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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Efficiency

Five Ways to Take Control of Your Energy Bills This FallWe all want to save money, and home energy costs are one area where many people struggle. Keeping your home at a comfortable temperature throughout the year can be expensive. Fall is a great time to make some change and adjustments in order to see significant savings. You don’t have to invest in major home renovations or purchase new equipment in order to make a difference. Take a look at these five ways to take control of your energy bills this fall. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

What Should Our Position On Nuclear Energy Be?I’ll let James Hansen explain it.

This is a critically important topic, and most liberals, as they have ingested massive amounts of misinformation, get it completely wrong. Again, Dr. Hansen is far more qualified to address this than I will ever be, so I won’t even try, though there is a chapter on advanced nuclear in Bullish on Renewable Energy.

Hansen presented his first paper numeric climate models in 1974, a year in my life characterized more by marijuana in the dorm, softball on the quad, undergraduate physics courses, and falling in love with pretty girls (most of whom told me to buzz off).

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Pope Francis Receives Praise from People of All Religious PerspectivesThere is no doubt that Pope Francis and His humanitarian messages rank at the very top of the forces of good in the world at this point.  But is He right on everything?  Sadly, no.  Unfortunately, He’s constrained by 1600 years of church policy that calls upon Him to reject anything that could possibly control the Earth’s population, which is currently sprinting its way from 7.3 billion to an estimated 9.7 billion by 2050. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Exactly, How Does Dead Soil Produce Unhealthy Food?It’s common knowledge that drought, monoculture, overuse of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, and excessive plowing have created “dead soil” in which growing nutritious food crops is becoming increasing difficult.  But exactly how?  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Solar, Wind, and Nuclear: Different Strengths and WeaknessesSome of my colleagues in my “pro-nuke” discussion group are, sadly, fond of bashing renewables; the top players seem to take joy in spreading data that supports their hypothesis that solar and wind are a waste of time and resources. Here’s a chart that presents the capacity factor (the ratio of the actual power delivered to the potential or “nameplate” power capacity) of various energy resources, as they are in use around the globe: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Efficiency

Five Energy Drains You Should Get Rid of in Your HomeHere’s another set of tips, exclusively for 2GreenEnergy readers, from Brooke Chaplan (pictured).  

Your very home is a major source of energy consumption. Improving the efficiency of the world’s homes in terms of energy usage could make a big impact on the economies of nations, as well as on the global environment. Today, governments and non-government agencies develop programs to help consumers conserve household energy. While there are many ways to save on energy use, the average homeowner is best served by focusing on these five primary household energy drains. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

From 2GreenEnergy Intern Fabio Porcu: Smart Sensors for Smarter CitiesIn a world where our cities are growing day by day, it is increasingly important to control all the different aspects of city life when it comes to energy consumption. For this reason, an increasing number of cities are adopting smart sensors in such a way to regulate the use of water, gas and electricity. Furthermore, it is possible to collect data about the weather (air pressure, temperature, speed and direction of wind, humidity… etc.), in addition to the volume of traffic and congestion.  With smart sensors it is possible to collect data and to send it wirelessly to a control system where it can be used to improve the life for an entire city’s population. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist Here’s Bjorn Lomborg (pictured), author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” speaking at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank in New York City, in a video shot in 2008.

His viewpoint in a nutshell: Yes, man-made climate change is a reality, but a) it’s not going to be a disaster, b) environmentalists don’t present their case on the subject in a fair and balanced manner, and c) dealing with it via emissions reductions is going to be horrifically expensive. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Compressed-Air Energy StorageSimon Holege asks: Is compressed-air energy storage (CAES) a serious alternative to using batteries for wind farms, etc.? Under what conditions can CAES be regarded as a viable technology for large scale energy storage?

I’ve been a believer in this subject for a long time, but at this point, I’m afraid that distributed storage using batteries, along the lines of what Elon Musk is undertaking, is about to win the day, vs. technologies like CAES that require huge scale to have any chance at being competitive. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Sharing Is Caring for the EnvironmentGenerally speaking, what is the worst thing an average human being can do to the environment? Maintain wasteful habits. With Mother Nature only having a finite amount of resources, being wasteful in your use of any of them is potentially harmful. So how can you fight this? By forming good habits of course! (more…)

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