Home › Blog › Page 1873

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

I hope everyone will take five minutes and watch the incredible video linked here, in which the genius Hans Rosling summarizes 200 years of world history. When you get finished picking your chin up off the floor in utter amazement at how cool this analysis is, I’m sure you’ll have some of the same thoughts I did, as the piece touches on many subjects within the spheres of technology, geo-politics, sociology, and philosophy.

My first thought was sustainability. Note Rosling’s vision for the future: “Perhaps all the peoples of the world can become healthy and wealthy.” Perhaps so. But if any reason for optimism actually exists, we as a civilization need to move quickly to a way of dealing with the natural world that is non-exploitative. To the degree that we look at our challenges in energy, for example, and say, “Hell, we just need better pumps to suck this stuff out of the ground,” we’re pursuing a course that cannot possibly sustain itself — let alone provide for the health of current and future generations.

The concept that “the world is ours for the taking” simply does not apply to the 21st Century the way we assumed it did in the industrial revolution 150 years ago. 

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The Vector hopes readers follow Ford Motor Company and note how it is guaranteeing its relevance in the 21st Century. First and most obviously, we like the way it cooly turned down government bailout money, then turned a $2.7 billion profit in 2009. Nothing says relevance like winning, and doing so without bilking the taxpayers.

Just as impressive, Ford embraces the EV future. In preparing itself to compete with the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Volt, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and products soon to hit the streets from BMW and dozens of others, the importance of leadership in this space is clearly not lost on Ford. (more…)

Tagged with: , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I think we’re all a bit curious about the ultimate disposition of the energy industry – both here in the US and around the globe.  In the States, 49% of our electricity comes from coal, and the penetration of renewables is under 2%.  Worldwide, about 80% of energy for all purposes comes from burning hydrocarbons.  So if that’s where we are, where are we going?

In the US, we have a complicated array of vectors in this space. We have constantly falling prices for PV and wind — and promising new technologies coming along right behind them, yet we have a Republican majority in the Senate that has aggressively begun to block all actions that would mitigate global climate change.

So, again, what are the most likely scenarios for change, if any, through the coming decades?  I was lucky enough to have received a crystal ball for Christmas that comes in handy on occasions like this; let me pull it out, and I’ll tell you.  But first, maybe we should look at a few high-level questions that frame the discussion: (more…)

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

One generally considers that people with a lot of money are smart; after all, it was Aesop who told us 2500 years ago: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”  But some of us are having difficulty understanding how CODA, the electric vehicle company whose planned introduction of a lithium-ion powered sedan appears to be floundering, continues to raise huge amounts of money from apparently intelligent investment bankers and venture capitalists. (more…)

Tagged with: ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Warm thanks to 2GreenEnergy co-founder George Alger and website superstar Adam Battenfield for their work on the new “media” page, which is intended to present my capabilities as a public speaker or TV/radio guest on clean energy. 

Wow, guys!  I actually look reasonably good here!  How on Earth did you accomplish that?

Tagged with:

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Occasionally I check the analytics on the 2GreenEnergy site to see where our traffic is coming from.  I was delighted to see that we got over 100 visitors the other day from a site that doesn’t have a word of English on it.  Check this out. 

Tagged with: ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s a frustrating time for those of us who follow the international energy news and try to get the big picture on the slow migration to renewables. The biggest single problem, of course, is that we live on a planet with almost 200 sovereign countries each with autonomy to create of its own energy policy — or simply avoid the issue entirely, like we’ve done here in the US.  And often, failure of a big country to act responsibly in this space is taken as an invitation for another country to behave irresponsibly as well.

Today we learned that Japan has postponed or even scrapped its national cap-and-trade plan, due to go into effect in 2013 because of intense lobbying by powerful business interests and because the measure has yet to make headway in other key countries.

Where is all this taking us? Are we to blame the Australia’s flood “of biblical proportions” (waters 30 feet above normal) on global climate change? I honestly don’t know. But as usual, I urge any of the new GOP administration in Washington who may be climate change deniers simply to adopt any of the other five or six good reasons to accelerate the pace at which we move away from fossil fuels.

Tagged with: , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

I’ve gotten a great number of fascinating comments on my piece on science’s coming under attack from politics and religion, for example:

Like you, I am worried about the religious campaign to undo hundreds of years of scientific development. Unfortunately, history tells us that politics and religion have been closely linked since the earliest civilizations. The Egyptian pharaohs were the high priests of their polytheistic religion. During the decline of the Roman Empire, emperors were gods and today we not only face the threat from the religious right but also the Muslim jihadists.

This is true. But at least in the West, have a couple hundred years of history that has begun to build a separation here. Starting with the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century, and the principles of the French and American Revolutions, our civilization has seen fit to identify independent roles for scientific inquiry versus belief systems that are not amenable to evidence or proof. For my money, this is a vitally important ingredient in building a world that is capable of sustaining itself going forward.

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

This is a continuation of The Vector’s coverage of James Woolsey’s position in the imperative to move to renewable energy based on national security concerns.

You’ve got both the terrorism and enhancing of the bad guys — What Tom Friedman calls “Fill ‘er up with dictators,” and all the issues associated with that.

First of all, oil, like gold before it, has the effect that Paul Collier at Oxford, and Tom Friedman cite sometimes called the “oil curse.” Generally it’s just that an autocratic state, when it depends for a huge share of its income on a commodity that has a lot of economic rent attached to it, that rent accrues to the central power of the state essentially. (more…)

Tagged with: ,

by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Tucson Electric Power has signed up to solar photovoltaic array projects with capacities of 35MW, 25MW and 5MW; single-axis tracking PV arrays with capacities of 12MW, 4MW and two of 5MW each, a concentrating PV plant with capacity of 12MW and two of 2MW each; a 50MW wind project; and a 2.2MW landfill gas generator project. The desert city company emphasises that none of the projects require water. The utility company expects to be buying power from the first of these renewable energy projects in 2012.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,