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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Though summer might be rounding out its last few weeks of insufferable heat, it’s still a perfect time to examine how energy consumption stacks up in the hottest months of the year. Check out this infographic to see how the dog days of summer compare to the energy consumption in every season. It should come as no surprise that cooling costs cause a spike in the average energy bill, leaving consumers to pay dearly for the sweet relief of a little air conditioning. But, extreme heat isn’t the only thing threatening the pocketbooks of Americans. Read on to find out what the data revealed! (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Plato (pictured here with Athena, goddess of wisdom,  looking over him) is supposed to have said:  The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. This, of course, is why it makes our skin crawl when we see people so remarkably uninvolved in the world around them.

There was never an “easy” time in human history, where civilization was on a kind of auto-pilot and the public welfare made progress on its own; the success of humankind as a wise, kind, and ultimately thriving species has always been in doubt.  But the stakes are so much higher now than in any time in history, with the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue states, the steady march of climate change and ocean acidification, the curtailment of civil liberties, and the dozens of other threats to our survival – all of which have greatly upped the ante.

I hope you’ll join me in urging people – especially young people — to get involved.  Our civilization faces huge challenges, and they won’t take care of themselves.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

There are a number of reasons that I wanted to share this video on Boulder, Colorado and its citizens’ attempts to internalize (“municipalize” as they say) the generation of its electrical energy.  First, it’s the style of video whose quality I believe I can make with resources within a few orders of magnitude of my own.  It’s not Steven Spielberg; it’s not Ken Burns; it’s something I feel that a few friends and I can produce – and I’d really like to do projects like this at a certain point.

I hope you’ll agree that with a modest budget, these people have told a story of amazing warmth, passion … and drama.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I have to admit that tension really is brewing between the power utilities and the solar industry – at least the part of it that promotes distributed (e.g., rooftop) generation (DG).   Yet it’s hard for me to understand all this bad blood.  The utilities are doing exactly what we asked them to do: generate and distribute low-cost electricity in a super-reliable fashion – and DG undeniably represents a threat to that objective.  How surprised can we be that a powerful force is antipathetic to a live and growing challenge?

Maybe it’s time to reframe our utilities’ mission.  When we had this conversation in the early 20th Century, we didn’t care where the power came from.  Now we do.  We didn’t need or want incentives to consume less electricity.  Again, now we do.  Let’s be wise enough to build those concerns into a new generation of laws by which our utilities are regulated — and the tensions will disappear instantly.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Taxis seem to be among the worst possible applications for electric vehicles, since they’re constantly on the go, with no defined routes, thus range and charging times represent huge issues.  (The exception here, of course, is taxis that are based at airports, and can charge, perhaps inductively, while in queue – though this requires an investment in infrastructure that exists nowhere on Earth at this time.) Apparently, none of this mattered to the government of Bogata, Columbia in their decision to bring in the BYD e6 as a replacement for internal combustion engines. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Linked below is a strange little article sent to me by frequent commenter Tim Kingston, who notes:  “Thought this might interest you.  The energy universe can be complex.  Sometimes there no easy choices.”  The article’s point is that the world of electricity without nuclear is, in a word, expensive.

Thanks, Tim.  What you say is true: the world of energy requires us to make tough choices.  But the concept that nuclear is inexpensive is completely erroneous.

The actual cost of building these plants is almost never anywhere near the projected budget.  Readers may want to Google “nuclear plant cost overrun,” and read a few of the 312,000 articles they’ll find on the subject. Here’s one that refers to a certain nuclear project as “satanic,” based on the actual amount of the overrun ($6.66 billion). The Florida utility, FPL Group, now estimates the cost of building a new nuclear power plant at over $9 billion, nearly double their previous estimate.

We need to also keep in mind that the nuclear industry and its lobbies have carefully confused us about the costs of shipping and storing nuclear waste, which remains dangerous for as long as one million years.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

There is an assumption that buying a green, low emissions or even an electric car produces the lightest carbon footprint. But studies reveal that the manufacture of all cars, even green or electric ones makes up a huge chunk of their total emissions and that keeping and caring for the same car for decades instead of buying new is often the more sustainable route.

Hybrid, electric or old car?

I recently contacted the Environmental Transport Agency who told me that: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Ocean Thermal

I like a good Labor Day weekend barbecue as much as the next guy,  but I’m also very fond of remaining productive – which is why I’m happy to be able to meet my colleague Jim Greenberg, Chief Marketing Officer of Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation for dinner tonight while he happens to be out on the West Coast.  We’ll be meeting at one of my favorite restaurants, Le Café Stella in Santa Barbara, and discussing one of my favorite topics: driving interest in renewable energy — OTEC in particular.  Beats hot dogs and beer anytime.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Profound thanks to Iban Etxeberria, Rebecca McKenzie, and Chelsea Dowell for their fantastic contributions to 2GreenEnergy and its sister site SustainabilityRoleModels.org.

Iban just left yesterday, returning to his home in Basque Country, after spending the summer here in the U.S.  We’ll miss you.

Rebecca lives in Columbia, and is producing fantastic work.

Chelsea (pictured here) is on loan from the University of Central Florida. Go Knights!

Again, please accept my deepest thanks.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

For 25 years, I made my living as a marketing consultant to the Fortune-sized tech and industrial companies: IBM, HP, FedEx, Sony, etc.  My company, Mueller/Shields, had a few defining characteristics in its approach that we tried to make a part of our brand, one of which was developing a profound understanding of the “hot buttons” of the customer base.  What caused people to be interested in a certain subject?  What were their aspirations?  Their fears? Their unmet needs?

My current career in renewable energy has an important commonality, namely, that customer audiences still react to marketing messages if and only if those messages are aligned with their hot-buttons.  And here’s a great example, from my colleague Jesse Berst of SmartGridNews writing about an initiative in Pennsylvania that would deploy smart meters to a customer base that may be skeptical of the cost/benefits: (more…)

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