Having ‘clean coal’ in a group’s name is a bit like a red flashing light on the road ahead to a healthier economy and a smarter grid.
So when the Guardian Environmental Network published in a Business Green blog October 18 post that Clean Coal Task Group asked Parliament to fast track UK’s carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) timetable and add on to its first £1 billion CSS competition, there was reason to clarify the good, the bad and the ugly.
So far U.S. ratepayers aren't taking a fancy to the Smart Grid, whatever that is. At least that’s the premise of an article in the Project Management Institute’s PM Network Magazine (Smart Grids Need a Recharge, October 2011).
Evidence of a faltering grid comes from a Black & Veatch survey of 700 utility executives and managers who point to disinterest and ignorance as the main causes of shallow participation in smart grid programs. If it’s so imperative, then why is its importance being lost on those who need it most?
It was speculated in Part 1 that wind power has held a fascination in our minds since ancient times, and still does. One year later here is Part 2, also written in 2009, at which time there were 23,000 turbines installed, capable of generating more than 38 GW of wind energy pushing the total figure to 160 GW. Hold that thought and then consider that globally somewhere around one to two percent of electricity we humans use comes from wind turbines [see David Beattie's 12.22.10 World Energy post].
In spite of the tizzy this week surrounding Bloom Energy’s $700,000 stand alone box of fuels cells which as AP reporter Jordan Robertson explained “will allow homes and businesses to generate their own electricity,” the lure of hydrogen fuel cells had fizzled over the past few years in the U.S.
Not so for a couple dozen Austinites who jumped on the hydrogen bus this past Wednesday, February 24 at the UT J.J. Pickle Research Campus. This field trip on a bright and brisk morning, found them riding around to the back of the UT Center of Electromechanics building as the bus pulled up alongside a dark gray metal structure.
It’s fair to say that science and fiction have long intertwined. This fertile coupling in our minds has fathered one after another trope, meme, theme, leit motif. As with dragons, aliens, Atlantis and UFOs, it has never been easy to dissuade devotees of their allure. Such is the spin of wind power in high producing states like Texas.
Whether the allure is inspired by economic gain or by the perception of inherent goodness, is hard to tell. What is evident at least compared to Europe and Scandinavia, is that in the U.S. government incentives have not kept pace with foreign momentum nor with Americans’ wishful thinking.
To broaden appeal, companies may stretch their wings across both sides of the environmental divide by joining multiple industry trade groups. In some cases, standing with a foot in opposing camps can complicate a company’s communications strategy, especially when it comes to heated issues. The cleantech sector finds itself at such a juncture in 2009 as it struggles to enlist allies in creating a clean energy economy—something that the unlikely alliance of climate scientists, government agencies, military analysts, environmentalists and forward-thinking business leaders are starting to reckon with.
The premise of this blog (or what, had it arrived online less than a decade ago would have been called a web log) is to explore concepts and deepen our understanding of the knowledge that surrounds design of clean technologies, here often called 'cleantech'.
On one level, the metaphor 'picture the worlds' expresses the notion that design thinking can give us a steady hand on the rudder as we navigate through environmental upheaval—softened now to climate control—something we humans haven't seemed to be good at. But we're getting smarter. This is remarkable. This is what Cleantech Map blog talks about: the map we are charting on the way to clean energy.
