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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

I love these people at SmartGridNews.  They keep the content positive and hopeful – even in a world that’s having some pretty obvious fits and starts adopting smart grid.  And they try to get at the subject from every conceivable direction.  Here’s an article they just sent on power outages, pointing out that utilities that deploy smart grid are much faster at restoring power when it goes out as a result of a storm.  That’s hard to object to, isn’t it? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I’m on the email distribution list for PennEnergy’s reports on the energy industry as a whole, and, while I don’t buy the reports, I like to read the free summaries.  Linked above is an interesting one on the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) – a subject we try to cover often here.  I’m sure the full report provides a great deal of granularity about the various factors that are responsible for driving the prices of electricity: government policies, capital, fuel, O&M, and air emission control costs for coal and gas plants.

Explicit here are the costs that government imposes to deal with the so-called “externalities” of the use of fossil fuel, e.g., the damage to human health and the natural environment, both of which are still largely ignored.  But I predict that this will not remain the case forever, as the world’s people continue to catch onto the enormous harm associated with our current recklessness and gross negligence in terms of protecting our planet and the life forms on it.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I just got an email from a reader who asked: “How monitored do you think this email to you is? How many of your followers restrain their comments, do you think?”

Ha!  Interesting questions.  Personally, I would be surprised if some form of “Big Brother” is not monitoring my emails. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

Frequent commenter John Roche writes:

It’s been interesting reading your blogs. I’ll say I’m for the environment and have taken some renewable energy classes to complement my technical background. Will probably even install solar on mine and a friend’s house. However, I get the feeling things might go to an extreme with many of the updated regulations coming out lately. The carbon tax is expected by some to totally shut down the coal power industry overnight. I think this could reduce baseload supply by a large enough percentage that there would be a large power deficit when demand is up. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Going green could improve your business’s public image and, in some cases, help you lower costs. Every business needs to know these 5 important aspects about going green.

Solar Panels are a Long-Term Investment

Today’s solar panels are significantly more effective than those made during the 2000s and 1990s. Expect those manufactured in the future to generate even more energy. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I’m sure 99% of readers here know this, but the “climate change debate” that exists in the United States is an almost entirely local phenomenon.  Put another way, there is no controversy whatsoever associated with the subject among educated people in any other part of the world. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

Here’s a presentation for those who want to know more about the breakthrough in biofuels I wrote about earlier today, and who understand things like: “Pyruvate decarboxylase catalyzes the non-oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to produce acetaldehyde.”  Personally, I function better at the level at which Tom Blakeslee explained it to me in his email:  “GMO algae sweats ethanol.”

Thanks, Tom; that’s much better.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

2GreenEnergy supporter Tom Blakeslee is a prolific author, the president of the non-profit Clearlight Foundation, and an all-around terrific human being.   I smiled when I just checked my email and found that he had sent me this fascinating piece on Algenol Biofuels, which boasts a considerable breakthrough in this arena.

9000 acres of ethanol per acre per year?  That really sounds attractive. By my calculations, the energy equivalent of an acre of PV with a capacity factor of 20% is about 6.5 times that amount, but there is no doubt that creating a liquid fuel is of considerable value, and Algenol’s results are more than 20 times that of corn ethanol.

Comments?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Because Noam Chomsky is so far out of the mainstream discussion, I believe this post may be the first of our 3000+ in which I’ve quoted this American linguist, philosopher, logician, cognitive scientist, historian, political critic, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he worked for over 50 years. In addition to his work in linguistics, he has written on war, politics, and mass media, and is the author of over 100 books. He has been described as a prominent cultural figure, and he was voted the “world’s top public intellectual” in a 2005 poll. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I thought readers might be interested in a conversation I’m having with my colleague Jon Lesage, alt-fuel auto industry guru:

Jon (in his newsletter):  Hybrid electric vehicles are doing much better at retaining their market value than are plug-in electric vehicles, according to Kelley Blue Book. Used electric vehicles are retaining nearly 55% of their original MSRP, while hybrids are much higher with retained average value at 74.3%.

Craig: On the resale of the EVs and HEVs, how are you doing this?  Are you sure you’re comparing apples to apples?  Sounds like a difficult challenge to me. (more…)

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