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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I thought I’d share a conversation with a lady I’ve known for about 30 years, who, each election cycle, does extensive work in researching the issues and the candidates, to bring some level of clarification to (I guess) at least a few hundred whose emails she’s been collecting over the decades and who read her viewpoints with interest. 

I wrote her recently about the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and asserted that this renders moot the entire political process.  (I admit that this may have been a bit indelicate.)

She writes:  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The American voters who are hoping that the cause of clean energy and sustainability will still be alive when the dust clears in November can sleep a bit easier after tonight’s debate.  But it sure was a tragedy to see the top two prospective leaders of the world’s most powerful nation behave like schoolchildren, and speak so evasively on these issues.

In particular, can’t someone tell the coal miners that their jobs are going away?  Do both sides of the debate team really have to sell coal as a vital part of the U.S. energy future, when the exact opposite is so clearly the case?

If you guys won’t do it, I will.  Watch this:

Attention coal miners and the executive strata in coal companies:  Retrain, regroup, rethink, reorganize.  Do whatever you want, but go out and acquire new skills that won’t kill you and the rest of the world.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s an extremely well-crafted video from Goldman Sachs promoting their Clean Technology and Renewables Group in their Investment Banking Division.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll begin an effort to engineer a conversation with Stuart Bernstein, the global head of the group, with an eye toward walking him through our list of clean energy investment opportunities. I know that most of these aren’t precisely the later-stage deals that Goldman is looking for, but one never knows.  Bernstein is obviously a bright and sincere guy; he may like a couple of these.  And, as they say, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Below is a graphic that I borrowed from my friends at Energy and Capital (Hi, Jeff Siegel!) illustrating the real problem we face vis-a’-vis coal on the international scene.

I’m reminded of an interview I did for a consultant in Germany, who was looking for tips on how his country could drive investment in clean energy. At the conclusion I said: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

When it comes to renewable energy, there’s hardly a shortage of misinformation out there. That said, those with a skeptical streak really seem to have it in for wind farms. Here’s a look at some of the most widely propagated myths about wind energy, along with an explanation of why they’re simply not true.

Myth 1: Wind Power is Costly

Fact: The cost of producing wind energy compares favourably to the cost of producing nuclear and coal energy. Wind turbines, by their very nature, have no fuel-related costs whatsoever and help to make the production of electricity cheaper in general. Between the year 1990 and the year 2002, the capacity of global wind energy doubled after every 3 years and with every doubling, the cost of electricity fell by about 16%.  As prices of scarce fossil fuels continue to increase, the price of wind energy continues to decrease and earlier this month German researchers Deutsche Welle concluded that when wider costs are factored in, at 9 cents per kWh, wind power is, along with solar, the cheapest source of electricity in the world. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Solar Junction, the solar energy company based in Silicon Valley that offers high efficiency solar energy cells for the concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) market, has created a new energy efficiency record for its commercially ready solar cells.

Vijit Sabnis Co-Founder of Solar Junction said during an interview “”Breaking our own world record cements Solar Junction as an innovator and leader in the multi-junction cell space. We continue to push technological boundaries to further drive CPV costs down.”

(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Question:  Can you guess the average amount of mine waste that results from the production of one gold ring? 

Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732.

Relevance:  Everyone likes gold rings, but, considering we’re all concerned about sustainability, we may want to check out http://greenkarat.com/ for wedding bands, etc. based on “post-consumer gold.” 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Here’s a video that shows where I spent my afternoon: on a tour of the (currently) 2 megawatt solar photovoltaics facility at Fort Hunter Liggett in Central California, now the largest solar array on a military base in the U.S. – and soon to be a micro-grid.  As I took a tour with some colleagues, work was underway for Phase Two, which will add two more MW, and enough battery storage such that the only connection to the larger grid will be to enable the base to sell excess power to the local utility (Pacific Gas and Electric). 

Everything about what I saw was impressive, except the price.  Because the PV canopy serves dual purposes (power generation and a “garage” for many hundreds of enormous pieces of equipment) it’s 18 feet off the ground and built on piers that need to withstand the impact of a tank running into them.  Those piers are a yard in diameter, and 10 feet into the ground – and we’re talking about ground that is super-compacted to withstand the punishment that such equipment will inflict as it moves in and out over the years.  It’s about $8/watt installed.  

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

My friend Tom Konrad of AltEnergyStocks.com responds to my piece earlier today on the effectiveness of the Sierra Club’s attack on coal.  He writes:

While I strongly support the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, and feel it has made a difference, they could not have been so effective without the falling price of natual gas and the Obama administration’s moves to increase the regulation of criteria pollutants such as mercury from coal plants.  Both of these had the effect of reducing the relative economic attractiveness of coal plants, so the fall in carbon emission had much to do with Adam Smith’s invisible hand (partly spurred by Obama, partly by the gas drilling boom) pushing in the same direction as the activists.

Yes, Tom, that is exactly right. It’s nice when a few factors come together to give one some tailwind, and there is no doubt that this happened here. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

Here’s an article on the use of natural gas mated with concentrated solar power (CSP).  The central issue facing CSP is achieving temperatures high enough to minimize thermodynamic heat losses, and, for most configurations, that means coupling the troughs and towers with a small amount of gas.  Since using any amount of gas diminishes the plants’ qualifications as “renewable,”  the article contemplates the use of biogas. 

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