A Lure to Azure...

 

I've been non-stop thinking about my transportation situation.  Some days, I want to work a deal with Amtrak and do the last-mile bike solution using my Bike Friday tikit, fast-folding bicycle.  Other days I'm happy to turn the crank on my Subaru Forester and cruise to Sequential Biofuels and fill it with E85, get on up the road.  Still others, I want to find a nice VW Westy and convert it to a full-on diesel-electric series hybrid vehicle.  The thinking there is, battery technology will continue to improve with higher power density and lower weight, while biofuels will continue into the future... yes, no...?

Who knows, right ?  Well, I still haven't decided, but the folks at Azure are helping me to envision the latter solution.  They have developed diesel series hybrid technologies for fleet vehicles like Purolator, FedEx, Ford and others.  It occurs to me that the biggest winners would be FedEx, UPS and the US Postal Service.  But, with many people like myself who travel 30-40K miles a year in sales, something like this would make a lot of sense.  And as a commercial solar consultant, what makes even more sense is the addition of solar vehicle charging stations at all these fleet installations - and in community solar installations.

I'll keep working and hoping.  Maybe sometime soon, this can all be a reality and I'll be more than a spectator.  At least with the solar, I can participate.  So, if you're reading this, have an interest in solar electric hydrid vehicles, fleet electric hybrid vehicles or strictly solar for your home or business - drop me a line at jd@aesrenew.com.  And when I'm not in my Subie, zipping to and fro throughout the lower Willamette Valley and places between the Cascades and Coast - we'll see you out there, on my bike of course...

Getting there at midnight...

The sun is down. I live off the grid.  My CSP, PV, Thermal system isn't in ascending energy... it's diminishing. I don't have wind available where I live. I won't know what my energy supply is until the sun rises again. And, I don't have a battery system large enough to provide storage for my general household needs for multiple days...

Tomorrow it could be strangely cloudy, globally weirded, somehow incapable of meeting my energy demands. Will a smart-grid shut down my heat, refrigerator, charging for my new plug-in hybrid ? Do I have sufficient battery back-up to even run my computer and choose to stay-at-home working ? Am I even employed in a way that allows such a thing ?

These are thoughts that run through my head when I look at my situation. When I sit down and review the ideas we're pondering for the next 30-40 years, supposedly bridging and transitioning us to a future energy provision, I can't help but wonder why we're not doing more now, and why we're not thinking with a higher-up vision. Instead of 10,000 feet, why not six generations like the Sioux...?

All this discussion about creating enough energy to meet a doubling of consumption - it's maddening. We should be requiring that for every kilowatt of renewable we add, two kilowatts must somehow be conserved. And we should also be working on education of both sexes and all continents. What happens there affects us here.

I'm not referring to quality of life issues. I'm referring to potential of future societies to exist. If we don't reel in population, then it's hopeless and we might as well have a carbon-suicide party and all buy big-ass, gasoline-powered SUV's and put lift kits and 33" Mickey Thompson's on them...

If we're going to talk about solutions, we'd better instill food, water, transportation, population, health literacy, education and peace into the mix. It's time for humanity to grow up. It's time for the developed nations to embrace a bit of humility, reeling in our lifestyles, consumption and waistlines. And the sooner the better...

Watch for my next post concerning transportation, linked to renewables, a smart grid system, and how we can tie all of this together in a comprehensive plan that haves and have-nots would consider...