What do top green energy executives and industry leaders think of the clean energy future? That’s what Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services wanted to know. In September and October 2010, Bloomberg polled leaders for the company ABB to learn about their perspectives and insights about the future of energy.
The survey results were presented in several white papers, including, “A Smarter Energy Future“ and “Energy Efficiency (more…)
Here’s the audio file in which I interview Stephan A. Schwartz for my new book. I hope you appreciate his insights into human consciousness and social ideas as much as I did.
I had the great pleasure of interviewing Stephan A. Schwartz for my current book the other day. I’d been looking forward to this opportunity for weeks, and the conversation was certainly no disappointment.
I’ve always admired people who take on groundbreaking projects in any discipline, and I have to say that I find Stephan’s research into the nature of consciousness to be particularly fascinating. The concept that our minds consist of both a “local” aspect (present here and now in time and space) and a “non-local” element that has no apparent position in or connection with time and space is not at all new; in fact, it’s been a part of numerous attempts to explain our existences with religion and parapsychology for thousands of years. But explaining all this with advanced physics, math, and biology is really cutting-edge stuff.
About 20 minutes into the interview, I said, “Stephan, I hate to change course here; I could talk about this for a week and not tire of it, but (more…)
I get occasional emails from professional engineers telling me that I’m harming our site’s credibility by suggesting that cold fusion is legitimate science. Here’s a fellow who’s not too sanguine on the subject:
Cold fusion has yet to be lifted out of the pit of porn science….The most accurate information that I have read about cold fusion or low energy nuclear reactions was “Cold Fusion: still too ridiculous for Marvel Comics…. I caution against promoting all “interesting” energy topics when the science is dubious. In my opinion, it weakens the message you are trying to present by linking the questionable (at best) with proven technology.
I appreciate the tip, and clearly the guy is correct that we need to respect the difference between proven technology and science fiction. But (more…)
Here’s another episode of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report. Here, host George Alger interviews me on the implications of the US addiction to foreign oil on our national security.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxKLgPpzhsM?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
$3.7 billion was invested into renewable energy and cleantech companies in 2010, says Thomson Reuters data for National Venture Capital Association & PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The good news is that venture capital investments rose 76% from 2009, which was a dark year of uncertainty and economic difficulties in general. However, the investments are still less than the peak of 2008, when $4 billion was raised for renewable (more…)
Question: What is the world’s total energy consumption, in Watts?
Answer: Can be found HERE.
Relevance: 80% of the Earth’s energy (the total you see on the Answers page) is generated by burning hydrocarbons – a process that’s clearly unsustainable. And every day we hear of a new solar or wind farm with a capacity of so many megawatts. But what does that really mean in terms of “moving the needle” toward clean energy?
In this installment of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report, George Alger asks some very good, basic questions: What forms of energy really are clean? What about clean coal? Nuclear?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFz64KmxO4o?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
When the occasion permits, I try to write in an entertaining style, rather than just blasting the reader with whatever facts or opinions I happen to have handy at the time. But I know I’ll never be able to begin to compete with folks like Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.
If you’re interested in a fair-minded and really enjoyable look at electric transportation, I hope you’ll check out his piece on the Chevy Volt that ran in last Sunday’s Post.
(Continued from earlier…)
To date, 1,179 solar projects with total investments of over $1.3 billion in 42 states have been built with support from this program. In 2009, the U.S. installed about 435 megawatts of solar. That doubled to about 1,000 megawatts in 2010 and many forecasts point to 2,000 megawatts installed in 2011 with the bill extension. (more…)
