Thanks to 2GreenEnergy aeroponics guru Rafael Quezada for sending me this recent piece on climate change in Popular Science. This sums up the picture very nicely, in my estimation. Bottom line: The outlook isn’t brilliant.
I thought readers may be interested to see a rendering of the biogas plant that I intend to help establish in Southern Pakistan to process the 8000 tons of manure that come from 400,000 tightly confined buffalo each day. Linked above is a fairly detailed description; it’s the webinar that the company’s founder and CEO Robert Orr did with me last week. (more…)
Who isn’t interested in Bill Gates’ views? Whether he’s talking about the impact of the digital revolution on society at large, his philanthropic efforts to eliminate diseases like polio and malaria, or his insights into other macro issues like global warming, his talks are always captivating and his opinions carry plenty of weight. (As a quick aside, I’m often reminded of Gates deeply studied position on global warming when I come across deniers. Are we to suppose that he needs a few bucks of government support to perpetuate something he deems a hoax? Or that he’s a liberal academic lightweight who hasn’t done his homework on solar flares and ice ages? Neither idea passes muster with me.)
Here’s the interview Gates did a few days ago with Charlie Rose that aired on PBS last night.
20 years ago, someone who was in a position to know told me that the toughest couple of moments one could possibly face was a discussion with Gates on anything. “He has more knowledge and certainty on dozens of subjects than you have on your mother’s maiden name — and he’s completely intolerant of people who show up unprepared,” my friend told me.
Even with all the fear of God this may have inspired, I challenge Gates on a couple of points:
1) Up until very recently, he looked on solar as “cute,” something that had essentially no potential impact on the energy picture. Based on this interview (I was gratified to see), something had clearly changed his mind. What was it?
2) He obviously takes the issue of carbon and climate change quite seriously, but it’s not where his focus as a philanthropist lies. Why? I don’t think either of us will be on this Earth long enough to know for sure, but I believe climate change is going to cause far more misery than the diseases he’s trying to eradicate.
Am I proposing a dialog with the world’s most feared challenger? Let me practice for a few years first and think about it.
Duke Brooks writes on Independent Vermont senator Citizens United opponent Bernie Sanders as follows:
Sanders is, of course, not an independent. He is, IN FACT, a self-described socialist…. The opposition to Citizens United (granting corporations the right to spend as much as they choose, in order to influence our elections) comes NOT from the faux “moral outrage” feigned by the Green Mountain socialist and his friends, but rather from a leftist opposition to capitalism in general. Their hatred is focused on companies, which are institutions that have been the victims of marx, lenin, engels, stalin, mao, castro and Sanders for generations. (more…)
Conermex, one of the largest solar and wind power companies in Mexico, predicts that Mexico will double their capacity of solar within 2012, from 6 to 12 MW.
Mexico’s National Solar Energy Association (ANES) says that Mexico could possibly generate all their electricity with solar power in the future. (more…)
Here’s a sarcastic conversation I’m having with a friend in Baltimore that I post for your amusement:
Craig: Got some wicked storms back there!
Friend: Brutal. Spent the weekend with the chainsaw, cutting up trees that fell in the road. Probably one of the worst storms I’ve ever witnessed in Baltimore. 95 mph winds – and not from a hurricane. The heat wave’s been brutal, too. Not used to this 100 + degree heat for more than a day or two.
Craig: Wow, what could be causing these extreme weather events? 🙂 Just kidding.
Friend: Haha. Now Craig, it’s perfectly normal for Baltimore to have nearly two straight weeks of temperatures above 100, and massive storms with 95 mph winds ripping trees up out of the ground. Perfectly normal. 🙂
Craig: Yes, and last winter, when it didn’t even get chilly, no reason for alarm there either. 🙂
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All kidding aside, even a small increase in temperature can have profound effects on weather. Warm air holds more moisture than cool air, thus is less dense (since the gaseous water molecule is lighter than the nitrogen molecule that makes up most of our air). Like a helium balloon, the moist air rises, then cools and condenses into clouds, while the low-pressure area it leaves below causes wind. The warmer the air is, the faster and more intensely all this happens.
Here’s Tom Friedman’s op-ed in yesterday’s NY Times. As always, I agreed with most of it. But I point out two things:
1) He has a keen mind — one with which he has done quite well — but his popularity is largely based on tuning his writing towards optimism. I’m sorry to sound suspicious of others’ motives, but I often wonder about his sincerity; I find it hard to believe that, in the pit of his stomach, that he’s not as frightened as you and I as to humankind’s future. Friedman routinely comes up with deus ex machina concepts that he posits as the forces that will restore the U.S. to her former greatness and provide Americans with the ever-improving quality of life that we enjoyed through most of the 20th Century. (more…)
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the State of Vermont in which I recalled a conversation I had with my father when I was a little boy. We were talking about his impressions of the people who lived in the states within driving distance of us in Philadelphia, and he came out with this pearl: “If you’re not from Vermont, they don’t really want you in Vermont.”
I laughed when I heard it, and it’s certainly not true as a general statement, but I’ve come to see the point he was trying to make. Vermonters tend to be self-styled, much like the French, I suppose one could say; they don’t ask permission to be fiercely independent on the issues that concern them. (more…)
I’m joining some friends in a few minutes for a sushi dinner. This reminds me of the adage about our production and consumption of energy, which, for all intents and purposes, is the only supply chain in the world without storage. “Even sushi enjoys more and better storage than energy,” the people at Eos write on their website.
And it’s a good point. Imagine the price we’d pay for a piece of yellow fin tuna sashimi if it had to be consumed the moment the fish was caught and processed.
Our entire grid is built around a peak energy load that extends 100 hours per annum – just over 1% of the year. Imagine the benefit not having to fire up power generation plants for those few moments.
I’m happy to note that I just scheduled an interview for my next book with a gentleman I’ve been in touch with for some time: Stuart L. Smits, CEO of Citizen Green Energy. Among other things, Stuart follows utility regulation very closely, and will be a terrific source of information on one of the most important factors in the migration to alternative energy, i.e., the cleaning up of what is often described as the “Byzantine” manner in which our power utilities function. (more…)
