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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

When I sit down with my family at dinner each night and we talk about our experiences of the day, my kids often remark how seriously I take all this renewable energy stuff.  “Dad, isn’t there anything you can smile about here?” they might ask. 

I’ve come to realize that they’re largely right; in fact, I do need to lighten up and see this subject with a bit more whimsy. And to that end, here’s a fun little piece I wrote recently: The Clean Energy IQ Test. I invite you to take the test and see how well you do.

I also invite you to comment, to suggest new questions, to make any recommendations that you feel will make this a better experience for other people who may come across it in the future. As always, thanks.

　

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Trenton Panels courtesy PSE&G

Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), the largest gas and electric utility in New Jersey, is converting an oil coal-gas manufacturing facility in Trenton into a 1.3 MW solar farm. It will provide enough energy to power about 207 residences.

This is the kind of story we see popping up around the U.S. and can be part of the green energy movement to create jobs, make old manufacturing sites useful again, and create clean power for homes and businesses.

New Jersey has become focused on green energy plans. The state committed last year to a half-billion dollar program to install 80 MW of solar power, which will nearly double its current solar capacity.  Called “Solar 4 All”, the plan includes solar panel installation on utility poles in the six largest cities and 300 towns, and 20 projects around the state. The manufacturing facility conversion in Trenton is part of the investment. To date, PSE&G has already installed more than 40,000 solar panels on its utility poles and it plans to put up 160,000 by the end of 2013.

The Trenton site is one of four solar farms underway, and it is a former brownfield (contaminated) site. It is one of the oldest (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Just when you thought every piece of news you were going to come across today was bad, here’s a shining star for those of us who care about the quality of the democracy under which we live.  Two-thirds of Americans oppose the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Citizens United vs. The U.S. Federal Election Commission, and numerous, powerful groups are fighting to overturn it. 

The decision created an absolute right of corporate “speech” to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, and corporate money poured into the 2010 elections in unprecedented amounts as a result.  This is clearly contrary to our constitutional principles and to the American vision of self-government by free people. That vision cannot coexist with elections dominated by hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate electioneering money. (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I didn’t create Renewable Energy — Facts and Fantasies with the aspirations of becoming the J.K. Rowling of clean energy. I honestly just wanted to have a book that answered people’s questions about a certain subject – albeit it an important one – a short, readable piece that would be appealing to whoever happened to have an active curiosity on the subject.

But now that the book’s available, I’ve decided to try to promote it a bit, as long as that can be done without too much cost or time out of my day. To that end, I’ve engaged a group of folks to try to get me some radio and television interviews, as that certainly seems to be the main way we hear about new books in our world today.

I’m trying to anticipate what this will be like – being on the other end of the flow of questions and answers from my normal role as interviewer. In particular, the experience is rooted in the unknown: when I’m asking the questions, there are no real surprises. But when I’m on the other side, I have to wonder: What question is next? (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I’m having lunch shortly with Diane Tegarden, the host of “The Firewalker Flare – A Renewable Energy and Environmental Solutions Talk Radio Show.”  Diane is a terrifically sharp and energetic person, and was generous enough to have me on her show a couple of weeks ago.

The podcast of the show, which focused on electric vehicles, is here.

 

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Geothermal

Here’s a continuation of our discussion on geothermal:

There are several U.S. incentives in place that may help expand the geothermal industry:

1) A three year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) making geothermal plants placed in service by December 31, 2013 eligible for the full credit.

2) Extension of the 30% investment tax credit (ITC) to new geothermal projects.

3) $1.6 billion in new bonding authority for Clean Renewable Energy Bonds.

4) Up to $6 billion in loan guarantees for new renewable / geothermal power projects.

Jobs

The Green Jobs Through Geothermal Energy report concludes that the U.S. could significantly bolster levels of employment through expanding the geothermal industry. The report looks carefully at every phase of a geothermal project and the kinds of jobs it creates. It states that more jobs are created than in some energy technologies, but it also employs those from a spectrum of levels and backgrounds, from PhDs to technical “green collar” folks like the drillers, welders and machinists.

A comparative job creation chart from the report is shown below. Comparing Geothermal industry jobs with Natural Gas based on MW produced, sourced from US DOE statistics: (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I often think about how the energy industry’s financial analysts view the fundamentals that apply to market valuations. Just now, I was reading some of the discussion at SeekingAlpha.com on ExxonMobil that attempts to get to the underlying buy/sell recommendations, and I note that the conversation is fairly bullish across the board.

In particular, though there is widespread agreement that the “easy oil is gone,” there is almost no recognition of a concerted move to get off of oil as a civilization. Moreover, the concept of “peak oil” (i.e., that the supply of oil will soon start to diminish) means that the price will soar, and that only companies with the scale of ExxonMobil (vs. the wildcatters of yore) will have the capability to play effectively. But there is precious little talk of the impact of electric transportation, or renewable energy in any of its forms.

I’m trying to figure out what that means. Here are a few points of speculation: (more…)

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I thought I’d share this terrific article on how the investor market has changed.  It cites the founder of Tesla cars and explains how he got millions in investment, in spite of the current venture capital climate.

You’ll travel a long way to find someone more informed on start-ups.  Steve Blank is a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor, and teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and Berkeley.

Here’s another article by Steve on how to launch a start-up.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

A few weeks ago, George Alger, my co-founder at 2GreenEnergy.com, asked me to take a break from my more serious writing and do something a bit whimsical. “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

What he described was a kind of Renewable Energy IQ Test – something that people might like for its entertainment value. “You know,” he explained, “People love diverting little exercises – especially when they can learn from them.  Just write 20-or-so questions with multiple-choice answers. I’ll have the programming team put something together where contestants get their scores instantly. It could be kinda cool.” I put something together quickly and shot it back to him. 

But is it, in fact, kinda cool?  I’ll let you be the judge — and I hope you’ll let us know what you think. In any case, here it is: our Renewable Energy IQ Test.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Geothermal

Geothermal energy is a renewable, plentiful, clean and essentially limitless source of energy that can use a variety of applications. Geothermal is defined simply as heat from the earth. It tends to get less attention than wind, solar, and biofuels, but one myth the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) says floats around – that the industry is experimental and technologies not widely used – is simply not true.

Geothermal goes as far back as the Paleo-Indian, who first used thermal hot springs. Such district-wide heating projects have been in continuous use since 1892, such as in Boise, Idaho and in Oregon. In 1904, Italy opened the first large-scale geothermal electric plant and it is still operating today. The first U.S. geothermal plant opened at The Geysers in California in 1960, and produces 11 MW of net power, continuing operations today as well. Geothermal power is used in 21 countries. The Philippines derives 27% of its electricity from geothermal sources and little El Salvador gets 26% of its electricity generation from geothermal. However, what is in use today – about 10,715 MW installed — is but a fraction that could be used, and the industry has nowhere to go but up.

(more…)

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