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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I spent many happy hours milling around the Opportunity Green conference in Los Angeles yesterday, meeting people who represent many dozens of different eco-friendly businesses. How many will succeed in the marketplace? That’s a function of the level of appetite we have for taking care of the environment and for each other. And the jury’s still out on that one; green products that cost more than their eco-toxic counterparts may be a tough sell—especially in today’s economic climate. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If you’re willing to take part in a very brief survey, I think you’ll find this one particularly interesting.  Here, in our continuing quest to understand why the world (especially the U.S.) is moving so slowly in the direction of clean energy, we explore the proper role of government in engineering such a transition.  Thanks for your help; I’ll make sure the report of the results is made available to you as soon and I knock it out.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I try to keep my “networking” hat on, attending seminars and meetings, and generally getting to know as many people in the industry as possible. The concept is certainly not lost on the folks at Opportunity Green, who recognize that only good can come from putting people with similar interests in sustainability.

Unfortunately, they are not listed my “Bible” of energy conferences linked here, and so I’ll have to skip this one.  I try to attend the local conferences, or those that fit in neatly with my travel schedule.

Note, however, that most of these are in some pretty far-flung locations.  It would require a substantial opportunity to get me on a plane bound for Rwanda, and the 4th International Scientific Research Conference does not qualify.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s good to see MoveToAmend.Org gaining steam.  On Tuesday, an overwhelming 75 percent of voters in Missoula, Montana said that corporations aren’t people, and shouldn’t receive the same legal treatment as people.

The referendum’s sponsor, Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken, is apparently pretty happy too. “I’m over the moon about it,” she told reporters.

The measure – similar to others across the country – calls on the U.S. Congress and state leaders to amend the U.S. Constitution to say that corporations are not human beings. It earned 10,729 votes in favor and 3,605 against.

Again, if there is any hope for a just and productive future for America, it means ridding our government of corruptive influence, and MoveToAmend offers the only effective way to make this happen.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Last night’s talk at Catalyst for Thought was on the subject of validating one’s market, which happens to be the core of the business I ran for almost 30 years. Thus I heard a great number of my own words reflected back to me, e.g.,

Where most new businesses go through the steps: 1) design, 2) build, 3) sell, it’s a good idea to consider this drastic re-write: 1) sell, 2) design, 3) build.

So many times I’ve asked people, “So you think you need to raise a few million dollars of venture funding, which, if you get it at all, will come at an enormous cost to you? Wouldn’t you rather have a few million dollars in purchase orders from customers?”

Bottom line: you can have a very short business plan if you have a very long customer list. And it’s not as hard as it seems.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Geothermal (Ground-Source) Heat Pumps (GHPs) make use of a completely different set of principles than the kind of geothermal we commonly discuss. Where the latter relies on the transfer of thermal energy from one fluid to another, like an egg placed in boiling water, the former relies on the principles of refrigeration, i.e., the evaporation and condensation of a substance in an enclosed space.

But considering that many people are unaware of this, how large an effect does public ignorance have? It’s huge, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, which dubs this effect a GHP “energy crisis” in their recent report: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLy6jkF0z5w]Here’s a recent interview I did with a writer for “Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine” for support of an article he’s writing on clean energy. He’s a young guy, straight out of college, but I thought he did a terrific job in asking solid, penetrating questions.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s the birthday of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, whose murder in 1940 I believe to be one of the most significant events in recent human history. Where Stalin was a vicious thug, Trotsky was an intellectual. Who knows what would have happened had the budding Communist Party been run with a kind of enlightenment, vs. the cruel and systematic oppression that eventually brought its demise?

Trotsky said, “Learning carries within itself certain dangers,” which, coincidentally, is a remark I echo near the end of my current book:

So should I “put a period” on this, walk away, and go enjoy the days I have left on this planet as it chokes, starves, and bombs itself to death? Even if I found that tempting, it’s not an option, since, now that I know the truth, I’ve fallen into the grasp of Emerson’s great adage: “You can have truth or repose, but you cannot have both.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear

Only a few people, a dozen or so at most, have English language adjectives derived from their names them that are in common parlance: Jeffersonian (often modifying “democracy”), Keynsian (economics), Dickensian (England), etc. While I haven’t done a study on the subject, I would say that the term “Orwellian” is about as common a term formed like this as you’ll find, usually used to describe the self-contradictory (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

A reader wrote in with a question about his plans to get in the ethanol business, using a certain feedstock in which he’s an expert.  Indeed, one of the most interesting things about biofuels is the enormous diversity of feedstocks.

The plant pictured here, Arundo donax, a type of cane that is highly prized for its growth rate, and the diversity of soils and climates in which it grows.  But the energy density of all terrestrial plants is at least 30 times less than algae, which is the main reason for the interest in the latter.

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