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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In the world of sustainable lumber certification, a lot of hard knocks have been traded between various organizations, mainly over the issue of acceptance by the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the current standard in green building certification. As of 2014, the only organization that the LEED program recognizes as eligible for additional credit “for the use of responsibly harvested wood from any state or region” is lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels, Electric Vehicles

Hyundai has been developing alternative-fuel vehicles for a long time, and has been offering several electric and hybrid models for a while now, which have made them one of the leaders in green vehicles. In recent years, they have been developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which are considered to be cleaner, more efficient, and have better range than other types of alternative vehicles. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Today everybody is talking about green cleaning. This is a process that involves using eco-friendly ingredients for the preparation of cleaning products. If you want to keep fresh water clean and toxic-free, you need to consider green cleaning.

The benefits of green cleaning are numerous, starting with improved health and cleaning efficiency but there are many other as well. Here we want to show you what advantages green cleaning has and how it can make your life better. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

In this day and age, as we consider climate change, global warming, and other scientific phenomenon, we’re all looking for ways to help reduce our carbon footprint.

For homeowners, one of the easiest ways to help reduce their carbon footprint, is to consider ways they can help cut down on home energy heating costs. Spray foam insulation, is one of the best ways to make this happen. Spray foam, is one of the most advanced, and safest, ways of insulating ones home, in this market. It can be used to insulate homes, roofing, and nearly any other type of structure. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Today’s “word of the day” on dictionary.com is “misology” — a new one on me; it means “distrust or hatred of reason or reasoning,” as in:

In this way misology, the hatred of reason, arises. Socrates now confronts misology “because there’s no greater evil that could befall anyone” (89d2-3).
— Paul Stern, Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy, 1993

Obviously, this isn’t a term found too often in everyday discourse.  I bring it up only because it applies so well, sadly and ironically, to our discussions on sustainability here.   In its absence, it’s hard to explain our pretending that climate change doesn’t exist, and that our clearing the Amazon rain forest is acceptable behavior.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’m delighted to announce that a razor-sharp graduate student at USC, Nikita Rao, will be joining us at 2GreenEnergy as an intern.  Her master’s program focused on the electric power industry, a topic that I know we’d all like to understand better, and she’ll be researching and writing on a variety of related topics.

I was just about to write her a note, offering some suggestions, when I realized there is nothing private about these ideas.  Why not use this note to Nikita as a means to introduce her, and share what I’m thinking?   Here goes: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Taking my own advice and “following the money,” I note that Bill Gates is investing in a start-up whose product is utility-scale energy storage.  We are not far from the robust expansion of renewable energy, propelled by this solution (“aqueous hybrid ion”) and others like it.  

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just sent an email to a young man who claims to have discovered and harnessed a new form of energy here on Earth.  Of course, I’m skeptical, but he’s a terrific fellow and I’m willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement so he can feel comfortable in telling me what this is all about.

In the meanwhile, I wrote:

You may be interested to know that the mistake most people have made when I hear stories like this is that they believe there is “energy” in gravity, or magnetism, or the electrostatic fields surrounding charged particles, etc.  Each of these entities is a different kind of force; force and energy aren’t the same thing.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I write often about humankind’s tendency towards specialization, i.e., how most of the R&D work aimed at innovation in today’s world is performed by people with extremely narrow (though intensely refined) skill-sets.  I suppose it can be argued that this is necessary, or even that it’s a good thing, as we learn more and more about hundreds of different disciplines.  But it means that, each year, fewer people are “thinking outside the box,” developing potential solutions to our problems from fresh new perspectives.  When was the last time we heard about someone like Leonardo da Vinci? 

I bring this up to mention the birthday of Albert Schweitzer  in 1875: theologian, musical prodigy, author, philosopher, physician and medical missionary. I remember when I was a little boy my grandfather made a huge deal about the man (who was still alive at the time); “Baba” told me that Schweitzer was one of the greatest men in the history of humankind, and it is certainly hard to argue against that.

When Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, the bestowing organization remarked, “The expression ‘reverence for life’ is the key to Albert Schweitzer’s personal philosophy. No person must ever harm or destroy life unless absolutely necessary. This attitude permeated everything he did.”

Speaking for all of us, I sure would like to be a bit more “reverence for life” in the 21st Century.  Examples are all around us, but to take a single one, we don’t seem to have a problem hacking away what remains of the Amazon rain forest, which we’re turning, largely, into grazing land for beef cattle — at the rate of 1.8 acres per second. For far too many people, the fact that this is so obviously unsustainable is of only vague and distant concern. We tend not to ask “Why can’t we put a stop to this?” or even “What will we do when this huge habitat and CO2-sink is gone?” but rather, “May I have a cheeseburger, please?”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

In the last century, power resources were largely fossil fuels.  However, in the modern era, we seek to combine the convenience found in elevating technology with maintaining minimal to no harm done to the planet and its natural resources.   (more…)

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