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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m headed back East on Monday for meetings in Washington DC and NYC this week; I’ll try to write from the road. Among my stops is the Environmental Law Institute, where spokesperson Jay Predergrass has generously agreed to let me interview him for my next book.

From our initial conversations, these people sound extremely sharp and dedicated. I’ll be interested to learn things like how they differ in mission and function from the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), whom I interviewed for Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies. Apparently, both use the legal process as their core tool to keep environmental causes moving forward, or, to say it differently, from allowing unbridled industrialization from running roughshod over the environment.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I just came across this article on Chrysler’s plan to offer a natural gas-based car in 2017. 

I know this sounds like a strange reaction, but personally, this cheeses me off.  I see it is an attempt to confuse and distract the consumer from alternate fuel vehicles, so Big Auto can sell more internal combusion engines and Big Oil can pump more gasoline for a few more years while the market scratches its head and tries to sort this out. 

Of course, Chrysler is free to choose whatever product marketing strategy it cares to.  But the net of this decision will be only two things:

a) An ultimate failure for Chrysler (and the tax-payers who bailed them out after their last many decades of failure).  There is no way in the universe that CNG (even though it’s cheap now) will become a viable fuel for the US long-term.  How much more will they need from us to cover this fiasco?  

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b) A short-term confusion and turn-off for the consumer, as it will serve to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the evolution to EVs.

As always, not everyone sees it the way I do.  I just spoke with Plug-in America co-founder and heavy-duty EV advocate Paul Scott.  Paul welcomes Chrysler’s idea, and (though he didn’t say it) clearly thought I was half crazy for my reaction to the news. 

But hey — it’s a difference of opinion that makes horseraces. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

2GreenEnergy Associate Bruce Allen spends a great deal of time in Washington D.C., advising Congressmen on energy policy. Recently, when he told me his clients included people “at the highest levels of government,” I asked the natural question: “Oh really – who would that be?” At the time, Bruce demurred. “Sorry, Craig, but I can’t tell you right this minute.”

Well, as suggested here, it’s House Speaker John Boehner. Keep up the good work, Bruce. I can’t think of a better representative of a good, common sense approach to an energy policy built around sustainability.  I can only hope the client is receptive to your ideas.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

In yesterday’s webinar on electric vehicles (EVs) I used the same metaphor that the author of this article did: no car buyer wants to invest in the auto equivalent of the next Betamax (a standard for videotapes that became obsolete a few decades ago).

Sure, we all face the reality that perhaps EVs (or any of the dozens of other solutions we’re trying to deploy to avert imminent real-world disasters) will be replaced by newer technology. But the metaphor only goes so far.

The world did not become a better place in which to live when VHS somehow beat out Betamax as the video standard. Here, we’re talking about the health and safety of everyone living on Earth – as our dependence on oil deepens and we slip ever further into the associated issues: national security, lung disease, and environmental damage.

It’s true that the consumer doesn’t want to risk buying a Betamax. And I freely confess that very few consumers will make sacrifices for the larger good. But fortunately, we have gas prices rising, and an ever-increasing resentment of the oil companies – along with, of course, a few lonely folks who want to do the right thing.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

San Jose State University and SolarTech conducted a study recently in Silicon Valley to understand consumer attitudes toward solar energy and solar power for home use. Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County) is considered a bell-weather county in a state that is more aware of solar and alternative energy than the typical American.

The goal of the survey was to analyze consumer awareness, preferences, perceptions and ultimate attitude to adoption of solar energy by homeowners.

A brief profile of the respondents: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Ruohvz6_o]

Here, 2GreenEnergy Video Report host George Alger interviews me on the hydrogen economy: what it means, its validity, and its ramifications.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The other day, a friend forwarded me an invitation to audition for a space in the Ted Talks. Wow! The notion that I have any “Ideas Worth Sharing” (their tagline) is more than little flattering.

In my mind, the only concept I have that is even remotely worthy of the Ted Talks is the concept I’m developing for my next book: the true reason that renewable energy really isn’t happening in the US. Without a doubt, the answer to that one would be quite worth sharing.

Yet, from what I’ve been able to gather, it seems that the answer is simple; in fact, it is summed up in a word: corruption.

The reason our energy mix is dominated by sources that carry with them environment ruin, never-ending wars, lung disease, and ballooning national debt is nothing other than the unlovely effect that Big Money has on the political landscape. It’s the same reason we can’t have meaningful reform in banking or healthcare. It’s what lies behind the declining levels of nutrition in our food, and the degradation of pop entertainment: money.

Again, I’m flattered that someone thinks I have a Ted Talk in the making. But even if I do, I’m not sure how the judges would respond to a talk whose answer to the question is exactly one word in length.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

On a drive to pick up my son this afternoon, I caught an episode of The Bioneers, a radio show covering issues in sustainability. Clever name, don’t you think?

This week’s speaker began by mentioning that she’s from Illinois, a state in which every public school classroom features a portrait of Lincoln. To her, this serves as an important reminder to school kids that before 1863, the entire US economy was built on the back of slave labor, a practice that we now regard as “unthinkable.”

But now, she pointed out, our current economy is built on chemicals that are part of grossly unsustainable and ecologically disasterous processes. The way we grow our food, manufacture our products , power our transportation, and generate our energy for various uses – all rely on chemicals that are poisoning us.  We have the skyrocketing rates of dread diseases to prove it, but lack the political will to do anything about it. 

“It’s clear to me that when people 100 years from now look back on the early 21st Century,” she said, “They will use the same word to describe this era as we do when we think of slavery: “unthinkable.”

Quite a concept.

I often try to look at our times from the vantage point of the future.  It may sound like a pointless or impossible task, but it’s not as hard as one might imagine.  We look back at the Inquisition, at bloodletting and leeching, at the Third Reich as the moral and intellectual horrors they were.  But aren’t there idiocies in our own times that will be regarded as just as gross? 

In any case, I hope you’ll take a few minutes and check out The Bioneers.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZm4idH5kzc&w=480&h=390]

Here, 2GreenEnergy Video Report host George Alger interviews me on the subject of electric transportation. We cover fuel-cell and battery EVs, the most likely consumer adoption curve, and the imperative on the part of the OEMs to begin to produce EVs.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

The World Economic Forum says worldwide investment in green energy rose 30% in 2010. Investment reached $234 billion in 2010, up from $186 billion a year earlier. The WEF states that higher oil prices would most likely increase demand for more clean energy.

The WEF also announced that investment in small-scale energy projects took off last year, almost doubling from the previous year. More than $59.6 billion was invested worldwide, and the WEF said Germany’s rooftop solar capacity grew (more…)

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