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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

With his latest in an epic string of gaffes, Mitt Romney let slip a bold admission of truth about who we are as Americans – or at least, who Romney and his campaign advisors think a majority of us are: people who have lost all capacity for kindness and all empathy for our fellow human beings.  Today, we came face-to-face with Romney’s belief that 47% of Americans are irresponsible and wish only to live off of the hard work of others — a viewpoint so outrageous and mean-spirited that it’s hard for me to believe I just heard it issue from the mouth of someone who wants to be taken seriously as a prospective leader of even a small group, say, Beverly Hills, not to mention a  nation whose population includes 46.2 million who live in poverty. 

One could argue that there are professions that don’t require even a basic level of compassion: maybe prison guards, pest exterminators, or traffic cops.  Whether or not that’s true, serving as the leader of a free and honorable country isn’t among those jobs. 

I often wonder: What’s happened recently that has brought us to the point that almost half of the U.S. electorate will go to the polls in November and vote for this guy to run our country?  How, in a period of just a couple of decades, could we have fallen so fast, and become so desensitized?  Is it just my imagination?  Weren’t we better, smarter people 20 years ago?  I have my own theories on this, but I’m more interested in hearing yours.

 

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Joe Romm’s ClimateProgress.org has done a wonderful job of presenting the evolving science and politics of global climate change, including this article published a few months ago, when one of the few remaining credible deniers jumped ship and got on board with the theory held by the vast majority of the scientific community.  If you haven’t already done so, please check it out – and take a look at some of the comments, too and get a sense for what his followers believe to be the most probable future vis-à-vis climate change and energy policy more generally.  The consensus: big fossil fuel money will stall progress for some time to come.  I love the guy who wrote: “Money doesn’t talk; it swears.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

About once a month, I see a concept for a wind turbine that contemplates some sort of shroud to catch and funnel more wind through a turbine at higher speeds.  In principle, there is no problem with such ideas, other than, of course, the trade-off that is created by the cost of the materials and the room to site them.  Here’s a folksy article about an artistic shroud at a baseball field that has quadrupled the power output of the turbines.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I began to write a private email to my colleague Stephan Williams who is helping out with our “Corporate Role Models” blog, when I realized there is really nothing private about it at all.  Here are notes on the industries I would like to include, and the potential bearing each has on clean energy, i.e., why companies in these industries should be interested in participating in the blog. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

A friend just sent me a note on this compact, consumer-oriented energy storage device from Toshiba.  I’m wondering if it’s a hoax.  It delivers 3 kW of stored electricity for 12 hours?  If it’s using lithium ion and combines the very best characteristics, it will weigh about 300 pounds, occupy about 15 gallons of space, and cost about $15,000, plus whatever profit Toshiba wants to make on it. If its purpose, as mentioned in the article, is to enable its user to buy power at off-peak rates and use it on peak, in most parts of the U.S., it would take about 12000 cycles (33 years) to pay for itself. Of course, if the power in your area is horrifically unreliable and you want an uninterruptable power supply on steroids, maybe you’ll find this attractive. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

Here’s part of an invitation to one of the most important annual conferences on CSP (concentrated solar power, aka solar thermal):

Whilst Spain has been a strong driving force for the CSP industry worldwide with more than 20 years’ experience in research and technology developments, the government support is what have made the development of this technology extremely lucrative in the country. But the approval in 2011 of a royal decree temporarily suspending all economic incentives for renewable sources, has shaken the CSP industry to the core.

Furthermore, the global economic downturn and the lower prices of PV and natural gas have not made 2012 an easy year for the Concentrated Solar Thermal industry worldwide. But despite the challenging times and the need for the sector to re-define its strategy to become a true contender in the global energy generation mix, the opportunities continue to flourish around the globe.

I’d like to think that last sentence is true, i.e., that CSP opportunities are, in fact, flourishing around the globe.  The first part of the blurb is most certainly true: these last years have been tough for the industry.  Unfortunately, the unchallenged leader in CSP development is Spain, and the European financial mess has hit them hard. 

In my estimation, it will be a terrific tragedy for our civilization if CSP does not receive the opportunity that solar PV and wind did: several decades of R&D that resulted in terrific breakthroughs – particularly in cost. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

At a party yesterday, I ran into a top-flight businessman who sells advanced sonar systems to the world’s navies.  I happen to know that he spends a huge amount of time in India, and I wanted to ask him about tips to avoid getting sick – a plight that befalls a great number of Americans travelling there. 

I took the occasion to ask about India’s intent in building up its navy.  “Oh, they’ll tell you it’s about Pakistan, but long-term it’s clearly about China.” 

“But China and India aren’t enemies, are they?” I asked. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I just came back from an annual chili cook-off at a home of a dear friend. My recipe, which my kids and their friends adore, came in second place in the popular vote two years ago, but hasn’t been able to place since.  Next year, I have a totally different approach that I’m looking forward to trying.  More on this later, as if you could possibly care. 🙂 In any case, great people, fantastic food, and a ton of interesting ideas thrown around all afternoon and evening.

One of the more interesting features of the day was a guest who referred me to a white paper from San Francisco–based venture capital firm DBL Investors, the executive summary of which is subtitled: “Cleantech may mean debate in Washington, but it means jobs everywhere else.”

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I always enjoy the opportunity to talk with college students about their aspirations and their observations from the perspective of their young lives.  Last night I stayed at the home of one of my best friends from my boyhood, which gave me the chance to speak with his highly accomplished elder daughter, who just entered UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) as a freshman.  In the course of the talk, she mentioned that all incoming students receive a heavy indoctrination that their school’s cross-town rival, USC (University of Southern California), is “the enemy”; all freshmen take a pledge that they will forever regard USC and its people as such. I suggested that this must be a kind of joke that no one takes seriously, but she assured me that the entire ritual is completely serious.

I’m sure most people regard these hijinks as good, clean collegiate fun, and so I’m sorry to sound like a kill-joy, but I find it sickening.  Taking an innocent kid and teaching her that some other equally innocent kid is some sort of “enemy” merely by virtue of the school she’s chosen is deplorable.  That the urban gangs do garbage like this is regrettable, but at least their members have the excuse of having been deprived of the privileges of a normal upbringing.  Seeing this played out in our great academic institutions shows a revolting lack of grace and class.

The Earth is populated with races, religious sects, and nation-states that are in a perpetual state of hostility. Is it really so hard to understand why?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I took most of the day off yesterday to be a part of a family outing at the Los Angeles County Fair.  While the kids were on the rides, I wandered off on my own to check out as many eco-friendly solutions as I could find in the “home and garden” area, including a clever new approach to solar water heating for swimming pools.

There was also a marvelous exhibit heralding some of the great American inventors: Franklin, Edison, The Wright Brothers, Carver, Ford, as well as dozens of others: the guy who invented the yoyo, another who gave us Post-it notes, etc.   I felt a bit sad that the designers felt the need to limit the focus to Americans, but outside of that, they did a good job.

Now I’m on the train back from Los Angeles, sitting next to a very affable lady of Indian descent who works as an environmental engineer, whose job functions include a great deal of permitting and regulation.  So far, the conversation’s been quite thought-provoking.  “We regulate businesses, but we educate people,” she says.  “As a society, we expect people to make the right decisions with respect to the environment, but not to the extent that they cease to enjoy their lives.  I’m not an eco-Nazi,” she smiles.

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