communication, whether business decisions concerning the organization or just gossip, have to pass through it. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Can We Achieve a Sustainable Approach to Energy? Many Reasons To Think So, But Just As Many To Be PessimisticAs we recall from Dickens, “… it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, ….”

Those of us trying to pay attention to the world around us live our daily lives bathed in this type of schizophrenia.  Just when it seems that the fossil industry has an ironclad grasp on our throats (and lungs), along comes an article like this one, indicating the state of New York is very close to a complete rethinking of the way it regulates utilities.

If this happens, we have reason to think that, for the first time in history, we (or at least New Yorkers) will have an environment where customers have an incentive to use off-peak power and install solar and other forms of distributed generation, and utilities will have a reason to want to sell less power, while migrating to clean energy sources — actually exceeding the renewable portfolio standards.

Wow.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Tom Steyer – Using His Money for the Good of the World Around HimI’m going to enjoy listening to Tom Steyer (pictured here) speak at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) next Tuesday evening.  I’ve written about him several times in the past; I often offer this encapsulated explanation of the man and his mission:  he’s the “anti-matter of the Koch Brothers.”

Steyer is a billionaire who vigorously sponsors sustainability in one form or another, e.g., his action to block the Keystone XL Pipeline.  On the other hand we have the Koch Brothers whose combined net worth is about $80 billion.  They invest heavily in the precise opposite: ensuring that fossil fuels maintain their monopolistic position as our de facto energy policy, regardless of the consequences to the health and well-being of everyone and everything on Earth – living now and in the future.  Here’s an article that shows what they’re doing to minimize the forward progress of solar energy.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

Ocean Wave Energy Machines Have More Potential Than Some Would Like To AdmitHere’s a thinly guised attempt to ridicule the idea of government subsidies for renewable energy generally, clothed in a report on a failed company with a huge device to extract energy from ocean waves.  Obviously, the burden of proof of the cost-effectiveness of any technology lies on the shoulders of the developers, but I support the concept of government’s helping with the R&D costs of many different clean energy concepts, as long as they make some level of sense.

In particular, this basic technology, i.e., a multi-segmented tube that articulates based on the moving waters on the ocean’s surface, is not altogether doomed to failure.  In fact, we have one on our list of clean energy investment opportunities; it’s this one right here.  At scale, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) can be very competitive.  And keep in mind that these devices are especially useful for bringing electrical power to operations at sea, where the practice of bringing in diesel to run generators is both expensive and environmentally hazardous.

 

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Super-Concentrated Solar PV – Looks Like a Breakthrough HereHere’s an article about a breakthrough in super-concentrated solar PV from IBM researchers in Europe.  Incident sunlight is focused from a large parabolic mirror onto a semiconductor chip, producing electricity.  What’s new here?  Well, the concentration rate is 1000:1, meaning that an incredible amount of heat is generated simultaneously, which the team is able to capture and use for another purpose, e.g., water desalination.  The overall efficiency is over 80%!

I was happy to note that the fellow in this video is encouraged by the same basic fact that I often quote: At any given moment in time, the Earth is receiving 85,000 terawatts of power from the sun, while we’re using only 15 terawatts in the sum total of all our applications – about 1/6000th.  It’s there for the taking.

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The Future of Transportation Comes Down To a Battle Between Photovoltaics and PhotosynthesisElon Musk says it better than I can (imagine that!).  Here’s his recent article on the folly of ethanol, in which he makes (and quite ably defends) the proposition that electric transportation will eventually win the day.  Why?  Essentially it’s the relative efficiency of solar PV vs. photosynthesis.  (Of course, he could have thrown in wind energy, hydrokinetics, and geothermal as well.) (more…)

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Our Utilities Deal with the Challenge of Electric Vehicle ChargingHere’s a good article on the relationship between the power utilities and the charging of electric vehicles.  The author’s position is that the presence of electric transportation adds flexibility for grid operators, enabling them to adjust the rate at which EVs are charged according to the real-time availability of renewable energy.

I agree that there is a wonderful opportunity to use EVs as a tool to integrate more renewable energy onto the grid that would have caused a problem in the absence of this storage capacity.  There is a problem the author is overlooking, however: For car owners, the availability of their vehicle is not a “nice-to-have;” it’s a requirement.  Telling EV owners that there is a chance that they won’t be able to use their cars is not a viable plan, if we expect electric transportation to take root.

I see this as a soluble issue, but it’s one that I think we need to understand and confront.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Sustainability Means Minimizing the Impact of Human Development on Wildlife -- But Exactly How Is That Accomplished?A friend stayed at our place Saturday night, whose brother, I came to learn, is involved with establishing wildlife and eco-system corridors in fast-growing sub-rural communities.   Here’s a fairly detailed piece he sent me that lays out exactly how his team and he minimize the impact that human development, with, for instance, the construction of new freeways, has on the many species of animals that may now be cut off from water sources and other important components of a successful habitat.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Infographic on Going Green -- Plant These Vegetables To Help the Environment When beginning a vegetable garden, it is important to understand which vegetables to plant during which times. There are plants that can thrive starting in the early parts of the year while others do better waiting until spring or even summer. By using a comprehensive guide, you will be able to create a vegetable garden space that will keep your kitchen stocked with fresh vegetables year after year. (more…)

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