Question: Is the practice of turning crude from tar sands into gasoline more environmentally destructive than the processing of conventional crude? If so, how many times more damaging is it?
Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers. (more…)
Recently I had the pleasure of listening to Melinda Gates present a candid assessment of what she’s learned over the years about sub-Saharan Africa. The take-away for me was how wrong we Westerners can be in our assumptions of what life is actually like in the developing world, and how many of the things we take for granted represent huge challenges for the people living in these horrible conditions. (more…)
A colleague of mine is hard at work developing a solution for ocean current hydrokinetics, and I happen to believe that his approach is the best and most cost-effective method of all those that I’ve reviewed over the years. He and his partners have spent a great deal of time over the past few years in Florida and Madagascar, refining their product through meticulous testing and refinement in the Gulf Stream and Mozambique Channel. (more…)
I ask my guest bloggers to confine their monologues here to items that pertain to clean energy—or perhaps to sustainability more generally—and I try to do the same, but sometimes I’m so blown away with something in another arena that I feel compelled to mention it. Over the years, I’ve been reading the cartoons written by a fellow who goes by pen name Tom Tomorrow whose work, called “This Modern World,” is syndicated to hundreds of weekly magazines. The dude has such an exceptional intelligence and wit that I felt I simply had to pass it along. Catch this one, and see if you share the awe I feel at his ability to provide fresh and hilariously funny comments on the issues of the day. (more…)
We all find it hard to admit mistakes at times, and some of us (myself included) are often shy about pointing out that they were right as rain all along. Having said that, I’ll momentarily set aside that inhibition and say that it appears I’m correct about the rapid migration to renewable energy.
I titled my fourth book “Bullish on Renewable Energy,” after subtitling my third book “Following the Money,” and what I meant was simply this: you can either: (more…)
It’s not every day that we come across a political/economic concept that appeals to the Tea Party, the Progressives/Environmentalists, and everyone in between. Yet, as reported in RenewableEnergyWorld, that’s exactly the phenomenon we’re seeing surrounding the Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, that enables “property owners to put the cost of energy upgrades on a property tax bill and pay it off over several years at a low interest rate. (more…)
One of the most important ingredients that figures into the analysis of energy in the 21st Century is “Energy Return on Investment” (EROI). It takes energy to generate energy; this is true; there is no free lunch—but how much energy? We can extract energy from coal, oil, moving water, the photons that reach Earth from the sun, etc.—but none comes free of charge. (more…)
It’s a good bet that many 2GreenEnergy readers receive several emails daily from groups supporting causes that could be called “progressive,” at least insofar as the environment is concerned. Perhaps the most boisterous of these is the Sierra Club, with their multi-pronged attack on the forces that would profit at the expense of the welfare of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, not to mention the health of its people more directly. Today we received this exhortation re: Chevron’s buying elections near one of their plants in Northern California, as follows:
Richmond, California’s City Council voted to sue Chevron after an explosion at its refinery sent over 15,000 workers and residents—15% of the population—to nearby hospitals. Chevron’s response?
Dump more than $3 million in the 2014 election to pack the city council and mayor’s office with pro-industry candidates. Despite being outspent 20-1, Richmond residents defeated all of Chevron’s candidates—an extraordinary victory in an era when corporations spend millions of dollars to influence elections.
Undaunted, Chevron is still at it—trying to elect their hand-picked candidates at the local, state and federal levels in their relentless quest to prioritize profit over public health, the safety of their workers, and the environment.
It goes without saying that I support the Sierra Club here—and in the vast majority of the other positions it takes on a daily basis. But I also want to point out that the process of buying elections is endemic in our society. Stopping Chevron here is akin to building a wall of sand around the magnificent castle you’ve built at the beach with your kids.
Until we get corporate money out of politics altogether, we’ll be fighting skirmishes like this one….forever. Thus the imperative for some of the most important initiatives of our time:
“MoveToAmend” and “Saving American Democracy,” overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision in 2010, and
“Mayday,” the initiative to elect leaders who refuse to accept huge campaign contributions from special interests.
It’s like dealing with cockroaches in your apartment. Yes, you can step on them when you see them, but that’s not likely to handle your problem.
Note: Within seconds of my hitting the “publish” button here, I heard my email chime with this little gem:
Comcast has stooped to an all-new low in their attempt to monopolize the cable market by taking over Time Warner.
They know that government regulators could be on the verge of blocking the takeover, so Comcast has started asking nonprofit groups that have received Comcast charitable donations to lobby the FCC in support of the takeover.1
We’re talking about Boys and Girls Clubs, local chapters of United Way and Big Brothers and Big Sisters, autism research groups—nonprofits that rely on corporate sponsorships to work.2 It’s disgusting.
Yes, it is disgusting. Looks like that “cockroach” analogy wasn’t too bad after all…
1. Comcast Recruits Its Beneficiaries to Lobby for Time Warner Deal, The New York Times, April 5, 2015
2. Comcast donations help company secure support for Time Warner Cable merger, Arstechnica, August 22, 2014
I’ve mentioned my colleague Jon LeSage, clean transportation guru, several times through the years. Here’s a message I thought I’d pass along, which includes an opportunity to sign up for Jon’s weekly newsletter Green Auto Market absolutely free.
A few recent topics include:
• Hybrid and EV sales up monthly but down from last year
• Formula E comes to Long Beach, California: first run of an annual electric racing series?
• Solar power: a battleground for the future of electric utilities and clean energy (more…)
A reader notes:
The comments you receive to your articles are always interesting. The authors are usually very sincere, well-meaning folk who genuinely believe in the righteousness of their ideology, and are frustrated by what they see as a conspiracy by conservative forces and “vested interests,” to maintain the status quo. … When they discover most renewable energy projects lack commercially viable applications, they turn to governments to change the rules. Thus a plethora of projects become seemingly “economically viable,” due to government regulation or funding.
There may be some minuscule amount of truth to this, but it’s essentially incorrect. Here’s why. (more…)
