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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

A friend in the UK and I were just comparing notes on how hard it is to sell huge volumes of books.  While this is true, I pointed out that I don’t regret the enormous amount of time I’ve invested into my three projects on renewable energy, as there are other reasons to write them – some of which benefit me personally, and others, I’d like to think, civilization as a whole.

• The process of researching and writing is a great learning experience.
• Many of the people I’ve interviewed have become close friends and/or clients. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Are you completely calm when you stand up and speak in public? If so, you’re one of extremely few Homo sapiens who has somehow escaped the plague that affects the rest of us. 

I will be the emcee at a meeting tomorrow night, introducing a speaker on the subject of sustainable building products and methods.  My personal techniques for dealing with nerves include practicing the whole thing several times before going on stage.

I’m reminded that Winston Churchill, known for his talks that seemed completely spontaneous and off-the-cuff, would practice an hour for each minute of the speech; i.e., he’d spend 30 hours preparing for a half-hour talk.   My take-away: if public speaking didn’t come easily for Churchill, perhaps we mortals shouldn’t feel so bad if we’re a bit jittery.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

A reader sent me this piece on the low cost per mile of driving electric vehicles. 

Not to sound ungrateful, but I point out that EVs’ cost per mile is a fairly uninteresting statistic. It’s already ridiculously low; saving a bit more is only a tiny incentive. 

The only really interesting thing for the thoughtful EV driver in the U.S. is charging without causing more coal to be burned. That means either charging them during the day, when incremental loads on the grid are generally met with natural gas, or, better, it means using renewable energy.  My friend Paul Scott, co-founder of Plug-In America, has been driving EVs since the late 1990s (originally a Toyota Rav 4 Electric, now a Nissan LEAF) and has a sizeable PV array on his roof.  He hasn’t bought a drop of gasoline in over 15 years, and he’s almost entirely off the grid.  

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Linked below is an article by my colleague Emma Websdale who writes for the wonderful website on OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) called “EmpowerTheOcean.”  Here, she addresses billionaire Richard Branson’s belief that the process of mitigating climate change provides marvelous opportunities for capitalists.  

For a chapter on this subject in my first book (Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies), I interviewed Jigar Shah, then the CEO of the think tank Branson formed called the Carbon War Room.   I do believe that somewhere, there is considerable workability to all this stuff on climate capitalism, though it needs to be stimulated by creating a level playing field, i.e., a tax on emissions, the removal of the subsidies for oil, etc.

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s a recent piece of mine that Energy Manager Today ran earlier this week – an article on the CBS “60 Minutes” outrageous mistreatment of the cleantech industry.  

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Next week I’ll be headed up to Santa Clara (about three hours’ drive north from here) for Infocast’s Annual “Storage Week” show.  The event’s producers claim that storage is headed for “hockey stick” growth over the coming few years, and I don’t dispute that. The cause in the short term is government mandates placed upon utilities, but I believe that the whole subject will snowball (to stay with the winter sports metaphors) after we see a few initial successes. 

I really like this show, as it does such a good job covering the numerous different technological approaches.

Anyone in the Bay Area who wants to meet for coffee (or beer, as appropriate)?  Please let me know.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

The author of this article is 100% correct: there are two opposing factions among those of us who believe that action is necessary to deal with climate change: anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear.   His assertion that “divided we fall” is also accurate; there is no doubt that the environmentalists’ position here would be stronger if it were united on this and all other issues.

Personally, I believe that most of the rabidly anti-nuke side consists of people who don’t realize how bad coal is.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

While U.S. football fans spent last Sunday eating and drinking their way through the Super Bowl, few noticed that it was also the birthday of Ayn Rand, author of philosophic novels.  Her concept, as we all know, is that individual creativity, especially as it applies to the creation of wealth, should not be driven by the needs of society. 

This overarching idea, i.e., “Let us ignore the needs of others,” was extremely well-received when it was introduced in the mid-20th Century. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Smart Grid

Thanks and congratulations to 2GreenEnergy intern Nikita Rao for her first article on smart grid, published here earlier today. This is a subject that is rightfully garnering much attention, as it’s so clearly integral to our civilization’s ability to achieve a rational approach to energy generation and consumption.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

According to the Writer’s Almanac, it is the birthday of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Hofstadter (pictured), best known for his research on the nucleus of the atom. While he was studying at City College of New York, Hofstadter wanted to major in literature and philosophy until a physics professor told him, “the laws of physics could be tested and those of philosophy could not.”

That’s a clever point. (more…)

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