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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Electric AircraftFrequent commenter Tom asks: Craig, did you see this article on the successful prototype of an all electric airplane?

I hadn’t seen this idea per se, but I’m aware that there are thousands of people who have been hard at work developing this basic concept for quite a while.  I’m quite sure that we’ll eventually see electric transportation exported to the skies, though it will be slow to come about, given the gravimetric and volumetric energy- and power-densities of current battery technologies.

I’ve done a lot of work with Aerovironment over the years, and I note that it was the company’s founder, the late Dr. Paul MacCready  who brought this concept to the forefront of our imagination a couple of decades ago.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

A Frightening Reminder About Our Government--from the National Clean Energy Summit At the National Clean Energy Summit yesterday, I had the opportunity to chat with Bill Ritter (pictured),  ex-governor of Colorado. I reminded him of a story I had heard him tell a few years ago at one of the Renewable Energy Finance Forums in New York City in which he explained that the previous December, Colorado College had conducted a survey of tens of thousands of people living in the plains states in which the team established that the vast majority of people favored renewables,  said they would be willing to pay more for clean energy,  and urged Congress to pass a resolution allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Life's Full of Surprises at the National Clean Energy SummitI had lunch at the National Clean Energy Summit yesterday with Karl Reiber, PhD (pictured), a cardiovascular physiologist, the focus of whose work is aquatic animals and how they are affected by the changes that are happening to their environment.

The bottom line is that the waters in which they live are warming rapidly but sporadically due to climate change and the breakdown of livestock waste (an exothermic process). (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Queueing It Up for Tomorrow: National Clean Energy SummitIt’s Sunday night here, but I’ve scheduled this post to be published at 2:45 tomorrow morning, the time at which I’ll get up, dress hurriedly, drive down to Los Angeles, and fly to Las Vegas for the 8th annual National Clean Energy Summit.

According to the promoters’ literature, I’ll enjoy a wonderful opportunity to hook up with:  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Will Highways of the Future Contain Inductive Charging for Electric VehiclesMy good friend Cameron Atwood asked for my comments on this concept of electrifying our highways by installing inductive charging in a certain lane of each of our major roadways.  The attraction, of course, is that the concept eliminates, or at least greatly reduces, the drawback associated with the limited range EVs currently suffer due to small battery capacities.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

GeoEngineering the OceansI’m part of a discussion group that is largely composed of scientists whose main concern is the vast damage that our society continues to wreak upon the environment.  One of the benefits I derive from this is the ability to read conversations on a range of important issues, like the one I’ve reproduced below on ocean acidification: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Manners and EnvironmentalismAmerican author Emily Post (pictured), best remembered for her writings on the subject of etiquette, left us with this: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

When Post wrote this approximately 100 years ago, it was clear that by “the feelings of others,” she was referring to “others in one’s immediate presence.” In the 21st Century, however, we need to define manners a bit more broadly, in order to include specifically the other seven billion people who are all trying to make their way through life on a small planet with finite resources.

What to make of people who have no regard for this concept?  Well, the very nicest thing to say about them is that they have bad manners.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

Aquaponics: Such a Beautiful SubjectThe total number of blog posts here is rapidly approaching 6000, but there was not a single link to an episode of a reality TV show until now, where this home makeover includes an aquaponics garden. It’s hard not to fall in love with this idea, which is why I feature the whole concept as one of my top cleantech investment opportunities.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Understanding the Efficiency of Solar PVWhy aren’t solar PV cells more efficient?  Here’s an answer from a physicist who looks at the problem from the perspective of the Carnot Limit, i.e., the theoretical limit to the efficiency of a heat engine, which is a function of the difference between the absolute temperature of two bodies (in this case, the sun and the Earth). (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Is Modern-Day Environmentalism Barking Up the Wrong Tree?Reader “Ben” writes:  Hi Craig, Have you seen this?  If it’s true it’s a real eye-opener!  (The narrator seems kind of annoying at first but stick with it, you’ll probably get used to her.  What she says is pretty stunning.)

No, I hadn’t seen it. There is a ton of truth here, but I would offer the following four comments:   (more…)

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