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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Geothermal

PART ONE 

General Principles

Traditional Geothermal

Geothermal technology and GeoExchange technology are often confused with one another in the mind of the public. This confusion is understandable as the term ‘Geothermal’ is often applied to both technologies – even by industry practitioners.

‘True’ Geothermal, also referred to as ‘hot rocks’, can be characterized as seeking a source of high – temperature heat from within the Earth with the goals of either producing electricity or providing space heating. Super-heated water or steam from Earth’s interior can be utilized to run turbines in a conventional power plant to generate electricity. Technologies currently in use include dry steam power plants, flash steam power plants and binary cycle power plants. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in approximately 24 countries around the world. Geothermal space-heating involves harnessing a source of heat, most commonly hot springs, and distributing that source water to buildings via a piping network employing heat exchangers. Geothermal heating is globally in use in approximately 70 countries.
Geothermal power is considered to be sustainable because the heat extraction is minimal compared with the Earth’s heat content. The emission intensity of existing geothermal electric plants is on average approximately 122 kg of CO2 per megawatt-hour (MW/h) of electricity – approximately one-eighth that of a conventional coal-fired plant.

GeoExchange

In contrast (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Sungevity, based in California and known for its home solar products and services, recently announced its international launch into Holland.  While Sungevity has expanded across the U.S. into various states, this will be the first time it is crossing abroad. In fact, Sungevity is the first United States-based home solar company to expand internationally. This great news for the home solar industry, environmental enthusiasts, and those looking to save money on their electric bill. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Frequent commenter and all-around smart guy Frank Eggers points out that there has been no discussion of liquid fluoride thorium reactors here at 2GreenEnergy.  He’s absolutely right, and I propose we attempt to rectify this.

Personally, I don’t know what to make of thorium.  The brilliantly made two-hour-long video linked above is quite compelling, in that the main presenter, Kirk Sorensen is a super-articulate spokesperson for the technology.   Of course, I can find articulate spokespeople for all types of yo-yo stuff.  Having said that, I learned a great deal from the video, and again, I invite conversation.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Question: How cheaply can we generate electricity if we don’t care what we do to the planet in the process?

Answer: Can be found at here:

Relevance: A friend told me about his trip to Inner Mongolia (see photo linked below), and said he’d never been happier to get out of anywhere. He explained that because of the density of the coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities, you couldn’t see a mile in any direction, even on the clearest day. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

At the rate of a few times a week I’m asked about global climate change, and I provide a brief summary, including the concept:

This is complicated. No one knows exactly how changes in the constitution of our atmosphere will affect global temperatures and weather conditions. I can tell you a couple of things for certain, though: 1) Special interests are working overtime to paint this picture in their favor. 2) The vast majority of climate scientists warn us that this is a very large and serious threat. 3) If there is a problem, as these people almost uniformly tell us, it’s going to be a runaway train, i.e., something that will be much harder to fix later than it would be now. 4) Prudent people buy insurance to protect themselves against devastating events — even if those events are of low probability; they don’t need to be certain they will have a house fire to buy fire insurance. The analogy here is very strong.  

As of today, however, I tell them one other thing: Take 12 minutes out of your life and watch the late climatologist and Stanford professor Stephen Schneider’s video on YouTube.  I wish there were a way to get everyone on Earth to check this out.   

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

As solar companies strive to provide consumers with the sun’s renewable energy, they too are doing their part to help those in need. Many U.S. solar companies have reached out to the third world in effort to provide them with solar equipment that will help improve lives on the daily, from lighting schools, to power communication equipment. Countless rural towns throughout Africa do not have direct access to a power grid because of the sheer cost to transport the electricity over far distances. However, solar companies are changing this. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The adoption curve for electric vehicles is largely based on consumer attitude for the subject, which itself is for the most part formed by word of mouth: what people hear from others, and what they see around them. It is for that reason that I take great delight when I see news of large corporate fleets switching to electric transportation. Frito-Lay is the 7th largest fleet in the U.S., and will soon be deploying 176 electric delivery trucks in Orlando, FL. Good stuff.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I was in a four-hour-long meeting this morning, learning about a new approach to energy storage. I can’t talk about the technology (which, frankly, I think is sketchy) but that’s not the point.

The point is this: I sat at a table with a bunch of smart people from the technology firm, as well as representatives from a private equity company (my client) that’s interested in investing, and all of a sudden, in the chat that ensued during a five-minute break, it became clear that certain of these people think of themselves as environmentalists, and certain others distinctly do not.

I thought hard: What’s the mindset of a person who thinks of himself as a “non-environmentalist?” Is there some downside that I’m not seeing to caring about the health of our planet? Are there people who favor toxicity or an end to biodiversity? Is there a legitimate approach to our lives here that has no responsibility for the welfare of future generations?

Then the icing on the cake: I came to learn that some of these “non-environmentalists” have grandchildren.  Sorry, I’m lost.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s Sting’s “Fields of Gold” – certainly one of the most powerfully moving pieces of music ever composed. And here’s what someone wrote about it on YouTube: “I heard this song in the hospital when I was there because I was suicidal. It was the most internally touching moment of my life. This song is my freedom song.”

For a moment, try to imagine how good it would feel to have such a positive effect on another’s life. We live in a world of sorrow, but it’s a world of beauty and possibility too.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized, Wind Energy


According to Bloomberg, New Energy Finance, improved efficiencies and declining costs will make the average wind farm cost-competitive with coal, gas, and nuclear by 2016 (the best ones already are there). According to Justin Wu, the firm’s lead wind analyst:

The press is reacting to the recent price drops in solar equipment as though they are the result of temporary oversupply or of a trade war. This masks what is really going on: a long-term, consistent drop in clean energy technology costs, resulting from decades of hard work by tens of thousands of researchers, engineers, technicians and people in operations and procurement. And it is not going to stop: In the next few years the mainstream world is going to wake up to wind cheaper than gas, and rooftop solar power cheaper than daytime electricity. Add in the same sort of deep long-term price drops for power storage, demand management, LED lighting and so on – and we are clearly talking about a whole new game.

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