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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

As legendary environmentalist Paul Hawken points out in the lecture to which I referred here, there are now over 200,000 groups on the planet devoted to causes within the umbrella of sustainability and humanitarianism. So, when we contemplate the challenges we face in bringing the concept of eco-consciousness to a population of over seven billion, we should certainly never feel that we’re trying to do it alone.

Having said that, there are huge interests that would prefer that you and I knock off our attempts to change the world, and go back to our assigned positions as cogs in the wheel, robotically doing our jobs in the workplace, quietly contributing to their profits in much the same way that our forebears did at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, these interests are spending a fortune to keep us riveted in our positions as consumers, ravenously hungry for better or newer “stuff” of all types.

If you think this is a rash and paranoid generalization, or that it’s fallacious to assign human-like thoughts and motivations to the inanimate corporations that enjoy an ever-increasing control over our lives, here are a few things you may wish to think about: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I was in a meeting this morning in which the subject of myth-busting on energy issues arose.  Unfortunately, we live in a world in which there exists a great deal of misinformation, both deliberate and accidental, on the subject.  I try not to get too bent out of shape about this; it is, after all, a fairly complicated subject with dozens of different vectors pushing and pulling the discussion in various directions simultaneously. 

One of the myths in today’s meeting came from a memo I happened to see from an extremely senior U.S. Marine Corp leader, a Ph.D., who teaches at a university local to where I sit writing this in Washington D.C.  The memo extolled the virtue of fracking, and suggested that size and growth rate of the U.S.reserves means that America can and should use fracking for gas and tight oil to achieve energy independence by 2020. 

In the first place, the figures the gentleman quoted are a considerable exaggeration – but that’s not the real issue.  The glaring part is this: here’s a well-educated person taking a doctrinaire pro-fossil-fuel position without even mentioning the externalities. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I landed in Washington DC late last night.  Just came back from a little jog; I certainly wasn’t alone out there.  I guess the concept is get out and back before the humidity starts to kick in hard. 

I’m off to meet Dennis McGinn at ACORE (American Council on Renewable Energy) for breakfast.  I’m looking forward to this; I’m always impressed with people who:

a) Rise to the top of their fields (Dennis was a vice admiral in the US Navy).

b) Have an unflaggingly calm and professional demeanor, even in the face of combative behavior on the part of others, and some potentially heated conversations. 

I’m not 100% sure how to dress.  This is one of the two or three most formal cities in the U.S., and I brought a suit and a couple of ties, but they seem out of place in August.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Climatologist James Hansen released a report today that suggests that the probability that this summer’s extreme weather events are caused by anything other than human-caused climate change is extremely low.  It comes on the heels of Bill McKibben’s recent article pointing out that mean global temperature have exceeded the 20th Century average for 327 consecutive months, a phenomenon that would occur by chance with a probability of one in 3.7 * 10^99, a number which is larger than the number of stars in the universe. It’s also just a couple of days after Richard Muller, previously perhaps the most famous denier of human-caused climate change, reversed his position. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

I had a wonderful conversation with WindStream CEO Dan Bates this morning at his home in Manhattan Beach,CA, during which I actually touched this unique micro-wind product, and came to understand the reasoning behind a great number of its cooler design features.

As I was explaining to my wife after the meeting on my drive to the airport, micro-wind can be tricky business.  Success in this space has been elusive; there have been many dozens of attempts to drive down the costs to make the product affordable, but they have come at the expense of quality.  Thus the unkind moniker of “snake oil” that is so commonly associated with the industry.

Having looked at WindStream and so many of the competitive approaches, I think these guys have cracked the code.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Today’s the start of an action-packed week, beginning with a visit to see Dan Bates, CEO of WindStream, during which I’ll be able to really get to know this micro-wind product at a much more intimate level.  From there, it’s off to handy little Burbank airport for a flight to Washington DC, we’re I’m having breakfast with Dennis McGinn, president of ACORE, the American Council on Renewable Energy on Tuesday morning.

Then, it’s north to Philadelphia and New York, home Thursday night, in time for the Clean Business Investment Summit on Friday. 

I’ll try to make numerous posts along the way.  The Amtrak rides will provide some opportunity.  The train’s great.  Eco-friendly and relaxing, it’s an office on wheels. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

VMC is not affiliated with Vision Motor Company nor its Chinese parent company  Noble Automotive Group, Inc. in any way.  They are in violation of Federal Trademark law and are in the process of being litigated in Federal court by our Board of Directors.  Do not associate our company of law abiding, entrepreneurial Americans with this Chinese company selling cheap Chinese clones of some of the world’s finest automobiles.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I’m guessing that perhaps 5% or so of the blog posts here at 2GreenEnergy have been utilized to “call out” numbskulls who publicly attack the concept of renewable energy. A good example is the recent flurry of posts on Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and the numerous reader comments that followed.  Here, we took a considerable amount of cyberspace to lay bare his obvious conflict-of-interest position with the oil industry – the force that put him into office in 1994 and keeps him there today.

Again, I seldom go after a particular person; I try to refrain from doing that, in part because of the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt’s great quote:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

At a certain level, Eleanor, I recognize that I’m being small-minded.  But in this case, I felt someone had to do it.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m aware that some readers find many of my posts rather depressing, insofar as I frequently point out the terrible jam in which humankind finds itself vis-à-vis energy policy, climate change, etc. Yet I feel compelled to communicate in that vein nonetheless. I just came across a couple of quotes on The Writer’s Almanac that speak to my reasoning here:

“Do it now — write nothing but what your conviction of its truth inspires you to write.”

– Percy Bysshe Shelly

and

“Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.”

– John Edgar Wideman

Trust me, this stuff “eats me up.” How anyone can look upon this spectacle without being eaten up amazes me.

Yet, as I constantly remind myself and others, we are not powerless to work our way out of this. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Here’s another article by frequent commenter Glenn Doty on the drought in the United States. Its publication roughly coincides with physicist Dr. Richard Muller’s op-ed in the New York Times, in which he summarizes the work performed over the past few years by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. Until this point, Muller had been perhaps the most credible skeptic regarding studies connecting human activity to climate change; now, however, he concludes that “humans are almost entirely the cause” of global warming. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he says. (more…)

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