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Why Is the Migration to Renewables Assured? Let’s Start with Cheap Wind

craigshieldsPosted on August 19, 2014 Posted in Renewables - Business

As I’ve mentioned, the theme of my new book project “Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose” is that, when it comes to the migration to clean energy, the good guys are in the process of emerging victorious–merely on the strength of market economics. As the title suggests, there are many reasons, but here’s a big one: cheap wind. Fossil fuels simply cannot compete against wind energy when power purchase agreements are being signed at $25/mWh.

Ding dong, the witch is dead.

Waste To Energy

craigshieldsPosted on August 19, 2014 Posted in Biomass

Here’s a good article on waste to energy with an accompanying video that was created by my colleague at Renewable Energy World, Jennifer Runyon. Quite appropriately, Jennifer emphasizes that this project, which happens to feature methane digestion as a technology to transform some of the chemical energy in municipal solid waste (MSW) to electricity, effectively “kills two birds with one stone,” generating a bit of power in an area that needs it desperately, while disposing of a huge amount of MSW, which is an enormous problem in Lagos, Nigeria, a city of 20 million people.

Fortunately, there are technologies that more efficiently extract the energy from our waste streams, e.g., gasification, that figure prominently into a couple of our clean energy investment opportunities, for example, this one in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tagged with: clean energy investment opportunities, extract energy from waste streams, gasification, methane digestion, municipal solid waste (MSW) to electricity, Renewable Energy World, waste-to-energy

Quest for Sustainability — Check Out the Boom in Corporate Social Responsibility

craigshieldsPosted on August 19, 2014 Posted in Sustainability

Our civilization certainly has its problems vis-à-vis sustainability—whether we’re talking about energy, food, water, social justice, law-making, or any number of other important arenas. But at the same time, we’re addressing these issues with enormous volumes of intellectual horsepower.

Case in point: university programs addressing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Impact Investing, and Social Enterprises. Check out the huge rate of growth in the popularity of these programs in the leading business schools, e.g., The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, NYU Stern, Kellogg School of Management, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, etc.

Tagged with: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Impact investing, Kellogg School of Management, NYU Stern, Social Enterprises, sustainability, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Ultra-Right-Wing Works Hard to Suppress Renewable Energy–But Is Support Waning?

craigshieldsPosted on August 18, 2014 Posted in Renewables - Politics

I spend an hour or so every day on my new book project: Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose. Actually, the current count is 14, but since that changes every time I have a new idea or decide to consolidate two similar chapters, I might as well stick with 11 for now.

Here’s a new one: Support Is Waning for Ultra-Right-Wing Causes That Work to Suppress Renewables (more…)

Bringing Solar PV to Rural India

craigshieldsPosted on August 18, 2014 Posted in Photovoltaics

There are so many ways in which the migration to renewable energy improves people’s lives. I’ve often written about what I consider to be the biggest single bang for the buck in terms of social betterment: bringing rural electrification to people in the developing countries, dramatically improving local folks’ prospects for education. (more…)

Tagged with: 300 million people have no access to reliable electrical power, migration to renewable energy, rural electrification in developing countries, solar PV in rural India

Ford Motor Company Will Soon Have Large Solar Carport

craigshieldsPosted on August 17, 2014 Posted in Electric Vehicles

I can’t say enough about the people who work in entry-level positions at the iconic ad agency Ogilvy and Mather. They work hard, they’re fabulously bright, and they’re profoundly respectful. One in particular (whom I won’t identify) and I have forged something of a friendship during her tenure at O&M, in her service of their mega-client, Ford Motor Company. She asked me to write something about Ford’s press release the other day, and, with these keystrokes, I’m doing precisely that.

It seems that recently: (more…)

Tagged with: car ownership, Climate Change, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification, solar carport, vehicle miles traveled

OTEC and Carbon Sequestration

craigshieldsPosted on August 16, 2014 Posted in Ocean Thermal

I spoke with the author of this piece on OTEC and carbon sequestration for almost an hour the other night. But, though OTEC does indeed have the potential to aid in sequestering CO2, this is not really straightforward.

The hot layer at the top of a tropical ocean tends to lock the mineral/nutrient-rich water below a thermocline, i.e., a thermal “front” or boundary. (more…)

Tagged with: carbonate shells, cold-water pipe OTEC, OTEC, OTEC and carbon sequestration, subducted under tectonic plates, thermocline

Good News in Energy Storage — Advancement in Lithium Ion Batteries

craigshieldsPosted on August 16, 2014 Posted in Energy Storage

It’s always nice to hear about breakthroughs that bring us closer to the point at which energy storage solutions are cost-effective and problem-free. Here’s an article on an exciting new technology coming out of Cornell University to address what has been a thorny problem with the lithium ion batteries, i.e., the formation of dendrites.

Pictured here is the battery pack for the new BMW i3.

Tagged with: Advancement in Lithium Ion Batteries, Cornell University, energy storage, energy storage solutions cost-effective and problem-free, formation of dendrites

U.S. Migration to Renewables Happening Slowly—Here’s Why

craigshieldsPosted on August 16, 2014 Posted in Renewables - Politics

Because I live in the U.S., and I’m most familiar with the goings on here, most of my posts concern the migration to renewable energy, albeit painfully slow, that’s occurring within my country’s borders. There are a few main reasons why the rest of the world is making this happen far faster than we Americans are: (more…)

Tagged with: Chevron’s case in Ecuador, cost of capital for renewable energy, Koch Industries, Koch Industries Election Spending, Master Limited Partnerships, U.S. Migration to Renewables

Dr. Alex Cannara, Ocean Acidification, and Advanced Nuclear

craigshieldsPosted on August 15, 2014 Posted in Nuclear

I recently came across the work of Dr. Alex Cannara, an extremely senior engineer based in Northern California, while I was writing a few comments onto blog posts published on Renewable Energy World. Dr. Cannara is one of the foremost experts on ocean acidification, one of the scariest types of environmental degradation that is occurring due to humankind’s increasing dependence on fossil fuels.

The average pH of the oceans is 8.1 now, down from an historical average of 8.2 that had been steady for hundreds of millions of years until the dawn of the industrial age. (more…)

Tagged with: advanced nuclear, average pH of the oceans, CO2 sequestration, Dr. Alex Cannara, ocean acidification, Renewable Energy World, thorium