Blog – Page 1589 – 2GreenEnergy.com

Check out Panamanian Waste-To-Energy Project

craigshieldsPosted on March 19, 2014 Posted in Biomass

Of all the clean energy investment opportunities I’ve come across in the last year, I have to put this in my top two or three. It’s a project that will generate electricity from a municipal solid waste site (one plant initially, with two more to follow soon) in Panama. To those who follow this blog closely, this may not sound like something new, since it’s certainly not the first WTE project that has gotten me excited. But check this out:

According to Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers, both of which have crunched the numbers, each plant will operate at approximately 50% profit margins, and produce EBITDA of $26 million annually. Best of all, the key–and most challenging– elements to build the facility are already in place; at this point the group needs a small bridge loan to push it across the goal line, in exchange for which they’re offering a huge, extremely generous chunk of equity. (more…)

Tagged with: gasification technology, Panama, power purchase agreement, PPA, waste-to-electricity plant

Grid-Scale Energy Storage from Batteries – Soon To Be Economically Viable

craigshieldsPosted on March 19, 2014 Posted in Energy Storage

A happy consequence of humankind’s progress in energy technology is that all the major components associated with the generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption of energy are improving simultaneously. Here at 2GreenEnergy, we tend to talk mainly about generation, perhaps because it’s the sexiest of the four, but generation alone will only get us so far in terms of reducing the environmental damage associated with providing power to a civilization that is soon to exceed nine billion people. (more…)

Tagged with: Batteries Economically Viable, energy storage, environmental damage providing power to civilization, grid-scale energy storage, peaker plants, progress in energy technology

Environmentalism and the Future of Humankind

craigshieldsPosted on March 19, 2014 Posted in Sustainability

You and I have a great number of features in common, one of which is obvious: neither of us wants to die. But, though we try to keep the thought of death out of our immediate consciousness, in the back of our minds, the question is quite present for both of us — and for anyone with an IQ greater than that of a stalk of celery: How much longer will we be on this planet?

For us environmentalists, the question has an additional dimension: (more…)

Tagged with: environmentalists, long-term ecological damage, Mario Feninger plays one of Chopin’s 24 etudes

Hiking in Solar Photovoltaics Territory

craigshieldsPosted on March 18, 2014 Posted in Photovoltaics

Sundays are normally hiking day for me. Last weekend, a friend and I walked from our little town (Santa Ynez, CA) over the mountains to the south of us and down to the beach, a total of 10.8 miles, with a decent (~1200 foot) altitude gain.

The point? As I captured here with my phone, (more…)

Tagged with: solar energy, solar panels, solar photovoltaics, solar power

Terrorism Threats Militate Toward Distributed Generation

craigshieldsPosted on March 18, 2014 Posted in Renewables - Politics

Much has been written about the recent Wall Street Journal article asserting that the U.S. grid is vulnerable to a terrorist attack which could have a crippling and long-lasting (18-month) effect.

This, of course, is another good reason to push our energy infrastructure away from the centralized utility model, and more in the direction of distributed generation in the form of rooftop solar, mid-sized wind, run-of-river hydro, biomass, and, to the degree to which it’s feasible, geothermal.

Tagged with: centralized utility model, distributed generation, mid-sized wind, rooftop solar, run-of-river hydro, Wall Street Journal U.S. grid vulnerable to terrorist attack

Do Wind Turbines Affect Human Health?

craigshieldsPosted on March 18, 2014 Posted in Wind Energy

A colleague sent me this piece from New York Magazine on the so-called “wind-turbine syndrome,” a name given to the health effects that some people say are caused by living close to wind farms. This syndrome is not accepted by scientists and doctors, and my colleague, a practicing psychologist, notes: “The psychology of fulfilling the prophesy, i.e., getting the symptoms after reading about them, is so true.”

In any case, this is a terrific article on the subject.

Tagged with: New York Magazine, Wind Turbine Syndrome, Wind Turbines Affect Human Health

Educating Our Children About the Coal Industry and Mountaintop Removal

craigshieldsPosted on March 17, 2014 Posted in Fossil Fuels

We have choices to make in the books we read to our young children, and it’s interesting to see how these options have developed and changed over time. Many of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales and dozens of other stories that were published in the 19th Century are generally considered unnecessarily gruesome by today’s standards, and have come to be replaced by lighter, more uplifting writing that has become popular since. (more…)

Tagged with: clean renewable energy, illustrated book on coal-fired power plants and mountaintop removal, Koch brothers, peaceful but rapid migration to green energy

Cleantech Appeals To Real Patriots

craigshieldsPosted on March 17, 2014 Posted in Electric Vehicles

When I speak on the subject of renewable energy or sustainability more generally, I normally mention that making an investment in cleantech is among the most patriotic things that an American can do. In particular, clean energy will be the defining industry in the 21st Century, and it hurts to see the U.S. sitting on the sidelines while China and dozens of other countries go roaring past us in the market space. And even more important are the national security issues that include the costs, both financial and human, of running the world’s largest military, held in place largely to assure access to oil.

That’s why it’s so painful to see regressive steps (more…)

Tagged with: clean energy defining industry in the 21st Century, Cleantech Appeals To Patriots, Electric Vehicles, New Jersey’s ban on Tesla Motors, Tesla’s Sales Model

Trend Toward Energy Efficiency and Conservation

craigshieldsPosted on March 16, 2014 Posted in Efficiency

Senior energy analyst and frequent 2GreenEnergy commenter Glenn Doty wrote something the other day that I find interesting:

….The thing is, our end-use electric consumption is likely never going to decrease. We’ve more or less stopped the rapid increase in our nation’s energy consumption through improvements in efficiency, but every time someone better insulates their house, or switches from incandescent light bulbs to CFL’s (or still rarely LED’s), someone else upgrades their TV to a 90″ plasma monster TV, or just moves to a McMansion. (more…)

Tagged with: energy consumption, environmentalism, improvements in efficiency

Hot Interview on the History of Solar Energy

craigshieldsPosted on March 15, 2014 Posted in Photovoltaics

I’m looking forward to Monday afternoon, when, at 2 PM, I’ll be interviewing John Perlin, author of the definitive treatise on the history of solar energy, “Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy in a Nutshell.”

Lester Brown, Founder of Worldwatch Institute, says, “Let It Shine is the solar bible.”

“John Perlin is the historian of solar energy,” says Daniel Yergin, a guy who knows more than a little bit about energy on this planet.

I haven’t added too much to the 2GreenEnergy YouTube channel recently, and this should give me tons of material for a series of short videos that I can put online. Should be a great afternoon.

Tagged with: Daniel Yergin, History of Solar Energy, John Perlin, Lester Brown Founder of Worldwatch Institute, Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy in a Nutshell