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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

True to form, Glenn Doty writes a thorough and quite helpful comment on my piece about measuring the increase in the use of renewable energy.  He closes with two ideas on which I would like to comment in return:

1) Of course, natural gas is far better than coal, and slightly worse than nuclear.

Personally, I think it’s impossible to put nuclear on a scale of “goodness” or “badness,” because we are incapable of knowing its implications to our health and safety.  I’ll go out on a limb here and guess you haven’t polled the people living around Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. And what might the future bring? More operational disasters? Catastrophes with handling nuclear waste? Rogue states with small dirty nuclear weapons? It’s impossible to predict, but it can’t be good.

2) At least coal power is plummeting. That’s good any way you wish to calculate anything.

Amen, my friend.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

A friend asks:

Out of curiosity, did you ever hear of Mike Strizky and his purely hydrogen powered house in Hopewell, NJ?

No, that’s cool.  Actually, of course, the power is coming from the solar PV; it’s stored in the hydrogen.  Personally, I’m not too great a fan of hydrogen.  I think that batteries will soon prove affordable, especially as the scale at which they’ll be used in electric transportation and utility-scale storage will drive further cost reductions.  I hasten to add that not everyone agrees with me on this.

Hydrogen fuel cells have significant efficiency limits that (I believe) are impossible to cross, since the migration of the ion through the electrolyte produces heat.

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Question: Are there cases in human history in which changes made in environmental regulation have made a dramatic and measurable positive difference?

Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732.

Relevance: Perhaps too many believe that man’s continuing assault against the natural environment is a given, and that attempts to correct this are hopeless.  That’s certainly not the case.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It’s the birthday author Paul Theroux who said: “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, and travelers don’t know where they’re going.”

If I may be permitted a liberty here, I would say that perhaps there’s an analogy here to where we’re going with respect to the environment. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

Here’s a continuation in our series of videos made for young people and newcomers to the subject who may benefit from an introduction to certain of the renewable energy technologies.  This piece, less than five minutes in length, is a primer on hydrokenetics, i.e., extracting energy from moving water.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76e8voDgI6U]

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

EVWorld has a wonderfully encouraging article on renewables that begins:

Pop quiz time. The fastest growing energy sector in terms of percentage of growth in the United States between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2011 was: A) natural gas, B) nuclear power, C) renewable energy?

The answer is C, renewable energy (RE) by a huge margin. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), RE grew by 27.12%. That includes biofuels, biomass, geothermal, solar, water, and wind. By comparison, natural gas production increased 13.66%, while crude oil grew 14.27%. Nuclear power, in contrast, shrunk 1.99% and coal dropped 7.16%.

All true, but one can find different facts that would support a different conclusion.  E.g., under 5% of the U.S. grid mix is renewable energy (if you don’t count hydroelectric dams), so talking about percent growth of this small number may not be the most relevant stat.  

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

EVWorld covered the electric vehicle start-up Coda in its weekly newsletter, pointing out that the car lacks certain features that are standard in other EVs.

The fact that Coda is still around amazes me.  Coda offers a “consumer value proposition” from hell (and it’s this concept that I believe to be at the forefront of the entire EV adoption curve).  Here, you have an expensive, unattractive, low-quality car sold by a company whose continued existence (required if its warranty is to have any value) is at best questionable.

I simply can’t imagine who’s going to find that appealing.

If that company succeeds, it will show that I really have no idea what I’m talking about in this space, so you’ll want to discount every word I say. 🙂

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Question: How many industrial chemicals are in use right now?

Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732.

Relevance: Every day, we introduce 3 – 5 new chemicals, less than 1% of which are tested for toxicity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s a short video in which I interview Tower Harvest CEO Rafael Quezada on the subject of aeroponics, a unique approach and capability re: growing produce organically, with a very minimum of space. This is a technology that can have a hugely positive impact on the coming global food shortage.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rVi2Bpcfas&w=500&h=369]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rVi2Bpcfas&w=420&h=315]

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

We all hope that the investments we make grow over time — figuratively speaking — i.e., the asset value grows. In this short video, I discuss an investment opportunity that literally grows: your own grove of teak trees. I look at it as the ultimate in socially responsible investing (SRI).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj9gfTUCqic]

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