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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

This is rather long but maybe your assistants can screen this. I’m writing because you showed some interest in urban transport costs (skimming down, you will be able to see this thread). Recently the bike people have gained access to hydro right of way for bike path. This is interesting because (a) these routes are free of traffic and are straight lines giving rapid access to downtown. They could cheaply be “paved” with limestone screening which compact with use to a cement- like surface.

Bikes are great for transport and fitness BUT when it rains and/or gets cold, I suspect the bikers want a nice dry warm bus. This migration makes life difficult for TTC- be- there -when- I -need -you is costly as empty buses illustrate this fact. That is why I think enclosed private transport- not cars- is the future.
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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

As a company developing an electric vehicle, we are seeing the investment community frozen solid. When Obama got elected everyone thought he would solve all of our problems, including health care, Global Warning through a cap and trade bill, education, and taking care of the under-privileged at the expense of the rich. The cap and trade looked to be sure bet and a lot of investors jumped into alternative energy regardless of whether it made economic sense or not. While without economic sense, alternative energy is more expensive than status-quo and thus it is losing favor, orders are being cancelled and many small and large companies are failing. Investors are scared. The August primaries around the country has told us, people are upset and do not like what is happening in Washington DC. I voted in the primary against any incumbent running for reelection. I was not the only one! We are upset with what is happening. What bunch of idiots would write a 2,500 page Health Care bill and half of Congress did not even read! (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Every week I get a dozen or so emails from 2GreenEnergy subscribers who make incredibly insightful comments — or ask wonderful questions — about the industry. I write back — normally almost begging the author to become a guest blogger, recognizing as I do that many thousands of other readers would benefit from the intelligence that I see in front of me. But only occasionally does this actually materialize. Is it because some folks are too shy? I’m not sure.

In any case, let me make this clear: We Want You To Share Your Thoughts!

Please consider becoming a guest blogger, and posting your observations, questions, concerns, innovations – or whatever. A political rant? Terrific! A breakthrough solution in clean energy or sustainability more generally? Even better! (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

Growing crops to create biogas has become a controversial renewable energy source because it creates competition for land for food crops. But there is another major source of biogas that doesn’t compete with food crops. In fact, exploiting it would considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK government has plans to generate hundreds of thousands of megawatt hours of electricity from food waste. Food waste is just as much a problem for the United States. According to a 2004 study by the University of Arizona reducing US food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 per cent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at UA spent 10 years measuring food loss, and here is what he found: (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As I predicted, last week’s trip back to the East Coast was an exercise in nonstop learning about sustainable products. As I made my way up from North Carolina and Virginia through Pennsylvania and New York, one of the many highlights was my last stop in Syracuse, to meet the people responsible for importing and selling copier paper – by the container-load – made not from trees, but from the biomass that’s left over when sugar cane is processed.

In my mind, these people’s story contrasts with 99% of the tales of woe one hears about re: green products. Normally you have something  that’s terrific for the environment, but it’s expensive as the devil. Or maybe it sounds good, but the company needs millions of dollars and a few years to bring to the table.

Here’s a product that exists now (Canefields), has higher quality than its replacement, doesn’t cost a single tree, is manufactured with processes that use 100% renewable (wind) energy — and costs almost the exact same as paper from wood. It’s a story one doesn’t hear every day.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

At 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, Steven Kemp had to move his size 14 shoes to avoid tripping toddlers at his pediatrician’s office in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “It’s kind of awkward, but we’re good friends,” says Mr. Kemp, now 19 years old and a student at Butler University, still looking for a doctor he likes as much and still consults his pediatrician occasionally….These days, more and more are staying with their pediatricians through their college years,” says the past president of the American College of Pediatrics.

Here’s a wonderful example of the WSJ telling you exactly what they want you to believe. Yes, they’re serious; they want you to accept the idea that you’re better off with a doctor of some sort walking around with you every day of every year of your life – through your childhood, then through your college days—and, of course, until the day you die.

How roped and tied to you have to be to believe this, though? If I asked you – and a thousand randomly chosen people like you — to choose which of the following two statements you thought better approximated the truth, what would you say:

A) It’s good for your children to become associated with modern medicine and its associated practices (pharmacology, psychiatry, etc.) — and remaining so from the time they’re born, or

B) If your kids eat well and play outdoors, you’re much better off with a very infrequent relationship with these practices.

Which would you choose? (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

PV - inverters have created a production bottleneck. Picture source: Mhassan abdollahi

Demand for PV inverters continues to boom, according to a report from IMS Research. IMS calculates that 8.3 GW of inverters – worth $2.8 billion – were shipped during 2009. That is a 35% increase in GW terms and 17.9% in cash terms over 2008. During 2009, the price of inverters deciined by around 13% in prices per watt.

In 2010 producers are expected to ship 13.9 GW of inverters – an increase of more than 66% – and the growth would be even greater if a sever component shortage was not limiting inverter production. Prices are expected to stabilize despite the dramatic output growth. 14.6 GW of new PV capacity are expected to be added worldwide in 2010 says The World Market for PV Inverters – 2010’, published July 2010. The figures are based on surveys of inverter suppliers undertaken by IMS Research, together with estimates of demand in 40 countries around the globe.

Utilities reshaping the Inverter market

The development of utility-scale solar plants is changing the shape of the market for PV inverters. Here’s how:

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I’d be lying if I said I spend more than a few minutes a week with the New York Times, but I do try to keep track of the columnists whose opinions I respect. Last week, next to an op-ed by Timothy Geithner that suggested that we were in the midst of recovery, was what I thought was a much more thoughtful and reasonable presentation by Richard Florida on his piece he called “The Great Reset.”

His point – one that I’ve been asserting for a decade now, is that we in the US are experiencing a bifurcation – a splitting – of the haves and the have-nots. Of course, this theme – the growing disparity between rich and poor – has been a subject of conversation since the Karl Marx and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. If I’m not mistaken, Marx suggested that this is an unavoidable byproduct of capitalism. Whether or not that’s true, here we are, 150 years later, with elaborate charts to show that the rich factually have gotten richer while the poor got poorer. (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Sorry to have been absent from the blogosphere for a bit here.

Thursday I was standing in a dairy in Northern Virginia surrounded by hundreds of cows — checking out a methane digester, talking about waste-to-energy, and how feed-in tariffs and carbon credits change the game for dozens of different types of farmers. A few minutes later a thundershower swept in and drove us to cover, but not before a bolt of lightning struck almost directly over our heads. I thought we were goners, but we were spared. Maybe the Man Upstairs recognized that we were trying to do something good down here.

After the meeting, I took my rental car a couple of hundred miles south, through the stunningly beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Friday found me in Charlotte, NC talking to some extremely seasoned auto execs about their business plan concerning practical and very affordable electric pick-up trucks. They lament, as do I, that exactly zero dollars of the stimulus money went to start-up EV companies, and that 31 of the 32 grants went to companies over $1 billion in revenues — despite the promises that the core concept was to create growth in nimble and innovative businesses.

I’m in Syracuse, NY right now, preparing for my meetings tomorrow; the discussion centers around paper made from sugar cane waste — affordable, high-quality paper that leaves the world’s trees standing. This trip’s first two meetings were very quite productive — but this has the potential to be the best of the three.

Home tomorrow night.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

The Spanish Solucar PS10. Source: afloresm

Spain is world leader in utility-scale solar power generation with a capacity of more than 430 MW, following commissioning of their latest plant in the North West of the country. The United States’ utility scale solar generation is a little over 420 MW. Within a year another 600MW will come onstream in Spain and by 2013 solar capacity will have reached 2.5 GW, according to Protermosolar, the country’s generation industry association.

Despite Spain’s enthusiastic promotion of solar generation, there are other areas of the world where solar can operate much more efficiently. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the southern states of the US, have higher solar power generation potential. The German-led Desertec project to generate power for Europe in the Sahara continues to progress. A number of North African countries, including Egypt, are interested in getting involved.

At the same time, utility-scale solar generation is becoming more competitive.  Reports that suggest this include the following:

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