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From Guest Blogger Jon Wikstrom: Five Eco-Friendly Technologies You Need in Your Life

craigshieldsPosted on February 23, 2015 Posted in Renewables - Business

People around the world are becoming more conscious of our effect on the environment than ever before. Technology has changed the world in many ways and has made a lot of things easier for us. It was only natural that sooner or later some technology would develop enough to aid us in saving the environment.

There are a lot of simple applications and technologies that can help us become more eco-friendly simply by reducing your material and energy consumption. If you have decided to adopt a greener lifestyle this year, here’s a few ways that can help you do just that. (more…)

From Guest Blogger Sophie: Green Building Trends in Australian Architecture

craigshieldsPosted on February 23, 2015 Posted in Sustainable Building

Regardless of all the marvels man has achieved in the past, it is the sad fact that we as a species most often blindly follow the mainstream in any art and cultural form, frowning on all those who think differently. This is why someone observing modern global architecture would conclude that there are only three construction materials used in modern architecture. (more…)

Tagged with: eco building, eco materials, green buildings

Capturing Carbon in Useful Products

craigshieldsPosted on February 22, 2015 Posted in Synthetic Fuel

A very bright reader “BreathOnTheWind” (love the name!) comments on my post on carbon sequestration:

Somewhere deep in the core of my being I feel that the answer for carbon must be to find a use for it. If carbon becomes a useful consumer and/or industrial product then dumping it in the atmosphere would be to ignore a revenue stream. I am seeing some possibilities for this. Batteries and other materials are being made with the newly created material graphene. This is a pure form of carbon. Also there are recent articles that suggest carbon fiber could become a very important manufacturing material for automobiles. (more…)

Tagged with: Capturing Carbon, carbon sequestration, carbon-neutral synthetic fuels, coal and cement plants, high-octane gasoline, off-peak high-grade diesel, point sources of CO2, price on carbon, Windfuels

Whether It’s Climbing a Mountain or Installing Solar PV, We All Accomplish A Great Deal

craigshieldsPosted on February 22, 2015 Posted in Photovoltaics

As a result of attending my college class’s 35th reunion in 2012, I somehow was appointed “class secretary.” This means that I’m about half way through a five-year term in which, every three months, I gather, edit, and aggregate notes from anyone wishing to tell the world about his/her exploits since our graduation in 1977.

I see a lot of updates from the successful software entrepreneurs and the expats living on the lush grassy sheep farms in verdant New Zealand, pictures of people on top of Kilimanjaro (pictured) or sailing across the North Atlantic, and notes from people whose daughters are studying in Barcelona or Heidelberg. (more…)

Tagged with: concepts in eco-friendly architecture, installing solar PV, low-powered lighting, selling e-bikes

Sadly, Energy Efficiency Products Lack Sex Appeal

craigshieldsPosted on February 21, 2015 Posted in Efficiency

A friend of mine is disappointed in the level of demand he’s receiving for the energy efficiency products he represents to commercial customers: heat-exchangers, solar thermal heating, etc. He writes:

I hit up energy efficiency people in the hotel/motel industry all the time. Nothing. Just astonishing. Places like that could save a fortune. (more…)

Tagged with: energy efficiency products, heat-exchangers, historian on solar energy, John Perlin, replaced cast iron drain system with PVC, solar thermal heating, UCSB’s solar PV array, University of California at Santa Barbara

Energy and Transportation in the 21st Century

craigshieldsPosted on February 21, 2015 Posted in Fossil Fuels

A reader notes: The auto and oil industries created our mobility. Wasn’t that good? It worked, didn’t it?

It’s not that simple. Or maybe I could say that it depends on how you define “worked.”

Observers of the energy and transportation industries should object to the wars, the covert disestablishment of much of our public transportation, (more…)

Tagged with: auto and oil industries created mobility, covert disestablishment of much of our public transportation, economic enslavement of the U.S. to foreign interests, energy and transportation industry, phase out fossil fuels, public safety and health issues, refusal to innovate in terms of fuel-efficiency, support of Middle Eastern terrorists

Big Oil and Renewable Energy

craigshieldsPosted on February 21, 2015 Posted in Renewables - Business

In response to my post Replacing Every Watt of Earth’s Power Consumption with Renewable Energy, frequent commenter Roger Priddle writes:

It seems to me that conserving energy is going to be like wearing seatbelts – at first, obvious as prices rise and alternatives become more accessible and “easy,” then mandated. The first adopters will be those who like the “cool” factor – my lights stay on when a winter storm takes down the wires in my neighborhood. (more…)

Tagged with: Big Oil and Renewable Energy, company to diversify into renewables and conservation, Exxon shareholder, fossil fuels and solar PV, Replacing Every Watt of Earth’s Power Consumption with Renewable Energy

Sustainability, World Population and Food Supply

craigshieldsPosted on February 20, 2015 Posted in Sustainability

A few weeks ago I remarked in astonishment that, its very laudable efforts to reduce suffering in the third world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation places little or no emphasis on contraception and the other elements of family planning. In my post “Improving Conditions for the Poorest of the Poor,” I noted that the Foundation is in a class by itself when it comes to preventing and curing childhood disease, but it doesn’t seem to understand the only way to reduce the amount of misery in the world is to manufacture less of it in the first place. (more…)

Tagged with: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Improving Conditions for the Poorest of the Poor, Sustainability World Population and Food Supply, Zlatan Ibrahimović

Is There a Trend Toward Eco-Consciousness, Or Is It Just My Imagination?

craigshieldsPosted on February 20, 2015 Posted in Sustainability

We’ve all had the experience of learning a new word or becoming familiar with a new model of car, and then starting to hear the word or see the car everywhere. I’m having the same experience with the concept of environmentalism. In the last few weeks, I’ve run into people in many different venues—grocery stores, libraries, schools, hiking trails, and restaurants—who do or say something, without any prompt from me, that indicates that they feel the need to be stewards of the environment. (more…)

Tagged with: concept of environmentalism, eco-consciousness, shark fin soup, stewards of the environment

From Guest Blogger Dixie Somers: A Look at the Projects that “Keep America Beautiful"

craigshieldsPosted on February 19, 2015 Posted in Sustainability

Keep America Beautiful is an organization dedicated to promoting waste reduction, recycling, litter prevention and public space beautification. Founded in 1953, the nonprofit works with community-based affiliate groups, corporate sponsors and local governments to carry out programs that focus on public education, trash collection, recycling and community improvement. (more…)

Tagged with: clean environment, recycling