Blog – Page 1709 – 2GreenEnergy.com

Environmentalism and Half a Century of Political Division

craigshieldsPosted on September 30, 2012 Posted in Sustainability

One of the most prominent features of environmentalism is the profound political rift it causes. I’m reminded of this as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which many credit as the launching pad for the modern environmentalist movement.

But precisely why is the area so divisive? Wouldn’t one think that a respect for the natural world on the only planet we have would fit with practically any rational philosophic viewpoint? In a new biography of Carson, William Souder writes: “The hostile reaction to Silent Spring contained the seeds of a partisan divide over environmental matters that has since hardened into a permanent wall of bitterness and mistrust….. (yet) there is no objective reason why environmentalism should be the exclusive province of any one political party or ideology.”

Sure, there is no objective reason, but that sure hasn’t prevented the subject to be divided across party lines, at least in the U.S. I’ve had conversations with people who tell me that the people who share my viewpoints on environmental regulation are transplants from the pre-1989 USSR, hell-bent on destroying capitalism. I normally respond: “Dude, that’s a bit glib. I was a businessman for 30 years. I had hundreds of employees and clients all over the world. I think you’re going to have to look at this a little more deeply if you want to get at the truth.”

Yet such discourse does little to change anyone’s mind on the subject.

Tagged with: environmentalism, modern environmentalist movement, political division, political rift, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Cleantech Startups Need Big Brothers

craigshieldsPosted on September 29, 2012 Posted in Renewables - Business

Eric McAfee is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist, founding and funding companies in renewable energy, oil and gas, agriculture, networking devices and enterprise software. Given that level of success, I tried to absorb every word of his talk at last week’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum.

Among Eric’s key messages was that start-ups need big brothers. Just as people of my (unimposing) stature are rightfully afraid to walk through bad parts of town, we feel safer when accompanied by a six-foot-nine-inch, 275-pound friend. (more…)

Tagged with: clean energy, cleantech investment opportunities, Eric McAfee, high net-worth inviduals, passive investors, Renewable Energy, Renewable Energy Finance Forum, strategic partners, venture capitalists

Renewable Energy Franchise Network Partnership Program

craigshieldsPosted on September 29, 2012 Posted in Sustainability

When I added Langton Makoni to my LinkedIn network, he wrote:

Thanks for the add. I have been following 2GreenEnergy for a while now. I must say, the expansive pool of vital information you provide has greatly assisted us in promoting the Renewable Energy Franchise Network Partnership Program (an initiative we developed and have been working on in developing countries in a bid to facilitate the extensive transfer of renewable energy technology).

What you guys are advocating has brought a lot of significance. Keep up the great work!

And thank you for the kind words, Langton. I’m happy to do what I can. Ironically, renewable energy may be of more significance to the developing world than anywhere else. That’s because:

• On a per kilowatt-hour basis, the energy consumed in the developing world is more damaging ecologically than anywhere else on Earth (largely burning wood from forests), and

• The absense of rural electrification means reducing the reach and quality of education. This is a huge issue that affects population growth, as educated women tend to have smaller, stronger families.

Keep plugging!

Tagged with: clean energy, developing countries, per kilowatt-hour basis, Renewable Energy, Renewable Energy Franchise Network Partnership Program, rural electrification, transfer of renewable energy technology

Understanding the Costs of Climate Change

craigshieldsPosted on September 29, 2012 Posted in Climate Change

The good news is that the world has begun to use analytics to quantify the damage that is occurring due to climate change. Here’s a report noted in Bloomberg News that sets the cost at $1.2 trillion annually, or about 1.6% of the world’s GDP. Further good news, depending on how you look at this, is that the cost of ameliorating this issue, though steep, is confrontable, if we take it on now.

The bad news is that the world is a million miles away from international agreements that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s as if we’re all living in one of those dreams where we can see the train coming, but we can’t get off the tracks.

Tagged with: Bloomberg News, GHGs, global climate change, global warming, international agreements reduce greenhouse gas emissions, quantify the costs of climate change

Some Cleantech Business Plans Make Outrageous Claims

craigshieldsPosted on September 29, 2012 Posted in Renewables - Business

When I tell people that I’ve reviewed over 1100 cleantech business plans/concepts, I can see that some of them are impressed. They really shouldn’t be. I spend only a few seconds on most of them. Here’s one that’s expressed in this YouTube video that I actually watched through to the end (four minutes), not because the idea has merit, but because I was impressed at the totally outrageous claims it made. The guy wants to raise $100 million to go into production! Wow. Outlandish. Brazen. High-handed. A true award-winner in my book.

Tagged with: business plans, cleantech

Natural Gas – The Elephant in the Room

craigshieldsPosted on September 28, 2012 Posted in Wind Energy

The session I just caught here at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum included a good discussion on the elephant in the room, the low cost of natural gas. It’s low, but wind competes effectively, if the owner of the gas plant is responsible for the fuel supply, i.e., has to take the risk of gas prices over the next 20 years.

The issue is that the utilities only want so much of an intermittent resource, especially one whose peak doesn’t match load. This, of course, is what opens the door, long-term, for storage: pumped hydro, as well as the prospective challengers: compressed air, molten salt, advanced rail, zinc-air batteries, etc.

Tagged with: advanced rail, compressed air, electrical utilities, energy storage, intermittent resources, molten salt, natural gas, peak matches load, pumped hydro, Renewable Energy Finance Forum, risk of gas prices, zinc-air batteries

Large Solar Projects and Lawyers

craigshieldsPosted on September 28, 2012 Posted in Photovoltaics

Wow. I thought I was willing to take a stance that I know is bound to irritate certain people. A guy here at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum just put me to shame; he told a room filled with dozens of lawyers — at a conference sponsored by their firms, some of the largest on Earth:

The real problem with the solar market is that lawyers go out of their way to write documents that are deliberately ambiguous, just so they’ll have the opportunity to argue about it. We don’t have business negotiations any more; we bicker over legal language that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

I’m sure there’s more than a little merit to what he said, but you could have heard a pin drop.

Tagged with: REFF, Renewable Energy Finance Forum, solar energy

Thoughts from the 2012 Renewable Energy Finance Forum

craigshieldsPosted on September 28, 2012 Posted in Renewables - Business

It was great to be in San Francisco for another extremely successful meeting of the Renewable Energy Finance Forum, an occasion that gave me the opportunity to chat with Dennis McGinn (holding the book in the photo to the left). Dennis is president of ACORE, the American Council on Renewable Energy, the organization putting on the show; he’s doing a great job in forwarding the cause of a sustainable approach to the generation and consumption of energy.

Here are a few ideas that have came to me in the course of the two-day event:

1) The mayor of Palo Alto told us that his city is doing a great job in terms of achieving its RPS (renewable portfolio standard). Not to minimize the accomplishment, but I should say that I hope so. If one of the most progressive and affluent communities in the U.S. can’t get this done, I’m not sure who can. Their rate-payers are sufficiently enlightened (and wealthy) that they’re willing and able to pay a slight premium for clean energy, and that’s really all it takes, where the cost of solar and wind have come down to very near the point of grid-parity. (more…)

Tagged with: Abengoa, concentrated solar power, cost of an installed watt of PV, CSP, electric utilities, global climate change, global warming, grid parity, investments in energy efficiency, Palo Alto, premium for clean energy, PV in Germany, rate-payers, Renewable Energy, Renewable Energy Finance Forum, renewable portfolio standard, RPS, solar energy, Solar Thermal, super-critical CO2, uniting entrepreneurs with investors, Wind Energy

Renewable Energy — Seeking a Level Playing Field with Fossil Fuels

craigshieldsPosted on September 27, 2012 Posted in Fossil Fuels

At the fabulous lunch served at today’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum, I sat next to Christopher Dorondo, a senior representative of AWS Truepower, a solar and wind consulting company with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Terrific guy.

In the course of the conversation, I told him a bit about 2GreenEnergy, and we talked about the challenge of selling renewables in an environment with cheap fossil fuels. “All I would ask is a level playing field,” Christopher sighed. I laughed, as I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve said that. “I have to laugh. That’s a recurring theme in the discussion on my website. If you put ‘level playing field’ in the search bar on 2GreenEnergy, you’ll be reading for one hell of a long time.”

Speaking of evaluating the true cost of fossil fuels, here’s a 69-page report evaluating the benefits of retiring the 600-or-so coal-fired power plants in the US.