A reader notes: “Efficiency” is bogus. Amory Lovins has been pushing “negawatts” for 40 years or so, and energy consumption has only gone UP. Jevons’ paradox (that asserts that the increasing efficiencies with which a resource is used cause additional consumption of those resources) explains why.
There are two main points to be made here: (more…)
The course of technological progress isn’t always represented by a positive slope, and in the case of renewable energy there are most definitely a few examples of retrograde motion.
The poster child for all this is small wind, meaning devices whose nameplate is under 100KW (mostly under 10 KW), normally deployed on the rooftops of residential and commercial buildings. The article linked here is just another indication of the fact that this whole sector has always been, and probably will always be, an abject failure. (more…)
I just received an email that is so perfectly crafted I thought I’d publish it here in its entirety. The subject: Citizens United, the notorious U. S. Supreme Court decision of 2010 that enables corporations to spend as much as they wish influencing our elections. This law has effectively put a spear through all meaningful democracy here in the U.S., but that sad fact is not lost on 80% of Americans, many of whom are working hard in support of a constitutional amendment that would restore the integrity of our electoral processes. (more…)
Here’s my first and long overdue post on the energy think tank Post Carbon Institute, whose work I think readers will admire. In brief, it’s a group intent on providing an objective analysis on energy resources on this planet, and pointing the way to an optimal energy future. (more…)
My long-time colleague Lindsay Oliver writes, Hi Craig; Have you seen this (The Solutions Project) yet? This is more than interesting:
Yes, Mark Z. Jacobson (professor at Stanford) is a legend to us renewable energy people. (more…)
When I read my colleague Jon LeSage’s piece on the development of flying cars in his Green Auto Digest this morning, I had the same reaction that anybody would: How feasible is this? How far in the future does this lie, if it’s achievable at all? How safe could it possibly be? Do we really want to take all our road rage, drunk driving, and driving while texting–and move it into our skies?
But at the same time I had another thought in parallel: (more…)
In 1992, when the Environmental Protection Agency started the program, Energy Star was intended to be one of the voluntary schemes that would reduce energy consumption by computers and printers. This was accomplished by informing consumers which of these items were energy efficient. The program used a system of labels to identify the qualifying products. (more…)
Daniel Oyagha, our newest 2GreenEnergy intern, just finished a Master’s of Science program in a university in Nigeria, and we’re thrilled to have him on board.
Here’s a note I wrote to him in preface to our work together; I thought readers might be interested to know a bit more about our internships, in which folks from all over the world work with me to do research and writing on exciting areas within the cleantech (normally renewable energy) space. In response to Daniel’s note asking about the size of the program and expressing his curiosity about the lack of a fixed curriculum, I wrote: (more…)
I know there are those out there who doubt that renewable energy is ready for prime time and that investors in this space are headed for disaster. Don’t tell that to the investors of Danish utility DONG Energy, who are doing quite nicely.
From the article: (more…)
If your plumbing system has been found guilty of consuming disproportionate amounts of energy, something’s obviously gone awry, but you can restore the balance. Take a tour through this guide to become empowered and energy efficient within your own home. Here, let’s take the first steps by turning the heat down.
Homeowner Empowerment (more…)
