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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketAs I have often written, cleaning up government is integral to success in the migration to renewables.  Big Energy routinely spends millions of dollars influencing legislation that will protect itself from the incursion of new technologies that will disrupt their profit stream. And in an effort to comprehend the enormity of the task in front of all us in government reform, I ask you to watch a video: a session of the House Government Reform Committee.

At first clance, this may appear a bit off topic. Why concern ourselves with the corruption from Big Pharma? Well, to me, it’s just another way of coming face to face with corporatocracy and the corruption it brings: how powerful and evil it is, and ultimately, how difficult it will be to eradicate.

Here we have the pharmaceutical industry paying off one or more representatives to insert favorable, protective language in a bill that has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals at all and — best of all — must be passed on an emergency basis and therefore cannot be reread in its final form before the vote that will pass it into law. Here is all the protection Big Pharma will need from their malfeasance in profiting from faulty, dangerous vaccinations, inserted at the last minute, in the middle of the night, immediately before congress approves the Homeland Security Act. Now millions of families with brain damaged kids will be denied the recourse to which they would have been entitled, because of the brazen criminality of the pharmaceutical industry.

I think the most common reaction to the video is anger. But when you’ve calmed down, ask yourself: what’s the magnitude of the task in front of us in cleaning this up? What will it take to rid ourselves of a system that has become so rotten, so brutally indifferent to the rules of fair play and decency, so cold in the face of the human suffering it leaves in its wake?  Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

PhotobucketInterest in the hydrokinetically-powered electric generator (HyPEG) is really heating up. I had numerous calls with potential investors late last week that show real promise.

Also, for the book on renewables that I hope to have published in January, I’ll be interviewing Dr. Brian L. Polagye, in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. A colleague referred to him as “the nation’s leading researcher on hydrokinetic energy.” As I wrote back, I’m truly honored to have the good fortune for a conversation with a man of that stature; what a learning opportunity this will be.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketThere are so many exciting things happening here at 2GreenEnergy that it’s hard to know where to start. I’ve been asked to attend the Business of Plugging In conference in Detroit October 19 – 21. And although I loved the AltCarExpo in Santa Monica last week, I have to say that this one coming up is probably more strategic to our cause, given its business-to-business focus.

Though I won’t be speaking at the conference, I’ll be there with my characteristic notepad and business cards — connecting to as many people, and learning about as may new technologies and business models as possible. If anyone wants to get me a heads up on someone or something that I should be particularly alert to, I hope you’ll let me know.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In this post (the blog’s 100th, btw) I offer a video that I put together on the politics of renewables.  I hope you enjoy it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V9vAu4oqI0&w=425&h=344]

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketAeroVironment, or “AV” as it’s more commonly called, is a company best known as the dream of the late Dr. Paul MacCready. A visionary environmentalist and aeronautical engineer, Dr. MacCready drove the development of human-powered aircraft and an array of other fantastic inventions that defied our existing belief systems.  And though AV generates the bulk of its revenues from unmanned aircraft that it sells to the US Department of Defense for reconnaissance, company spokesperson Kristen Helsel was kind enough to speak with me about another of AV’s primary lines of business – one that is more relevant to the interests of most 2GreenEnergy readers: promoting the migration to electric vehicles. AV is, as far as I can tell, the world’s most experienced organization in the development of EV charging stations.

For readers who may not have taken time to consider the subject, here are a few basic concepts:

Chargers: The motto of EV advocacy group Plug-In America (which I like to tell people all the time) is “Unplug your toaster and plug in your car.” It’s almost that simple, but not quite. Though most people park their cars at night within close proximity of electrical power, they need a simple device that safely and conveniently connects their car to their house’s or apartment’s wiring. This charger ensures your batteries are getting the right amount of current for the right period of time.

Basic physics: Energy = voltage X current X time. At 110 volts at a given current, you need twice as much time to deliver a full battery charge as you do at 220 volts.

Level 1, 2 and 3 chargers: Simply, Level 1 chargers work off 110 volts and perhaps 15 amperes, delivering roughly the same amount of power as a space heater. At this power level, 8 – 30 hours is required to deliver a full charge. Level 2 might be 220 volts and 30 amps, and would get the same job done in about one-quarter of the time. Level 3 chargers at quick-charging stations (not something you would have at home) might be 480 volts and 400 amps, and would charge a car in just a matter of minutes.

Here’s a quick transcript of the talk:

Craig Shields: If you would, please tell me about the vision. Where is AV going with this?

Kristen Helsel: We enable the practical adoption of EVs. We tailor the product to the needs of different types of customers. We started out with standard Level 2 chargers, but we quickly realized that different types of people would want various types and numbers of bells and whistles. Someone may want a charger that communicates information in real-time to the owner and to the utility; others may just want to charge their car.

CS: I can see where that level of diversity would be an advantage, but it must take some serious work to manage the development and distribution of all those products.

KH: Yes, but this is a true paradigm shift, and our goal is to make it as easy as possible.

CS: What would you say would be a good example of that?

KH: Well, here’s a simple one: make it obvious when the car is charging and when it isn’t. When you fuel your car today, you know when the gas is flowing. The new experience should mirror the old experience in every way possible. And the product should look great, and it should be a joy to use – like the iPhone. People should love it. Charging should be a positive and re-enforcing experience.

CS: Gosh, this really does sound like an important role you’re playing.

KH: I think so, too. The world has reached a critical point with respect to energy independence, and this time we introduce EVs, it’s going to work. Sure the OEMs have to build the cars. But consumers have to want them. That’s where we come in.

CS:  Thanks so much for your time, Kristen.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketI just came back from a walk around the ranch, disappointed at the condition of the 12 acres of pasture that had been so difficult and expensive to prepare when we expanded my wife’s horse breeding business a few years ago. We had used tractors to harrow the soil, removed (by my calculation) over 300,000 rocks, planted grass, and tried to keep it irrigated, mowed, and fertilized. But a few short years later, with the help of horses grazing and cavorting all over it, there are bald spots and erosions — not to mention gopher holes and weeds.  In short, entropy – the tendency of the universe towards disorder — is trying to take it back where it was before we started.

To me, it was a reminder of a couple of things.  1) When man makes an adjustment to a naturally balanced system for his own pleasure, that system is very likely to react in ways he couldn’t have foreseen.  2) As suggested above, the system ultimately rejects the order and structure that was imposed and returns to its former more chaotic state.

Think of how recently it was in terms of earth’s history that man’s greed led to systemic human behavior that aggressively exploited nature. And then realize that, in that exact period of time, we have skyrocketing rates of cancer, never-ending wars, AIDS, and a billion people who can’t get a drink of clean water.  We have genocides, widespread drug abuse, Ponzi schemes of unprecedented proportion, campus shootings and suicides, financial collapse, deepening droughts and famines, and increasingly severe hurricanes.

It’s almost as if this earth is trying to expel us — rather like a landlord evicts bad tenants.

As far as I’m concerned, there is only one way through this: to become good tenants once again. And the rent isn’t cheap: it means restraining growth; it means making sacrifices; it means taking care of one another; it means understanding that future generations have the same rights to a rich and verdant planet that we do. But I think we’ve all seen that the landlord here is most unhappy with us, and isn’t likely to put up with our behavior too much longer. I wish I could reach out to the world and make a deal: I’ll pay my share of the rent if you pay yours.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

PhotobucketTo my utter astonishment, we in the US and Europe are begieged with renewed interest in hydrogen. I urge readers to arrive at their own understanding of the merits of hydrogen as a carrier of energy. But for those who may be unwilling to go through the process and are looking for a readers’ digest version, here are three simple data points (as usual: the science, the business, and the politics) that clarify what I think everyone ought to know about hydrogen.

The science: Hydrogen in its pure form is rare, because it combines so readily with other substances, releasing energy in the process.  It can be burned (combining it with oxygen to form water) or used in a fuel cell, (i.e., pulling the electron off and moving it through a separate electrical path from its proton, again, ultimately combining with oxygen). But energy is required to create this pure hydrogen such that we can then harvest useful work from these processes. And the mechanisms by which hydrogen is generated (e.g., electrolysis) and then the energy is gathered from burning or fuel cells are three times less efficient than the standard mechanisms by which electrical energy is generated, stored in batteries, and then converted back into useful work through electric motors.

The business: It is true that civilization will face issues in building out the electrical grid to provide ultimately a complete network of convenient and safe charging stations for electric vehicles. But the electrical grid has a 130-year headstart on whatever delivery mechanism is proposed to serve up hydrogen over the enormity (3.5+ million squares miles) of a place like the United States. In addition to being far more efficient, electrical energy is already available in the vast majority of homes and work places.

The politics: In my opinion, the idea that we should take an inefficient carrier of energy and use to to create “hydrogen highways” could only have come from someone who really doesn’t want alternative fuels ever to see the light of day, and is disguising this malice in a not-too-clever way.  And those of you who have seen “Who Killed The Electric Car” will recognize that this is hardly an original idea. 

Not too long ago, it appeared that the powers of reason and decency had made their case effectively, and this distraction had been shelved; in fact, Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s DoE defunded hydrogen at the federal level earlier this year. But it’s back with a vengeance. For example, California, while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, is subsidizing the hydrogen highway with public funds.

And ask yourself why this is happening, and who will be delivering this hydrogen (assuming it ever happens). ExxonMobil and Chevron. Hey, guys: You make $10 billion in profit each quarter. If you really want this to happen, do you mind paying for it yourselves? How dare you ask the taxpayers to pay for this folly, when you and only you will profit from it — on the off chance that it ever happens?

There you have it, the 1-2-3 of hydrogen energy.  If only it were that easy to make it go away.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketAs I’ve noted in numerous posts, it is clear to me that the political aspects of renewable energy are far more important than the science in actually making this happen. I just had a phone conversation with a friend in which I discussed how my viewpoint on the subject has changed over time. Photobucket15 years ago, I was a libertarian: I saw nothing but corruption in government, and I didn’t see many activities that the private sector couldn’t perform better and more efficiently than the public sector. I remember taking my five-year-old son to the polls. He sat on my shoulders, looking down as I voted, announcing to the room, “Libertarian! Libertarian! Libertarian!” I hated to curb his enthusiasm for the democratic process, but I had to give him a big “shhh!”

But look around you.  The government has probably not gotten any less corrupt.  But if we don’t have some power that is forceful enough and honest enough to rein in corporate malfeasance and greed, it’s very clear where we’re going. Do you think Chevron will voluntarily stop pumping oil until the last drop is sucked out of the earth? Do you think BP is going to leave a trillion barrels of profit down there unless they’re forced to? It’s just simply not going to happen.

I know we’re all worried about moving in the direction of socialism – a concern that I share. But, like most things in life, it’s just not that easy — regardless of what Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck tell us. Unless one has the same lack of regard for the health and safety of the 6.8 billion people who live on this planet as the oil companies most obviously do, it’s clear:  we need a solution that looks beyond unbridled free-market capitalism.

Readers of this blog – and all others who are trying to pay attention — are reminded of this pickle several times a day. And we who are enjoying the PBS special on the National Parks are realizing that the reckless over-industrialization of America is a traditional that has continued unabated since the 19th century.

But can’t we see the reason? For every John Muir, who, for whatever reason, was not that enamored of money, there were thousands of people who didn’t see it that way, and either led the charge for industrialization, or profited from it less directly and looked the other way at the human and environmental devastation it wreaked. Then, as now, there was no equalizing force, restraining the greed of powerful, ruthless people.

Again, we need a solution. May we work together to find one.  As always, I welcome comments.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketFrequent contributor Sonny Carri wrote a long and eloquent comment about the coal industry, which I summarize here:

Let’s work to get them on board, not be an adversary. Change requires coming together, not schism.

Very thoughtful stuff as always, Sonny.  In response, let me say that I honestly don’t see change without push-back; I see entrenched interests that are braced for the fight of a lifetime, and I doubt there is any sincere interest in “coming together” whatsoever.  It’s funny you mention this, as we’ve had numerous internal discussions about not positioning the HyPEG as a replacement for coal, so as not to create any more enmity than possible.  After going ’round and ’round on the subject, I just don’t see this.  It’s not that I’m a combative person by nature; I’m not. It’s just this:  The coal industry may be evil (or whatever you would call “profits first, people a distant second”), but they’re most definitely not idiots.  In fact, big energy has hired some of the brightest minds on the planet — and guess whom they’re gunning for?  

As I may have told you, I moderated a panel at the AltCarExpo out here in CA, and I stayed on the floor both days, talking ultimately with hundreds of people.  Most telling to me were conversations I had with expatriated Europeans about electric vehicles, several of whom told me, “Sorry, not for me.  As long as your power here in the US is so heavily rooted in coal — and even worse, nuclear — EVs really aren’t green at all.”  Now that’s not completely correct, but it sure does show the difference between the Europeans — who are working hard to clean up the energy business — and us in the US, who, while we may we working hard, have yet to make much progress.

Let’s just call a spade a spade, and get everyone to pay the true cost of his power source. I don’t want subsidies for hydrokinetics; I just want coal to pay the true cost of ripping up our planet and poisoning our people. Once that’s in place, I’m happy to just let the chips fall where they may.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketI functioned as the moderator of the “Charging Infrastructure” panel before a full and enthusiastic audience at the 4th annual AltCarExpo last Friday, October 2nd. For the first hour, AC Propulsion’s CEO Tom Gage, Plug-In American’s Paul Scott and Clean Fuel Connection’s Enid Joffe did a wonderful job with the questions I had prepared. At that point, I turned the questioning over to the audience for the last 30 minutes, and was pleased to see a steady slow of clear, solid questions that got at some really good issues that I had not built into my dialog with the panel.

As one might have expected, the content was mostly technical: Exactly what are the challenges that the utilities face in preparing for the coming ubiquity of electric transportation, and how are they going their work? What does the advent of V2G (vehicle to grid) mean in terms of both the quality and quantity of power available on the grid at any point in time? What type of planning needs to occur such that charging stations provide adequate opportunity to ensure that motorists feel confident that they won’t run out of charge in their day-to-day driving?

I knew in advance that Tom Gage would be impossible to stump with questions like these (not that I was trying), insofar as he’s one of the best-informed people on the planet in this regard. But I was blown away with the expanse of technical knowledge that Enid and Paul had brought to the table as well.

I made sure we addressed the political issues too, and I’m happy to say that no one pulled any punches. Apparently, the oil companies are not going to take this without a fight. “You’re about to see a campaign of lies like you’ve never witnessed before,” Paul Scott intoned solemnly. “In the last wave of hearings that could have threatened their monopolies, they hired hundreds of people to show support for their positioned who had never even heard of the issue the day before and didn’t know the first thing about it. They have absolutely no concept of fair play – and that was just a warm-up for what is about to come.”

I closed by thanking the panel — and the audience in particular, with my reference to Henry Kissinger that readers may have seen in other posts. “Henry Kissinger said recently,” I reminded the group, “that if it weren’t for the intensity of the opposition to the war in Vietnam of the common American, we’d still be there. That’s an utterly amazing thing to admit, isn’t it? It shows me several things, but the most obvious is the raw power of people like you, who take their time to come together and stand up for something you believe in. I thank for you that. And I ask you to give yourselves a hand.”

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