Here’s an interesting piece by super-blogger Marc Gunther, suggesting that subsidies for solar have been misapplied and have created weird market conditions. No argument from me there. Handing people money to do a certain thing is a guarantee that they’ll do exactly what you’ve asked them to do – and no more. Thus the imperative to be very sure you’ve been precise in that request. I’ll be the first to admit (more…)
Ross Guthrie, one of 2GreenEnergy’s web-programming superstars, has just completed this page that offers a compilation of the Basics of Renewable Energy, the videos and infographics that my team and I have been putting together over the past few months. It looks sharp to me, but I’d be interested in your opinion.
I encourage you to send this to young people or newcomers to the subject who may be looking for an accessible starting point.
Question: How is it possible for the concentration of certain toxins to increase in our groundwater for several decades after those chemicals have been banned? For example, the concentration of soil disinfectant DCP (used heavily in the 1970s and finally banned in 1990) will peak about 2020, and will remain in significant quantities until about 2050.
Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732.
Relevance: Most of the effects of the actions we take today – good or bad — have repercussions for extremely long periods of time. This reminds us of what Thomas Jefferson famously said, “It is incumbent upon every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.” Not to moralize, but I think he nailed something there.
Frequent commenter MarcoPolo writes:
Craig, EREVs (extended range electric vehicles), are not simply ‘Plug-in hybrids’. The GM Volt is an astonishing example of US engineering, and advanced technology. All Americans should feel proud of the GM Volt.
I have to admit that it’s a cool idea, and I’m glad that GM appears to be onboard with a migration, albeit a slow one, away from oil. But I do believe that the EREV (as they call it) will be a short-lived concept that will have little bearing on the future of transportation.
Btw, the difference between the terms “extended range electric vehicle” (EREV) and “plug-in hybrid” is semantics. In fact, I recall thinking when I saw that GM had coined the phrase EREV in an attempt to differentiate the Volt from the other plug-in hybrids, “Now that’s marketing at its finest.” All such vehicles have batteries that provide a given range, and internal combustion engines (ICEs) that extend that range. Yes, there are variations on the theme as to what precisely the ICE does (charge the battery? power the car? both?) But we’re really talking about a single concept.
In a recent post about the wonderful book Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et. al., I lamented that there is no governing body with the power to do anything about the world energy policy and the overall sustainability of the planet.
If there were such a governing body, it seems obvious that the one action that should sit at the absolute top of the list of priorities is education – especially of females. Educated women don’t have 12 children. In fact, spending on women is generally a good idea. As a friend of mine says, “When you spend on men, you wind up with more Vespas and beer; when you spend on women, you get tighter, better educated, and smaller families. It’s something of a no-brainer.”
I’m reading Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et. al. and learning all about the computer models these folks have used to predict the consequences of things like exponential population growth on a planet with finite resources. This is brilliant work, and wonderfully thought provoking, but I wonder about its practical application. After all, the world doesn’t have a governing body that will take a certain set of actions according to the output of the model.
Our scientists tell us in no uncertain terms the consequences of what we’re doing with greenhouse gasses, but we come home from our climate change meetings with no agreements to lift a finger to do anything about this. China is building a new coal-fired power plant at the rate of one a week. The best computer model in the world is no match for a large powerful government with an army of 200 million soldiers that is determined to build 50 new electrical plants next year.
Here’s another in our continuing series of free reports based on the reader surveys we do here at 2GreenEnergy. Those of us who are wondering what life on Earth will be like in 10 or 20 years will want to grab this 17-pager on our planet’s overall sustainability: http://2greenenergy.com/jan-survey-report/
Will the global economy recover after the resolution of the U.S. recession, the European debt crisis, and other immediate woes?
Will technological innovation outpace population growth, the depletion of resources, and man’s impact on the natural environment?
Will mankind gain a better understanding of the impact it’s made on the natural environment, raising awareness of our need to reduce, re-use, and recycle, and driving innovation in clean tech?
Will we enter a sustained period of negative economic growth, created by our civilization’s having “hit the wall” with respect to scarcities in energy, water, and food?
Again, here’s the report: http://2greenenergy.com/jan-survey-report/. I hope you enjoy it.
Here’s a wonderful video that explains the multiple drivetrains at work in the Chevy Volt. A couple of immediate impressions:
1) No wonder the price on this sucker is $41K, with all that going on. The bill of materials (costs of the individual components) must be enough to choke a horse. And the non-recurring engineering costs must have been staggering.
2) This further amplifies my belief that plug-in hybrids really are not the answer to transportation. It’s like using an elephant gun to kill mice. Electric transportation will succeed when we get the price, energy density, and power density of batteries into an acceptable range – and, of course, when we can get enough renewable energy on the grid that we’re not charging them with coal.
So when will this happen? The question is political will. If we rely 100% on market forces, especially while we continue to subsidize fossil fuels, it could be A Long Way to Tipperary.
I hope everyone gets the opportunity to catch this episode of Frontline on PBS: Nuclear Aftershocks — one that essentially claims that nuclear energy is both unacceptably dangerous but completely necessary. I’m reminded of the way Amory Lovins begins his current-day presentations: “Which would you rather die from? Nuclear holocaust, drowning from rising sea levels, respiratory disease, or terrorist attacks and social chaos from the demand for increasingly scarce oil?” I have to admit; it’s a great way to capture an audience’s attention.
“Aftershocks” did a great deal to explore the dangers of nuclear energy (more…)
It’s hard to know what will come of Warren Buffett’s plea for a more just approach to taxation here in the U.S. He certainly did grab the world’s attention a few years ago in his now-famous “Tax Me!” op-ed, in which he pointed out that his own effective federal tax rate was about 17 percent, as contrasted to that of his secretary, which was about 30 percent. To his credit, he made many millions of us aware of the fact tax breaks allow the richest Americans to avoid paying their fair share of personal income tax.
While we’re watching the action in Washington, D.C., here’s a report on corporate tax-payers and tax-dodgers that you may find interesting.
