I have to admit that I was less than perfectly kind to the folks from Volvo, Saab and Mercedes Benz who were manning their companies’ electric vehicle booths at the Los Angeles Auto Show in the 2008-2009 time frame. I came across Volvo first, and I noted that a physical booth was there. But that was all: no prototype, no drawings, and no specs. “So, let me see if I can sum this up,” I’d say with thinly veiled disdain. “You can’t tell me what it will look like, how it will perform, what it will cost, or what year I’ll be able to buy one.” (more…)
I don’t claim to have any particular talent for it, but I certainly do a bunch of writing, and therefore I try to maintain constant alertness for tips that could offer improvement. Here’s a brief passage from the Writers Almanac that describes an incident that meant a great deal to noted short-story author Grace Paley:
She loved to hear the different tongues, and especially loved listening to all the gossip, but when she first started writing poetry, she wrote in a formal, stilted British style because she thought that’s what poems were supposed to sound like. Then, in college, she met W.H. Auden and he agreed to read her work. She later recalled: “We went through a few (of my) poems, and he kept asking me, ‘Do you really talk like that?’ And that was the great thing I learned from Auden: you’d better talk your own language.”
This is probably the one concept on writing that means anything to me. In fact, I try to impart Auden’s advice to my children when I help them with their school papers, which I paraphrase: just use your voice. When they come up with some wordy, academic, hard-to-follow sentence to explain Wounded Knee or the reproductive cycle of sharks, I ask: If you and I were sitting down at dinner right now and you were trying to explain this to me, is that what you would say? The “voice” that you use to explain what you have in your mind is fine–just the way it is. In fact, it’s better than “fine,” it’s perfect.
I spoke with a gentleman this morning about an ostensible breakthrough in converting different types of plastics to high-octane gasoline and high-quality diesel. I was saddened (though not surprised) when I received the business plan, and promptly reported back as follows (giving the guy himself the benefit of the doubt):
Sorry, John. I hate to say it, but I think you’ve been hoodwinked. (more…)
Here’s a project that touches on renewable energy only obliquely, but I thought readers might enjoy it as it’s staggeringly large.
Craig: Please (check out the concept for) Float Inc. marine technologies. As the various governments in the US have not seen fit to recognize the vast advantages of our marine technologies, we have managed to make forward strides here in Europe. I am currently corresponding with Ireland, Scotland, and the UK for possible advancements towards “getting the OFOES in the water” as Proof of Concept. Funding for this is very difficult to find, at this moment.
Wow, you’re not afraid of thinking big, are you? (more…)
A gentleman from South Africa asked for my feedback on a new concept in hydrokinetics aimed at capturing energy from ocean currents. I hope a few readers will find my response interesting:
Hi, and thanks very much for sharing this fascinating concept. As you can imagine, I come across many similar ideas in the course of a given year, even when I’m sitting back in my office. When I want a real deluge, I go to the Ocean Energy show, the most recent one of which was in Atlantic City (whose boardwalk–see photos above and below–features people dressed in unexpected ways).
Having watched your video (which, per your request, I won’t publish), I would say:
A reader offers me advice re: my reviewing cleantech business plans with an eye towards identifying “the best.” He writes:
Given your line of work, you might want to be more politically aware in your statements. Instead of saying that you referred an investor to “the company that, by my wits, offers what I believe to be the most promising technology in …. (a certain space)”, you may want to say something like you referred that investor to “a company with a very promising technology.” If I made money helping to match investors with farmers who grow oranges, I would not publish a blog that said that I had recently referred an investor to the farm with the BEST oranges. (more…)
Why wouldn’t a country sitting on the world’s biggest oil reserve simply keep drilling? It’s because the more renewable energy they consume at a reasonable cost, the more oil they can sell at a profit.
The Saudis find CSP to be cost-effective, or they wouldn’t be doing it. And needless to say, they’re not prone to make silly mistakes in financial mathematics. (Shown above: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal seated on his wide-body jet, shortly after announcing that he was suing Forbes Magazine for underestimating ($20 billion) his $29 billion net worth.)
Regarding a recent post on the validity of ocean wave energy, my friend, top-level author Tom Blakeslee (pictured here; see ClearLight Press) writes: Look at the underside of boats and docks…filled with barnacles and growth. Maintenance could be a nightmare. Any proposal should be carefully evaluated from this point of view.
No question about that. Anytime you insert anything into a river or an ocean you have issues with both environmental interference and, to your point, survivability—in this case, biofouling. As anyone can imagine, salt water (vs. fresh water) only amplifies all this. (more…)
For those who think that human attitudes and glaciers move at the same pace, check out this gag set of Christmas cards from Ayn Rand. Yes, you’ll chuckle, but remember that it was only 50 years ago that many intellectuals thought she was the leading thinker of the day, and that the phrase “objectivist epistemology” had some sort of meaning in the English language. Five decades later we’re scratching our heads, wondering how it’s possible that anyone with the sense of a hamster ever had that notion.
Do you tend to wonder if our civilization is becoming more “civilized?” I do.
We’d all like to believe that humankind is making progress, meaning, among other things, that an increasing percentage of our species is accorded what we would generally consider to be “basic human rights.” It’s easy to believe this is true, based on a few major aspects of our history.
I have to admit that I was less than perfectly kind to the folks from Volvo, Saab and Mercedes Benz who were manning their companies’ electric vehicle booths at the Los Angeles Auto Show in the 2008-2009 time frame. I came across Volvo first, and I noted that a physical booth was there. But that was all: no prototype, no drawings, and no specs. “So, let me see if I can sum this up,” I’d say with thinly veiled disdain. “You can’t tell me what it will look like, how it will perform, what it will cost, or what year I’ll be able to buy one.” (more…)
