There is a myth permeating our nation’s energy policy and energy economy, which holds that renewable sources of energy cannot meet our outsized electricity demand, let alone power our entire economy. That myth is not only entirely untrue; it depends on the flawed assertion that the only way things can be is the way that … Continue reading We Need a National Renewables Start-up Incubator
Carbon → Fee → Dividend → Simple
The conventional wisdom on action to reduce carbon emissions is that it must be expensive, harmful to the economy, and result in less productive power generation. This is a blatant falsehood based on the outmoded idea that combustion is the most favorable way to harvest energy. All systems of carbon taxation or carbon emissions capping operate on the principle that applying economic pressure in a targeted way can inspire markets to change their behavior. This is the very logic of market-based economic systems.
Continue reading “Carbon Fee and Dividend: to Spur Job Creation, Industrial Boom”
It is a virtual mantra in the universe of political analysis that “business doesn’t like uncertainty”, and it is true that declining consumer spending, increasing fuel costs, squeeze profits and that in some cases, businesses worry about changes to the regulations they must follow. But uncertainty is the nature of an evolving global economy, and … Continue reading 21st Century Business Needs to Learn to Deal with Uncertainty
En la crisis climático-energética, necesitamos soluciones sabias, formidables y asequibles. Es necesario construir cuanto antes una economía verde y sostenible, una economía a base de recursos energéticos limpios y condicionada para sostener una prosperidad no corrosiva. La mejor manera de promover la inyección masiva de capital privado en el proceso de re-invención del mercado energético … Continue reading Pago por carbono y dividendo: para un futuro próspero y sostenible
The Sandia National Laboratories have achieved a landmark breakthrough in solar-voltaic power-generation technology. The snowflake-like “solar glitter” uses 100 times less material to produce the same amount of electricity as today’s standard 6-inch square solar cells. This achievement of ultra-miniaturization now has the potential to move solar-voltaic power generation to the forefront of the clean energy revolution, and help speed the transition away from carbon-based combustible fuels.
The super-reduced size of these snowflake solar cells means they can be used to create more dependable power-generation solar arrays. As reported by Inhabitat (‘green design will save the world’), when a large solar cell fails, it has a serious impact on the overall productivity of the solar array, already limited by the space it takes up, while these tiny snowflake cells, just 14 to 20 micrometers thick and 0.25 to 1 millimeter in diameter, can fit so much more productivity into the same space, the failure of one flake will have negligible overall impact on output.
Continue reading “Snowflake Solar Cells 100 Times More Efficient than Standard Solar Cells”
moving from negative externalities to mutual empowerment The environment is everything that surrounds us, everything that exists within us and feeds us and which we, and our activities, feed into. Negative externalities are economic impacts on third parties not contractually involved in a negotiation. They are called external, because they occur outside the context of … Continue reading Environment is Consequence
The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) was announced in L’Aquila by Australia’s premier Kevin Rudd. The GCCSI amounts to a global intergovernmental effort to produce state of the art carbon capture projects to sequester and store carbon produced by industry in the period leading up to a zero-emissions energy infrastructure. Rudd unveiled the project at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, convened by US president Barack Obama alongside the G8 summit of leading world economies.
The Australian prime minister described the GCCSI as a “rolling global clearing house” for cutting-edge technologies that can speed concrete carbon-capture and storage (CCS) solutions to market across the globe, helping to reduce the greenhouse effect of burning carbon-based fuels. 23 governments and 100 private companies have already joined the initiative, in hopes of supporting best-practice technological innovations that can help combat climate change and ease the cost of transitioning to a clean energy model.
Continue reading “Australian PM Rudd Announces Global Carbon Capture Project”
The Poet Economist 