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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Patricia A. Holden of West Dennis, MA writes:

I am concerned about the big push for industrial wind turbines in this country. I frequently visit a friend in Falmouth, Massachusetts who has had three of these turbines installed within in a mile (one is less than 1/2 mile) away from his home. He and his neighbors are having health issues as a result of the operation of these turbines so close to their homes……Please be sure that your research and understanding is all-encompassing before you continue to advocate wind energy.

Thanks for this, Patricia. Though I’m certainly not an expert on the subject, I am aware of Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS), controversial as it is. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Yesterday’s webinar on aeroponics went very well. Unless I’m mistaken, every single one of the participants wrote in at least one question in the course of the hour-long dialog between my guest Rafael Quezada and me. There were so many, in fact, we couldn’t get to all of them.

We’ll have the archived version on the site soon for those who missed it.

The more I learn about the subject, the more enthralled I become. I can’t think of another discipline that addresses as many social ills with a single technology. Sure, there is the subject of better nutrition itself and all that this entails: childhood obesity, diabetes, and the numerous forms of damage we’re doing to ourselves with our increasing toxic food supply. But aeroponics also addresses:

• The locally grown issue, eliminating the delays and the carbon footprint associated with agribusiness, and the trucking of food thousands of miles from harvest to destination.

• The chemical run-off issue, where our pesticides and herbicides are polluting our rivers and oceans.

• The challenge of bringing nutritious food to desert areas, or to blighted urban areas where grocers will not set up shop.

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

– Victor Hugo, French dramatist, novelist, & poet (1802 – 1885)

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

When I was much younger I recall telling a friend that if I had to live the rest of my life on exactly three foodstuffs, I would select oysters, mangoes, and beer. Of course, that was before I developed a love for renewable energy.

Where could I possibly be going with this?

Check this out: a project submitted by Chris Rene, a terrific contributor to what we’re doing at 2GreenEnergy, that combines solar energy and shellfish farming, using solar energy to grow oyster seed that will then sequester ocean CO2.

That’s a lot of goodness rolled into one. Onshore, just add a few mango trees and a microbrewery, and I think you’ve nailed it.

Seriously, if anyone’s interested in speaking with Chris, please let me know and I’ll arrange a conversation.

 

More info here:

www.condofish.com
http://hermosa-bay-oyster.yolasite.com/links.php
http://condofish.wordpress.com/about-2/committee-members/
http://condofish.wordpress.com/

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Ocean Thermal

Here’s a piece in The Economist on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) that points out the sad truth about the development of alternative energy technologies, i.e., that interest is strong when oil is expensive, but wanes to zero when oil prices fall. Witness the U.S. response to the oil embargoes in the 1970s, and the near-immediate abandonment of all that when it appeared the crisis was over. And, of course, the story repeats itself into the 21st Century with our current “drill baby drill” mentality (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

You feel the rumblings of the cleantech revolution reverberating beneath your feet, as if you were standing next to an active volcano that could erupt at any second. You recognize that our world will soon be clamoring for sustainability in all its many forms, as we wake up to the fact that dinosaur technologies: inefficient appliances, gas-guzzling cars and trucks, toxic chemicals, last-century’s lighting and HVAC, coal-fired power plants, etc. are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The more I learn about aeroponics (growing fruit and vegetables in a mist of air, water, and minerals), the more I like. Of course, when you look at a piece of plastic with an electrical cord attached to it, you think immediately we’re trading in one set of resource hogs for another. I.e., we’re reducing certain ecologic and financial costs:

• the water for irrigation
• the fossil fuel resources to plant, harvest, process, and transport
• the chemicals necessary to fertilize
• the toxins necessary to kill an ever-evolving set of weeds and insect pests

But, we’re using plastic that comes from petroleum, and we’re using electricity, almost half of which comes from coal.

True, there is no such thing as a free lunch; everything comes with a certain environmental impact. Yet, here we have a method of growing produce that’s  many hundreds of times cleaner that farming as it appears on Earth in the 21st Century. The pump in the tower pictured here is rated at 17 Watts, and it’s shut off most of the time; it consumes about a kilowatt-hour of electricity a week. Moreover, future versions of the tower will be made of bioplastic.

At the same time, aeroponics hands you a product that is far higher in nutritional value than what you’re buying through agribusiness. It’s organic – and it’s at your doorstep.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Clean energy is just a part of the overall sustainability movement, yet it stands at the center of so many important issues. For example, the world supply of water and food are dependent on abundant energy, thus our very survival is threatened to the degree that we depend on non-renewable resources for generating energy.

In our webinar this month we will examine the subject of “sustainable food.” We will discuss the direction in which the world agribusinesses are taking us, and explore a cutting edge solution that has the potential to make a big difference here: aeroponics.

My guest will be Rafael Quezada, CEO of Tower Harvest, a leading expert in the deployment of aeroponics. I think you’ll be impressed by how many purely positive effects are created by aeroponics in terms of nutrition and health, energy efficiency, local growing – even job creation.

The webinar is Thursday at 10 AM PDT; I hope to see you there. Here’s the sign-up sheet:  http://2greenenergy.com/free-webinar/.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Oil is a product that sells for more than 50 times what it costs to manufacture. And we’re wondering why the world is beholden to it? Linked above is a good story analyzing this.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

My posts at 2GreenEnergy somehow wind up on CleanTechies Blog where an entirely new set of readers post comments. Here’s a cogent response from a certain David Dunn to my piece “Why Are Investors Bearish on Clean Energy?”

Investment in alternative energy will remain limited until everyone knows the real costs involved.

All the economics of processes and manufacturing at present are distorted by huge grants, subsidies and the huge amount of pollution and environmental controls, and not to mention all the moral and ethical regulations governing labour employment.

The field that everyone is playing on in the alternative energy market is so distorted (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just realized I was flimflammed at the Earth Day celebration in Santa Barbara from which my daughter Valerie and I just returned. Val has designs on a hot tub, and was drawn to a booth that offered a product that was there via its claim of super-efficiency.

“Normal tubs of this size will raise your electricity bill by $50 – $100 per month, but you can run this one for a fraction of that, say $10 – $15,” its representative said with a smile. (more…)

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