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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s an article that describes a collaboration between GM and BMW on fuel cell vehicles.

Wow, that’s remarkable. Just when I had started to trust the car companies based on the sincerity of Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn and his people who build and promote the LEAF, I see this.  A few basic points:

• The oil companies are the main supporters of the hydrogen economy. They see hydrogen as a mechanism for them to continue to retain a service station which will continue to provide the consumer with something they can pump. Electricity, on the other hand, is ubiquitous.

• Creating hydrogen suffers a 4:1 efficiency issue. I.e., generating hydrogen in a renewable way requires four times the number of solar panels that would be needed to make the electricity to put into my battery.

• Fuel cell vehicles’ fuel pods cost $500,000 to $1,000,000 apiece. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

While I’m waiting for delivery of my second book (“Is Renewable Really Doable? – Exploring Clean Energy’s Opportunities and Tough Realities”), I wanted to run a couple of ideas for my third book by you.

Concept #1: “Renewable Energy – Following the Money,” focused on the U.S., featuring interviews with:

  • Investors (VCs, private equity, institutional)
  • Department of Energy
  • Key people in important states (e.g., California, New York, Texas, etc.)
  • Industry executives
  • Representatives of think-tanks
  • Media (e.g., Wall Street Journal)
  • Stock analysts

Concept #2: “Renewable Energy: A Global Issue – Interviews with Top People on Six Continents”

An exploration of the migration to clean energy in the most populous areas of the world, perhaps China, India, Africa, the Middle East, U.S., Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and Oceania, based on interviews with key people who could speak to:

  • The prevailing political and economic climate
  • The efforts of key people
  • The cultural zeitgeist
  • Alternate fuel transportation
  • Smart grid and energy storage
  • Efficiency and conservation
  • Global climate change and the U.N. conferences on the subject

I’d appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

This article is submitted with the hope that it will set the tone for a series of others that will follow by covering the origins of the petroleum industry in the United States. The main objective of these pieces is to provide the reader with a historical understanding of shocks in oil prices. Later on, other writings will cover more recent material on the subject and a final piece will offer the reader some predictions of what the future of oil prices might look like in the short, medium and long term.

The task at hand is ambitious, but its value is considerable. Everyone feels a pinch when the prices at the pump crawl higher and higher with no end in sight. History has repeatedly proven to be the best thing we have to go on and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. As a result, we will establish a solid foundation from which we will make an educated guess about the future of the oil industry and what it means for civilization. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Predictably, the international climate talks in Durban, South Africa yielded little if any real progress, but some truly wonderful rhetoric. In his article Australia Wants Clean Energy Cheap Rather Than Dirty Energy Expensive, Alex Trembath quotes this piece in the Canberra Times:

Our goal should be to create a world with abundant, clean and cheap energy for all. This is an objective that reconciles progress and planet. This is a challenge that can bring rich and poor countries together in a common goal. If we are to address climate change, we must turn to humanity’s familiar benefactor – technological innovation – and apply it to developing better clean energy.

ZZZzzzzzz. Oh, sorry, must have dozed off there.   (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I just had a lovely meeting with Karen Palmer, a local environmentalist who wanted my advice on a board game for children called “Let’s Save Our Earth.”  The game is won by correctly answering questions about ecology, sustainability, and the relevant aspects of biology — a terrific idea from a wonderful person.

As I told her, my 30 years’ experience as a marketing consultant doesn’t contain too many projects with consumer products, and not a single one with games. Having said that, I gave her this free advice — possibly worth exactly what she paid for it:

Sure you can sell this through stores of various types, but the promotion required to make this a success would be huge. I would concentrate on the school system.  Funding for education has been tragically cut, but there is still an appetite for low-cost ways of achieving important objectives.  Since funding for public education comes from the state level, be prepared to create different versions for each of the 50, starting with the most obvious choices. The “California Edition” could have a preponderance of questions about the ecosystems here, the specific endangered species, the shortage of water, the marine and desert habitats, etc. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Those who have taken my recommendation and start every morning with Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac know that four years ago today, on Arthur C. Clarke’s 90th birthday, he:

… recorded a video in which he says goodbye to his friends and fans. In it, he said: “I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we’ve learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalization …”

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Efficiency

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAdKwrPHy9w&w=500&h=369]

Here’s our December webinar, in which noted environmentalist and energy expert Bruce Severance joined me for a lively discussion we called “How to Increase the Energy Efficiency of Existing Structures – and WHY.”

This is part of our effort to do a more thorough job at dealing with the subject of efficiency – an area containing plenty of low-hanging fruit for all of us interested in reducing our impact on the environment. I thought Bruce did an excellent job here, and I hope you’ll agree.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It is with great pleasure that I announce the introduction of a measure into the U.S. senate calling for a constitutional amendment that would limit the rights that corporations have to influence our elections.  The amendment, referred to as “Saving American Democracy,” would nullify the Supreme Court decision (Citizens United vs. FEC)  granting corporations unlimited rights to free speech (see video linked here).  As sponsor Bernie Sanders (I-VT) points out, if this measure does not go forward, it “means the end to American Democracy as we know it.”

Cynical wiseguys may argue that there’s nothing left to save, but you won’t hear those words issuing from my lips….

Here’s Sanders’ speech, an excerpt from which reads:

In my view, a corporation is not a person. In my view, a corporation does not have first amendment rights, to spend as much money as it wants without disclosure, on a political campaign. In my view, corporations should not be able to go into their treasuries, spend millions and millions of dollars, on a campaign, in order to buy elections. I do not believe that that is what American democracy is supposed to be about. I do not believe that that is what the bravest of the brave, from our country, fighting for democracy, fought and died to preserve. 

If anyone has a good argument counter to this, I’ll sure be impressed. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As a “marketing guy,” I’m always intrigued with ideas that suggest that a paradigm in this space may be changing.  Here’s the viewpoint of frequent commenter John F. Robbins:

The traditional principles of American marketing suggest that something is automatically better if it is bigger, more, newer, faster, or more high-tech.

The biggest problem with “green” is that these principles now make no sense. Green means using less conventional energies, not more. Green means moving slower, as in walking or biking instead of driving or flying. Green means not moving up to a larger home each time one moves. Green has little dependence on being higher-tech or more visually attractive. So when we use the traditional principles to promote green, it often confuses the goals and issues we’re trying to promote.

Quite astute, John. Thanks for your consistently incredible insight.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Global nuclear capacity has remained flat in growth in the last decade, the worldwide operational installed capacity increased insignificantly from 370 GWe at the end of 2005 to 375 GWe at the end of 2010. Nuclear capacity in the OECD countries peaked in 2006 at 2,259 TWh and declined to 2,136 TWh in 2009. A severe earth quake and tsunami in March 2011 that ravaged the pacific coast of northern Japan resulted in devastating incident in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Following this incidence several countries have announced safety reviews of their nuclear power programmes. Many countries have cancelled nuclear power plans and some are considering closing current plants. While this nuclear meltdown is happening, the global growth in energy from solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and other renewable sources has been 30-40 percent per annum of recent. Currently global growth in deployment of solar PV is the highest standing at 60 percent, this is followed by wind power at 27 percent, then biofuel at 18 percent and then biomass at 7 percent. These trends predict the world will be a nuclear free world.

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