My friend Cameron Atwood offers a fabulously rational approach to climate change mitigation as a comment to my post: Understanding the Ties Between Corporate Funding and the Findings of Climate Scientists (scroll down to see it).
Thanks, Cameron. That makes sense to me. But unfortunately, making sense doesn’t win the game here, as (more…)
A number of thoughts run through one’s mind when an electrical power utility, like this one in Arizona, adds a $50/month fee to all homes that have solar PV installed.
Philosophically, it’s hard to object to asking those who lower their power bills with solar to pay for the privilege of using the grid as their personal battery. (more…)
About 40 years ago I read a couple of the philosophic works of the 18th Century Scottish empiricist David Hume (pictured). I vaguely recall his discussion of the subject itself, i.e., that according to empiricists, the human mind has access only to sensory perceptions about the world, from which our brains try to make sense of the world around us. We infer that there really is a world out there, even though we don’t have direct access to it.
The one big idea for which Hume is best remembered, however, is what he said about miracles, i.e., “We always disbelieve the greater miracle.” (more…)
The essence of sustainable building means using a process that ensures that the building is environmentally and resource efficient throughout its entire lifetime. You must take into account the design, construction materials, the overall operation, maintenance and care and renovation, which must also conform to green building techniques, and finally the demolition of the structure when its usable service life has ended. In a perfectly executed sustainable build, a balance should be found between the building and the sustainable environment.
Here are ten steps that should always be considered when building a sustainable structure. (more…)
My most recent book, Bullish on Renewable Energy, provides many reasons that the forces of pure market economics are ushering in the various forms of clean energy resources, while they simultaneously bring about the demise of fossil fuels. Moreover, this whole process is happening far more rapidly than most people realize. The book’s subtitle suggests readers will encounter 14 different vectors, each a chapter that provides an independent financial driver of the transition from the old to the new. (more…)
I had a fortuitous conversation a few years ago at an awards dinner. I happened to be seated next to the fellow who runs the program at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) whose purpose is to investigate the melting of ice beneath the surface of Greenland, and he explained:
Anyone with a satellite camera can see the retraction of ice from the surface. But with the equipment we’re deploying just now, it’s possible for the first time to see where the real action is and measure the total volume of ice lost in real-time.
Here’s an article that gets into the same issue in the Antarctic, which Harvard geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica (pictured) refers to as “ground zero for global climate change.”
In all candor, my association with the few people who claim to have workable, reliable technology to extract the chemical energy (and other goodies) out of waste-tires has been a disappointment. After several years of work in this arena, I believe that the 300 million tires that wind up in U.S. landfills or recycling centers each year actually do represent a gold mine, and that we’re close to developing the proper extraction tools, but that we’re not quite there. At the same time, we’ve over-developed the rhetoric to make unprovable claims in this regard.
Waste-to-energy generally is a magnet for exaggerated claims, and I believe that’s because (more…)
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m working with an intern from Russia, a brilliant woman who’s working on a master’s program in Sustainable Energy Engineering (renewable energy, power generation and energy utilization in the smart buildings). After a great deal of discussion, I suggested this:
You could write a series of pieces that collectively are called something like “Understanding Russia and Energy.” In part, the series can be a critical reflection on this incredibly dense work: “Oil of Russia Past, Present & Future.”
You could either agree with and expand on, or disagree and myth-bust, some commonly held beliefs among Americans. (more…)
It’s the birthday of John Steinbeck who told us, “A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn’t telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.”
This is a good time to reflect upon this biting truth: there are people who get this, i.e., who live their lives trying to connect to other people and empathize with their fellow travelers here on Earth, and those who simply don’t.
This is the notion around which many of our political discussions revolve. At what level, if at all, do we share a collective responsibility to take care of the people around us, the environment, and the viability of the planet for future generations? Like Steinbeck’s characterization of humankind generally, it’s a question longing for an answer.
Would you like to make your home increasingly more energy efficient while adding a major, eye-catching design feature and never need to replace your home’s roof ever again? Think steel roof. Although the cost of a steel roof is substantially higher than traditional roofing materials, a steel roof is virtually maintenance-free and will probably last a lifetime. (more…)
