A version of this article was first published on Eat Drink Better. It includes some key information on food combining, as well as three good food-combining plans to choose from.

Strawberries & yogurt via shutterstock.

Awhile back, I was planning to write a couple articles about two of my three favorite legumes this week — garbanzo beans and lentils (my other top legume is peas). I decided to delve into my favorite food book on the planet, Healing with Whole Foods, in order to learn more about them.

However, once I got into the book and got to checking out the sections that discussed these legumes, I ran across an interesting section on food combining and got pulled into reading it (as well as some other sections). What came out was this lengthy piece all about how best to combine (or not combine) various foods.

Too Much Is Generally Not Good

As an intro to food combining, the book’s first paragraph in this section nails it:

“Too much elaborate food encourages nearly everyone — even people who normally live moderately — to overindulge. The consequence is digestive fermentation, contaminated blood, and a confused mind. Common digestive disturbances from poor food combining include decreased nutrient assimilation, intestinal gas, and abdominal pain and swelling. If such eating practices continue over time, degenerative conditions can ensue.”

So, if you want to assimilate those nutrients and not run into certain chronic degenerative problems, food combining is important. (In particular, not combining the wrong foods too much is important).

However, there are some notable exceptions. (Make sure you check out the full post!)

The Key Element in Food Combining

The main issue here is digestive enzymes. Different foods require different digestive enzymes.

“When many different ingredients are eaten at the same meal, the body becomes confused and is not able to manufacture all of the necessary enzymes simultaneously,” Paul Pitchford, the author of Healing with Whole Foods, writes.

“At this point digestion still takes place, but partially through bacterial action, which always causes fermentation and the associate problems mentioned earlier.”

He goes on to discuss this in more detail, but the general point is just that the second option has clear downsides.

And, for anyone who is a fan of controlled, healthful fermentation of food (to make sauerkraut, miso, tempeh, and such), note that this is a different thing — no worries.

Notice Who Doesn’t Want Complex Meals

Paul makes a few rather interesting points before delving into recommendations. These really stuck out at me.

For one, for tens of thousands of years (with one notable exception, Plan C below), our ancestors didn’t combine a ton of foods all in one meal or dish. Today, we obviously benefit from, but also run into some problems from, our overabundance of food options.

But even today, he points out that children, more in tune with their instincts, prefer to eat more simply. Additionally, think of the times when you are sick — when we are sick, our instincts often kick in more than our desires and we tend to look to simpler meals.

Again, there are exceptions, so make sure you make it to the end!

Minestrone soup via shutterstock.

So, a general rule you’ve probably learned by now is that, in general, simpler is better. But let’s get into some specifics….

I’m not going to cover everything Paul covers, of course. He’s written several pages on each of these “plans.” If you want to read more about the “why” of each, or to see more examples, check out the book. We bought ours at Whole Foods — you can probably even browse it there or at your local health food store if you wish.

Food Combining Plan A

So, basically, there are 4 rules to Plan A:

1. “Place highest-protein foods at the beginning of the meal.” They are the most needy for stomach acids used in proper digestion.
2. “Salty foods should be eaten before foods of other flavors.“ For example: “A small amount of soup can be eaten first if it contains salty high-protein and enzyme-rich products like miso or soy sauce, which activate and encourage digestion.” Otherwise, however, soups dilute important, initial digestive juices and should be saved for the end. Why eat salty foods first? Well, as I said, it gets a little technical and I’m skipping that part. However, one important exception Paul notes is that a small quantity of a salty food at the end of a meal (e.g. a pickle or salt plum) can help the stomach out (combating belching, vomiting, or heartburn). It helps due to the same properties that make salty foods (of larger quantities) more suitable for the beginning of the meal. Take-home point: salty foods at the beginning, except in the case of very small servings such as a pickle.
3. “Proteins, fats, and starches combine best with green and non-starchy vegetables.” Overall, it would be best to not combine proteins, fats, and starches in a single meal. They each combine best with just green and non-starchy vegetables. But as a compromise for those used to such combinations (that would include me), he recommends eating the proteins first with “generous amounts of green vegetables.” Note on proteins: “In any meal, protein foods are difficult to digest completely. Excess protein, particularly that of animal origin, is the major dietary source of indigestion and sickness in the West and other areas of the world where it is consumed. The problem with protein in the form of animal products is that it nearly always contains substantial saturated fat. These and most other fats and oils greatly slow the digestion of protein. The situation is made even worse when animal products already rich in fat are fried in cooking oils.” Note on starches: different starches (e.g. rice, bread, potatoes, carrots, beets, winter squash) each require different digestive enzymes, which is why they don’t combine with each other very well. Best is to stick to one starch per meal, or at most a grain and a starch in vegetable form.
4. “Fruit and sweetened foods should be eaten alone, or in small amounts at the end of a meal.” Bottom line: “When eaten in a meal, they digest first and tend to monopolize all the digestive functions; the other foods wait, and ferment.”

Food Combining Plan B

Plan B follows essentially the same principles as Plan A but is more restrictive. Basically, it’s for those with those with digestive problems, those who are sick, or those who want to be tip top or boost their overall vitality. One idea if you are intimidated by this one is to simply follow these suggestions one day a week.

Two basic rules with this one:

1. “Eat protein and starchy foods in separate meals; each combines best with green and non-starchy vegetables;”
2. Eat fruits alone.

To be quite honest, this sounds easier for me, barring some exceptions (like eating out).

Exceptions

However, there are actually several exceptions to these rules.

“The protein foods highest in fats — the high-fat proteins — include cheese, milk, yogurt, kefir, nuts, and oil-bearing seeds. These also combine best with green and non-starchy vegetables although they have an additional feature: they combine fairly well with (acidic) fruits. Thus almonds and sour apples; whole sesame butter and lemon sauce; yogurt and strawberries; and cottage cheese and grapefruit are all acceptable combinations of high-fat proteins with acidic fruits.”

Some more notes:

1. Drink milk alone (or, leave milk alone).
2. Eat melons alone.
3. Lemons, limes, and tomatoes combine well with greens and low-starch vegetables (and high-fat proteins), due to their acidic nature.
4. Celery and lettuce go well with fruit, even enhancing its digestion.

Plan C: One-Pot Meal

There is, apparently, an exception to many of these rules. Cooking a bunch of ingredients together with a good amount of water (i.e. soups, stews, and congees) can be fine.

“This plan differs from foods cooked with little or no water in that a slowly cooked watery medium allows the chemicals of all ingredients to interact more completely. In a sense, the foods re being predigested in the pot.”

Paul quotes a colorful line from Robert Svodoba’s Prakruit, Your Ayurvedic Constitution to make the point another way: “In a one-pot meal, ‘… the various foods have settled their differences in the pot, fought out whatever needed to be fought out, and come to some conclusion, which you then consume.’ ”

What to Remember

So, just to wrap up….

Here are some common protein-rich foods that should, ideally, be eaten alone or just with green and non-starchy vegetables (or, if combined with more than that, should be eaten first):

• beans
• lentils
• peas & their sprouts
• tofu
• tempeh
• miso
• nuts
• seeds
• cheese
• yogurt

Green & non-starchy vegetables such as the ones below can be eaten with proteins, starches, or fats and oils (something I didn’t discuss but which include olives, avocados, butter, cream, sour cream, olive oil, flax oil, sesame oil, etc.):

• leafy greens
• cabbage
• cauliflower
• broccoli
• alfalfa sprouts
• celery
• asparagus
• radishes
• zucchini
• onion
• garlic
• mushrooms
• green beans
• sweet peas
• fresh corn
• seaweed
• micro-algae

Starches, like proteins, should just be eaten with the green & non-starchy vegetables mentioned above. These include:

• grains & their sprouts
• bread
• pasta
• potatoes & sweet potatoes
• beets
• parsnips
• carrots
• pumpkins
• winter squash

And fruits, ideally, should be eaten alone. However, acidic fruits can be mixed with fats & oils. Acidic fruits include:

• lemons
• limes
• grapefruit
• oranges
• tomatoes
• strawberries
• pineapple
• pomegranate
• kiwi

Any more tips or thoughts on all this?

Try this out and see how it changes your digestion and how you feel!

The post How To Combine Foods For Best Health appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

No joke, and I don’t even have to get dressed for work:

Obama, Elon Musk, Bloomberg, & Me On A Top 20 List (via Clean Technica)

I know, I thought it was a joke at first, too. I actually received a tweet about the list on April 2, with a link to a slideshare (embedded below) and a note about me being on a list with some top automotive leaders. So, when I was looking at the list on slide 8 and saw myself on there with the likes…

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The post On A Top 20 List With Obama, Elon Musk, Mayor Bloomberg, Bob Lutz… appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

Reposted from Solar Love:

The solar manufacturing industry is now a highly competitive industry. Solar module companies that can’t compete are dropping like  icicles on a warm spring day. Shell dropped out of the solar module race in 2006, giving its solar business to SolarWorld.

Source: Shell

Nonetheless, Shell is still quite bullish on solar energy in the long term. In one of the two future energy scenarios it just released (the New Lens Scenarios), it projected that solar would become the largest source of energy by 2070.

Solar industry enthusiasts (which I assume most of you are) know that solar power has grown tremendously in the past several years — to be specific, from about 1 gigawatt (GW) in 2000 to about 102 GW at the end of 2012. It is still a small piece of the energy or even electricity pie, but it’s growing fast. And, most importantly, it looks like it will have a very bright future.

In both of Shell’s new scenarios, which are led by Jeremy Bentham (Vice President Business Environment and Head of Shell Scenarios), the company sees global CO2 emissions dropping to zero by 2100, but through very different means. In the first, its projection is that solar will account for 37.7% of primary energy use by 2100. The company is also bullish on natural gas, electric vehicles, hydrogen (as a transportation fuel source and resource for electricity storage), biofuels, and wind power (compared to other energy sources). But there’s much more to the story than these simple statements.

Oceans & Mountains

The report includes some interesting discussions of the increasing competition between the U.S. and China; globalization, and some of the complex issues that come with that; three paradoxes, which it calles the prosperity paradox, the connectivity paradox, and the leadership paradox; the structure of the global economy; and other interesting matters.

Following that setting of the stage, Bentham and his team at Shell delve in its two new scenarios — Oceans and Mountains. They write: “These scenarios are designed to provide new lenses through which to explore these issues – or, as we explore these contrasting worlds, two panoramas: high Mountains where the benefits of an elevated position are exercised and protected, and those who are currently influential hold on to power; and wide Oceans with rising tides, strong currents, and a volatile churn of actors and events with an irregular accommodation of competing interests. These panoramas have distinctive social, economic, and political features that can be discerned over the next 20 years or so, with consequences for energy developments over half a century. Together these shape ecological outlooks beyond 2100. They form the New Lens Scenarios for the 21st century.”

For those of us concerned about societal suicide through climate change, neither scenario is particularly optimistic. In Mountains, world temperatures increase well beyond 2°C by 2050 (a politically agreed upon target that is still concerning in the level of catastrophe it brings to humanity). Really, the Mountains scenario relies on a great deal of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the second half of the century in order to reach zero net CO2 emissions by 2100:

And if you thought the Oceans scenario would be better due to the higher penetration of solar power, you’d be mistaken. The long and broad use of oil, coal, and natural gas in this scenario still paint a bleak climate future. Shell writes: “Global economic growth, the continued importance of coal in power generation, and oil in transport accompany the continuing growth in greenhouse gas emissions in Oceans. Offset by efficiencies and renewable energy, greenhouse gases reach a plateau where they remain from the 2030s to the 2050s. By this time, the elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are clearly shown to be linked with the observed increase in extreme climate events. these ultimately drive policy changes and the deployment of technologies that have been on the back burner, and complement sporadic efforts to price emissions.” Here’s the CO2 emission trend:

And here they are in one graph, compared to a 2° pathway:

But these are just two scenarios, with many, many, many assumptions. And the assumptions make the projections. The fact of the matter is that scenario production is just an advanced game of guessing. But it’s also a form of actively trying to shape the future. While Oceans and Mountains differ, they stay within a certain universe of options that others have gone beyond.

Furthermore, the Mountains scenario is largely about those in power retaining power to a greater degree, yet it somehow comes up with a better or at least equal CO2 emissions reduction curve. In other words, Shell promotes the idea through this comparison (which is based on innumerable and diverse assumptions) that it would be better (climate-wise) for those with more power (e.g. Shell) to retain that power. Of course, it doesn’t put it so directly, but the implication is clear.

But, again, Oceans and Mountains both stay within a certain universe of scenarios. They could both be wildly off.

But What Do Others Think?

As I noted on ZacharyShahan.com recently, a report by Ren21 has done an excellent job of comparing renewable energy projections or scenarios from a wide range of organizations, companies, and government agencies. That comparison shows very clearly that oil company projections/scenarios have generally been much less bullish on renewables than projections/scenarios from organizations like WWF and Greenpeace, and also less than those from “neutral” (but still very conservative) bodies such as the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Source: Ren21

Source: Ren21

From Shell: “In the New Lens Scenarios, renewables reach a 30–40% share of total energy by 2060 in Mountains and Oceans, reaching perhaps 60–70% saturation if the time horizon is extended still further. Some may be disappointed with this figure, but there are good reasons why we will do well to reach even this level.” The company then goes on to do some hand waving regarding renewable energy potential (it’s not exactly the optimist on that front). As you can see above, Shell’s highest renewable energy projections seem to be well above ExxonMobil’s and BP’s, but they’re still well below WWF’s and Greenpeace’s.

Society and Wealth

One matter discussed throughout Shell’s new report is how wealth is dispersed throughout society. For example, see this line and graph: “The original Us Gilded Age led to the ‘progressive era’, marked by the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt from 1901, after public opinion, concerned about the exploitation and abuses of the time, began to push back against its excesses. A more activist government addressed the interests of small business, farmers, and labour movements, seeking to clean up the political process and curb abuses by breaking up large businesses and monopolies. The work of journalists and activists such as Ida Tarbell was seminal to this movement. But it was not until President Wilson’s introduction of estate and income taxes and his reforms against trusts, followed by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, that income inequality began to be compressed. The New Deal effectively ended the Gilded Age and gave rise to a society of broadly shared prosperity and a period of stable growth that continued until Reagan’s era in the 1980s, when social and economic divides began to widen again.”

The attractiveness of decentralized solar power that lets common citizens share in the wealth of the tremendously large energy industry, or at least stop giving their own wealth to it, is a powerful force that many of us solar enthusiasts presume may stimulate exponential growth in solar for years to come. If that happened, solar could even go way beyond the projections in Shell’s Oceans scenario, especially if combined with a similar growth in electric vehicles.

However, that is a great threat to many of the super rich, which the graph above shows have taken over the economy since the beginning of Reagan’s term as president. As such, there is great pushback from these rich and powerful people, rigging of the energy policy landscape wherever they can accomplish it, and enough misinformation put out there and repeated constantly to confuse the public and keep many people asleep to the potential of a democratized energy system. The question really is how much those at the top of the economic ladder will or will not keep the masses from bringing about a solar revolution in the coming decades (which would also likely be combined with an EV and energy efficiency revolution).

Of course, there are many other societal factors to consider. But I think this post covered enough for now. Like it? Share it with your friends and family!

The post Shell Sees Solar Becoming #1 Source Of Energy (But Its Forecast Is Still Biased) appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

Ren21 — a global renewable energy policy multi-stakeholder network that connects governmental bodies, nonprofit organizations, industry associations, research institutes and universities, and members of civil society — recently conducted a massive, 75-page report on a large variety of potential renewable energy scenarios for the coming decades. The report, “REN21 Renewables Global Futures Report,” compares scenarios created by fossil fuel companies (like ExxonMobil and BP), leading nonprofit organizations (like Greenpeace and WWF), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and others. In total, Ren21 reviewed 51 different scenarios.

The report is very detailed, so it’s worth a close read by anyone who is very interested in the topic of renewable energy, or who is working in a relevant industry. But even for the common citizen, I think there are some key points to pull out of it (and of course some fund charts and graphs).

First of all, the key point is that there are massive differences between different scenarios or projections. As one would expect, those who benefit financially from keeping things closer to how they are right now (i.e. BP and ExxonMobil) created scenarios that projected much more limited renewable energy growth, while environmental organizations (i.e. Greenpeace and WWF) created scenarios that projected much more optimistic renewable energy growth.

I think there are generally two key, overarching points to take away from the variety of scenarios:

1. Policy choices have a humungous effect on what sort of world we create in the coming decades. Policy factors were the only assumptions that resulted in the scenario variations. Of course, there were many assumptions used in each study that had an effect on the results — technology advancements, consumer behavior, industry behavior, etc. But policy assumptions were one of the most important — probably the most important. And policy choices are up to us. They are up to citizens, and of course legislators.
2. Scenario projections themselves are used to influence policy and the public. It may seem obvious, but it’s worth pointing out that the scenarios put out by BP, ExxonMobil, WWF, Greenpeace, etc., while they are simply based on different assumptions, are often aimed at influencing what the public and policymakers think can be done, should be done, or even will be done. They are tools used to advance certain goals.

With those two points in mind, I would just emphasize that the future is ours to make, and we should make it a clean and safe one.

Global warming and climate change pose a huge threat to human civilization and the human species, as well as countless other species. We could cook ourselves out of existence. Rather than do so, we can demand policies that will protect our climate (while also cleaning our air and water, creating jobs, improving our economy, and making our lives more convenient), or we can sit on our butts and let big fossil fuel companies control our governmental bodies in order to maximize their profits (at the expense of society as a whole).

The choice seems obvious, which is why I do what I do, but it’s clear that we need more people to share this sort of information, get involved in industries improving the world, and get involved in politics in a way that will also help lead us to the more logical future.

OK, that’s all I have as far as text goes. Here are some more charts, images, and tables from the report for your enjoyment and use:

Share of biofuels in transport.

What your house could look like. 8 cleantech solutions.

More resources related to the report are available on the Ren21 website. And here us a PDF version of the full report.

The post How Much Renewable Energy Will Be Installed In 2030? 2040? 2050? appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
Here are parts 1 and 2 of a presentation I recently gave to a class of renewable energy graduate students (reposted from CleanTechnica):

Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 1 (Including 34 Charts & Graphs)

As I mentioned in my article covering the latest US Solar Market Insight report (which I just published a few hours ago), I was “out of the office” today giving a presentation on solar power growth. But the presentation was actually on much, much more than that, as you’ll see in the article below and in the one to follow tomorrow.

It’s a Small World

Unbeknownst to me until a few months ago, there’s a renewable energy graduate program at a university here in Wrocław (the city where I live). Turns out that at least one of the students currently in the program is a CleanTechnica reader. He noticed that I was living in Wrocław, and decided to reach out to me. We met up at a coffee shop one day to talk solar energy (for several hours), and not long after that I was invited to give a guest lecture to his class.

Knowing that the students were more focused on the science and engineering side of things, I decided to focus my presentation on the solar and wind energy markets and key policy topics. I gave the presentation earlier today, and figured it would also be worth sharing it with you all (with plenty of text added in place of my vocal commentary, and with some chart switcharoos and additions, including a few from the new US Solar Market Insight report, which was released less than an hour after my presentation ended).

So, anyway, that’s the story; let’s get rolling….

Notably, the info below doesn’t even take into account the tremendous health costs of coal and natural gas, which would make them much more expensive “at the register” if actually included in the price.

Solar Power Price Drops

1.5 years ago, GE projected that solar power would be cheaper than fossil fuels (on average) within 5 years. With 3.5 years left, GE’s prediction definitely seems within reach. In fact, GE was putting big money into a solar cell manufacturing plant in Colorado, but in January it pulled the plug on that due to the fast-falling prices of competing solar cells. In other words, solar prices are falling even faster than GE had thought they would (and faster than most analysts and renewable energy followers thought they would).

I’ve shared the following two graphics a few times in the past couple years. They make a rather important point that doesn’t seem to get enough attention: solar power projects go up relatively fast, while nuclear and coal power plants require many more years to get designed, planned, permitted, and built. With nuclear and coal costs rising while solar costs are quickly falling, by the time a new nuclear or coal power plant would be built, its electricity would already be more expensive than electricity from solar (or wind, for that matter):

Solar is cheaper than coal, practically speaking. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Solar is cheaper than nuclear power, practically speaking. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

In fact, one report from 2010 found that the solar–nuclear crossover occurred a few years ago.

Solar and Nuclear Costs: The Historic Crossover

Now, an assumption in all of these projections mentioned above is that solar prices will consistently drop at a good rate. And that’s exactly what’s been happening. As I just shared a couple weeks ago, here are a few nice graphs of solar PV price drops in Germany:

October 2012

Lest you think it’s only Germany seeing such price drops, below are similar graphs from the US.

This first one shows that the installed price of residential and commercial solar dropped from an average of about $12/W in 1998 to about $6/W in 2011 (~50%).

Similarly, this next one shows the drop in the price of solar modules from 1985 to 2011 (from over $6.5/Wp to about $1/Wp):

Here’s a look at the drop simply from 2009 to 2011:

And here’s one graph published just a few hours ago for the drop from Q4 2011 to Q3 2012 (for solar modules and specific module components):

Wind Power Price Drops

So far, of course, we’ve just been looking at solar, but the other big renewable energy player these days is wind energy. It has followed a very similar path, just a bit earlier than solar energy. It actually hit a big grid parity point last decade… before natural gas prices fell off a cliff:

Note that the figure on the right should be $25-40/MWh.

Without taking too long of a side tour here, it is worth noting that natural gas prices fell off cliff as certain fracking practices became commonplace, and those only became commonplace once Dick Cheney got a ridiculous policy enacted for the fracking industry on his way out of office (and yep, Cheney was previously CEO of Halliburton, the company probably benefiting the most from this policy). What is the policy? Known as “The Halliburton Loophole,” it’s essentially that fracking fluids are exempt from the Clean Water Act (for no clear reason) and companies engaged in the process don’t even have to disclose what chemicals they are using. Needless to say, countless health externalities from the fracking process are not being accounted for in the price of natural gas, and can’t even be calculated by anyone outside the industry. (And, of course, no one inside the industry is going to do that.)

Long story short: natural gas fracking as it is happening today is artificially legal (i.e. should be illegal).

Furthermore, even with things as they are today, many are projecting that the price of natural gas will rise again in the coming years, making wind the cheaper option by far… yet again:

And, even today, wind energy is the cheapest option for new electricity in many, many places.

But, that’s not the end of the story — the price of wind power, like solar, is on a downward trend. Numerous technological improvements are bringing the price of wind down to an absurdly (in a good way) low number:

As we just reported about a month ago, a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance has documented some important technological and other wind power cost reductions over the past four years. Two of the key findings were that:

• O&M costs have been 38% lower in 2012 than 2008.
• The price per megawatt of wind power is down to €19,200 from the €30,906 it was at in 2008.

The report also noted technological improvements and price reductions. Also worth noting is the birth and growth of Chinese wind turbine manufacturing firms, which is driving down prices and increasing competitiveness.

Solar Power Boom

A rapid price drop and an installation boom are naturally going to go hand in hand. As the price falls, more solar gets installed. And as more solar gets installed, the price falls. This is the kind of feedback loop we like.

Here’s annual solar power growth from 2000 (almost no solar power installed) through 2010 (about 17 GW installed):

Here’s a similar chart for US solar power growth:

Here’s a look at installation data from 2010 & 2011 and installation projections through 2016 (chart just released earlier today):

And here’s a broader look:

Here’s solar PV, wind, and biomass growth in Germany through 2011 (and I know 2012 has added a ton onto that):

Wind Power Boom

Of course, it’s a similar story for wind, with projections that the growth will continue at a fast clip for decades to come:

Installed wind power capacity in the US under the 20% electricity demand by 2030 scenario. (click to enlarge)

Some key stats regarding global wind power are that 1) it had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% from 2005 through 2010; 2) by the end of 2011, 200,000 MW were installed; and 3) by 2030, 1,750,000 MW are projected to be installed.

Europe Leading The Way

As a sign of things to come in Europe and many other places, the EU’s new power installation split in 2011 was quite uplifting — as I reported in February, 70% of new EU power was from renewable energy sources in 2011:

Why have I just been focusing on solar and wind energy in this article/presentation? Because solar and wind energy are the dominant renewable energy options these days. You can see in this chart that 96% of 2011 renewable capacity additions were from solar and wind:

And here’s a look at all net capacity changes in the EU in 2011:

You can see in the next chart that wind and solar have come to dominate new power installations in the EU in just the past 5 or so years (note that solar PV is green not yellow in this chart):

Perceptions, Oy…

Despite all of the above, there are big misconceptions about energy. Perhaps it’s because people heard things 10 years ago that they still keep in their heads and think are true today. Perhaps it’s because people hear things that are simply false (from pseudoscience fossil fuel think tanks, utility companies, and misguided media). But the bottom line is that many (or the large majority of) people don’t realize how cheap solar and wind have gotten.

Here’s one look at the difference between perceptions of the levelized costs of wind and perceptions of the levelized cost of coal:

We also have a post coming soon showing that UK residents don’t realize how cheap solar has become, and how much money they can save by going solar. I’m sure the same is true for the US and other countries/markets.

Rooftop Solar PV Competes With Retail Electricity

Something that doesn’t get emphasized nearly enough is that rooftop solar PV essentially competes with the retail price of electricity, not the wholesale price.

If you’re an average Joe considering whether or not to go solar, you don’t compare the price of solar with the wholesale price of a coal or natural gas power plant — you compare it with what you would pay for electricity from your utility. In many places, solar is already cheaper. And in many, many more places, that will soon be the case. (In other words, utilities have something to be worried about).

With the increasing use of “time of use” (TOU) pricing, and the fact that peak power demand (when prices are highest) often coincides with peak solar PV output, this clean technology gets even that much more attractive (i.e. cheap relative to electricity from the grid).

Leading Countries

You can’t give a big picture summary of clean energy without noting which countries are leading the way.

In absolute terms, you can see the world’s current solar and wind power leaders here:

I love rankings and top 10 lists as much as the next guy, but these absolute installation rankings always irk me a bit. Isn’t relativity important these days?

Little Einstein by • Happy Batatinha • (some rights reserved)

Without finding good rankings based on relative solar and wind leadership on the interwebs, I decided to create such rankings myself.

You can find a lot more rankings and info at the links below, but for a quick snapshot, here are a few key “relative leadership” rankings:

Top solar power countries per capita:

Top solar power countries relative to population. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Top solar power countries per GDP:

Top wind power countries relative to GDP. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Top solar power countries per TWh of electricity production:

Top wind power countries relative to electricity production. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Top wind power countries per capita:

Top wind power countries relative to population. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Top wind power countries per GDP:

Top wind power countries relative to GDP. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Top wind power countries per TWh of electricity production:

Top wind power countries relative to electricity production. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Tomorrow…

So, what are the leading countries doing to lead in the energy sector? What about energy subsidies and incentives? What about technology improvements? What about merit order pricing? What about energy storage?

These are all topics I got into in the second half of my presentation (update December 12: Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 2 is now published).

Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 2 (Including 19 Charts & Graphs)

 
Continuing on from yesterday’s “Renewable Energy Big Pic” post, here’s Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 2. As noted yesterday, this two-post series is basically a presentation I gave to a class of renewable energy graduate students this week. Enjoy this second part, and chime in below if anything interesting or useful comes to mind.

German Solar vs US Solar

As noted yesterday, German solar and US solar have both been growing at a fast pace for several years now, and the price of solar in both countries has been dropping steadily. However, looking at the solar power capacity of each country in a relative manner, Germany has over 21 times more solar installed per capita than the US (301.47 MW per million people compared to 13.973 MW per million people).

That’s not the only big difference between US and German solar, though. The price of solar power in the US is also a lot different than the price of solar power in Germany. We had an article back in June noting that installed solar power in Germany was at about $2.44/watt, while it was $4.44/watt in the US. The price of solar in both countries has dropped a bit since then, but the general difference remains.

And the difference exists across all solar power project sizes, as this Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) chart from November’s Tracking the Sun report shows:

So, why is solar so much cheaper in Germany?

A number of people have looked into the matter in a bit of depth. For example, CleanTechnica contributor John Farrell has produced a chart showing by how much the various costs of solar vary in the two countries, as part of his report on the matter, “Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape.” Here’s that chart:

Here’s another chart on the split, this one from Berkeley Lab:

Some comments from Berkeley Lab: “[1] German installers reported average soft costs of $0.62/W in 2011, which is roughly $2.70/W lower than the average soft costs reported by U.S. installers… [2] Customer acquisition costs averaged just $0.07/W in Germany, or roughly $0.60/W lower than in the U.S.”

Soft costs, red tape, acquisition costs — this is where the party’s happening (or not). But now that we’ve nailed down where the price difference is occurring, how about a bit of reflection on why it’s occurring?

One noticeable cause, I think, is simply that Germany has a much more mature market. (Again, it has over 20 times more solar power installed per capita than the US.) As a market matures, competition increases, there are more economies of scale, and costs come down.

And… if we’re going to talk about creating greater market penetration, we have to look at what policies actually do so. For solar (and other clean energy technologies), nothing has worked better than the rather simple feed-in tariff. As John noted about a year ago, the large majority of the world’s solar power and wind power has come through feed-in tariffs:

Another very interesting factor worth noting is the negative effect subsidies can have on mature or maturing technologies. This is something one of the premier solar policy and finance experts in the world, Jigar Shah, focused on in an exclusive guest article for CleanTechnica a couple months ago. His article, “Are Subsidies Holding Back U.S. Solar Deployment?,” noted that solar subsidies in the US are manipulated by investors in order to get a higher return on investment. In other words, by claiming that solar systems cost more than they do, investors are able to gain more in tax credits.

Jigar noted that “solar is now cost-effective without subsidies for ideal customers in 300 utilities in 30 US states.” Thus, he advises that we cut the subsidies and watch the price of solar fall.

Another thing worth noting is that many people (including schools, government buildings, and nonprofit organizations) can’t take advantage of solar power subsidies in the US. So, it’s imperative that we not inflate the cost of solar for those potential customers with unnecessary subsidies.

I’m sure this is a controversial topic, and there’s a lot more detail to get into on that matter, but we’ll leave this summary at that for now.

Wind Subsidies

Wind power may be in a different boat, since it doesn’t lend itself to decentralized deployment as well as solar. While it is the cheapest option for new electricity in many places, pulling its subsidies or threatening to pull them has resulted in big “bust” years for US wind (and “boom” years right before those bust years). Here’s an Energy Information Administration chart on the matter:

However, I wonder what wind energy developers and investors would do if there was one day no hope of subsidies ever coming back. By bet it that they’d develop and invest a lot more than they do in non-subsidy years. If you’re missing a big tax credit one year but are hopeful it will be back the next year, why not wait it out and invest your capital in more supportive regions or countries in the meantime? (That’s probably what I’d do.)

Dirty Energy Subsidies

I don’t want to focus on this too much, since this is a post on renewable energy, not non-renewable energy (that’s catchy, isn’t it?). But the fact of the matter is, dirty energy sources have a huge bias fiscally because of the decades of massive subsidies they have been granted. This is a matter that I’ve tackled at length on a number of occasions. One key thing to note is that societal externalities (such as $500 billion a year in health costs from coal… in the US alone) are massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. But even beyond that, here are a couple charts from one of our Wind Power resource pages that indicate the completely imbalanced government subsidies for various energy sources:

Subsidies in first 15 years of various energy sources.

And our German writer Thomas Gerke passed this riddle on to me just before my presentation:

“What energy related number has a similar proportion:”

The answer:

“Government support for conventional and renewable energy between 1970-2012 in Germany in billion Euros:”

I’m sure the same is more or less true across the world. In my opinion, the key at this point with regards to subsides is that dirty energy subsidies need to finally be cut, for once and for all. And as part of that, pollution and other externalities need to be adequately priced. Of course, if this were done, fossil fuels would be considerably more expensive. But the fossil fuel industry is fighting such a change tooth and nail… and (so far) winning, for the most part.

Merit Order Effect

Another very interesting topic to cover when looking at the “renewable energy big picture” is the merit order effect.

For a more detailed look at this matter, check out the posts in the link above, but here’s a quick summary:

When utilities need more electricity, they buy it from competing electricity producers. Those producers make bids to offer up their electricity for purchase. To produce extra electricity, of course, coal power plants need to input more coal and natural gas power plants need to input more natural gas, which costs money. Wind and solar power producers, however, have the sun shining and the wind blowing for free. Nothing really needs to be done to take advantage of that, so the extra cost to send more electricity to the grid is essentially nil. That means that solar and wind project owners can bid down to $0 (or even lower in some instances, due to subsidies).

That has one rather huge effect: it drives down the price of electricity on the wholesale electricity market.

We’ve seen this happen in Germany:

In Australia:

In Texas:

And plenty of other places.

I think something especially worth noting here is that solar power is often most abundant during peak power demand. Providing electricity during peak demand is typically more expensive. That’s been the case for so long that it almost seems engraved in stone. However, due to this symbiosis above (and the merit order effect) solar power is chopping off high peak power prices. Here are two graphs from Germany showing this happening:

Notably, in that second graph, you can see that the price of electricity is so low in the middle of the day that it’s practically as low as electricity in the middle of the night. Typically, middle of the day electricity should be very high. But, get enough solar on the grid, and the world turns upside down.

Here are a couple more images, these showing electricity production by energy source:

Unfortunately, as we’ve pointed out on a couple occasions, the wholesale electricity price reductions from the merit order effect (i.e. renewable energy) aren’t always passed on to consumers via reductions in the retail price of electricity.

One would hope that’s the exception rather than the norm.

Technology

While market penetration, economies of scale, and good policies are key components of a bright, clean energy future (as well as making the price of coal and natural gas more accurately line of with the true cost of coal and natural gas), technology advancements and breakthroughs aren’t bad, either. The good news is that we’ve got news on such advancements and breakthroughs pretty much every day. Here are some recent ones regarding wind turbines:

• Gamechanging Vestas V164 Wind Turbine Continues Groundbreaking Development (8MW Wind Turbine!)
• GE Developing New Wind Blades Made Of Fabric To Reduce Wind Energy Costs

 
Some regarding solar:

• Solar-Cell Fabrics May Soon Be A Reality
• Nano-Flowers Could Help Create Next-Gen Energy Storage & Solar Cells
• Thin Film Solar Cell Degradation Prevented with New Method
• Artificial Butterfly Wing Material To Improve Solar Panels
• Rainbows From Nanotechnology To Improve Solar Cells
• Biohybrid Solar Cell Breakthrough: Spinach Protein Combined with Silicon in New Way that Greatly Boosts Performance
• New High-Efficiency Quantum Dot Solar Cells Developed
• Bandgap Engineering Aims To Double Solar Cell Power Generation Using Nanowires
• Color Vision At The Nanoscale, New Tool Developed To See In Color At The Nanoscale And Improve Solar-Energy Technology
• Organic Solar Cell Efficiency Tripled Thanks To Nanostructure Sandwich
• Ultra-Efficient Side-Illuminated Solar Cell Architecture Created By Researchers
• New Solar Module Efficiency Record Set, 33.5% Efficiency

 
Black silicon is a particularly interesting one to me:

• Black Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Doubled
• Black Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Raised to 18.2% by NREL Scientists

 
As are solar windows:

• Solar Cells for Windows Take Another Step Forward
• Solar Power Generation from the Windows — See-Through Solar Cells from Sharp
• Power-Generating Windows Offer New Horizons for Office Energy Efficiency
• One Step Closer to Invisible Solar Cells in Our Windows

Energy Storage

One area where we really could use some breakthroughs is energy storage. Solar and wind’s biggest downsides are that they are not controllable… and sometimes not available.

It’s true (and quite underacknowledged) that the two energy sources is that they are very complementary:

Also, the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. With a well-connected and large grid, the issue of running out of electricity is minimized or even moot.

Image Credit: Thomas Gerke

Nonetheless, based on what we have today, cheaper energy storage could be a huge boost. It is probably the topic I’m most keen to see big news on every day. And a lot of top scientists and engineers are aware of that (not the bit about me, of course, but the bit about cheap energy storage’s huge potential). Here are a handful of companies working on what might be breakthrough energy storage technologies:

• Ambri — liquid-metal batteries
• Aquion — sodium-ion batteries
• Eos — zinc-air batteries (from ground up)
• Envia — high-capacity lithium-ion batteries
• IBM — lithium-air batteries

 
I wouldn’t expect them all to achieve their aims, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if one of them led us forward into a new era of energy storage… and a new era of energy, in general.

Additionally, there are already some companies looking to bring home energy storage systems to mass market. For example, Panasonic. As stated yesterday, mass market production and market penetration themselves help tremendously to bring technology costs down. If Panasonic or others start producing mass market energy storage solutions, watch out.

Another potential energy storage solution is simply using the batteries in electric vehicles to help balance energy supply and demand.

Mass market electric cars are growing fast and seem to be the future. Cars sit parked, out of use, approximately 95% of the time. Their batteries could be of some use while parked. I’ve heard utility company CEOs talking enthusiastically about this. Though, I’ve also seen some convincing arguments against this idea taking off. We’ll see. I don’t think it will be a silver bullet, but it could be part of the solution. And, of course, if you’ve got solar power and a plug-in electric vehicle, you could already start using your battery a bit for non-vehicle purposes.

The Potential Is Huge (Renewable Energy Is Tremendously Abundant)

“Comparing finite and renewable planetary energy reserves (Terawatt‐years). Total recoverable reserves are shown for the finite resources. Yearly potential is shown for the renewables.” (Source: Perez & Perez, 2009a)

I often start with this image in such presentations, but I’ve decided to end with it this time. This chart above shows that solar energy potential each year is several times more than the potential from finite energy reserves of any type of fossil fuel or nuclear power (and wind energy also has tremendous potential). Yes, for renewable energy sources, annual potential is represented, while it is only potential from finite energy reserves for the other energy sources.

To close, here are a couple videos on some of the things mentioned in this post and in Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 1, as well as some things not covered in these posts:

The post About Renewable Energy appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
Here’s a nice quote from Inayat Khan:

“A person who lives in happy surroundings with luxuries and sources of pleasure and comfort, may be envied and imagined to be a very happy and lucky man. In reality, however, he may be very unhappy. The external world has given him all he wished for, but the inner world, the inner being, is unhappy. There is something absent, and he wants it to be present. There is something missing inwardly. This shows that the inner presence is required. The external presence is not the only comfort.

“But we may ask, the inner presence of what? Many will say, ‘We know we are unhappy sometimes in spite of wealth, comfort, happiness, friends, or beloved.’ But, perhaps they will not believe that it is another lack, the lack of a divine ideal that makes them unhappy. Others consider that life requires scope for progress, and that it is the lack of scope that causes the greatest unhappiness. Such persons think that they cannot prosper in the work that they are doing, that they cannot be any better off than the others. Such a thought is worse than death. Life is unlimited, and it wants scope to expand and rise. Without that scope life is unhappy.”

Even if we trick ourself for awhile, or even for years; if we don’t nurture that which is most important to our soul; a deep pang of emptiness will hit us eventually. For those who ignore this most essential need, it often nags us when we are alone, or at other odd moments of the day.

We are made of earth and air, so we must work to sustain ourselves in this world. But we are also made of much more, of life, of something that requires not only worldly sustenance, but spiritual sustenance. The first step is to simply find out what that is.

The post Life’s Hidden Needs appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
I often comment and share news on global warming and climate change, but I think it’s worth stepping back for a moment and looking at how global warming and climate change are actually a threat to us.

Without a doubt, heat waves will harm and kill a number of people in decades to come, and temperatures could one day reach a simply unlivable level, but today and in the coming years, those aren’t the biggest threats we’re facing from climate change. Bigger yet are risks from increasingly strong superstorms, or from agricultural failures due to changing climatic patterns. Perhaps even bigger than those threats, however, is the threat of not having enough drinking water. In fact, we already have such a water crisis.

This water crisis, which could reach much more devastating levels in the years to come, might very well be the most underrated issue of our day — I think it is. And beyond climate change, it’s also due to factors related to our current agricultural practices, population growth, and how we create electricity.

Interesting & Shocking Water Facts

Below, I’m going to explore some key aspects of the electricity–water link below. But very quickly first, here are some water facts from Eat Drink Better that are worth contemplating:

• About 60% of your body weight is water, and about 75% of your muscles are water.
• The current water and sanitation crisis kills more people through disease than wars kill through guns.
• “At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.”

And here are a couple water facts from an Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week post I wrote on Wednesday:

• 27% of the urban population in the developing world does not have in-home piped water.
• 99.7% of all the water on earth is not available for human or animal consumption.

Electricity & Water

We already have a water crisis. Yet, the population is growing, world energy demand is growing, and without proper planning, the water crisis is going to grow into an even greater problem.

We do have some good news, though: we know that solar PV and wind power uses tens or hundreds of times less water (relative to the power they produce) than fossil fuels or nuclear power. Based on data from a “water and energy facts” article I wrote over two years ago, look at how top electricity sources compare on water efficiency:

Here’s a table of the data:

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) notes that wind power “uses less than 1/600 as much water per unit of electricity produced as does nuclear, and approximately 1/500 as much as coal.”

So, beyond their importance for fighting global warming, wind and solar energy are also important for water conservation. Additionally, as more areas get hit by crippling droughts, solar PV and wind will offer a more secure electricity supply. Already, we’ve seen nuclear and coal plants shut down due to heat waves and droughts, while wind farms and solar PV panels keep producing highly needed electricity.

Take Action

To fight droughts from global warming, to improve electricity security in the face of water shortage, and to lessen the water crisis, we should all take action:

• Individuals should go solar, or invest in community solar or wind projects.
• Businesses should also invest in solar and wind power projects, something that helps the world while also helping their bottom line.
• And governments should facilitate the development of more solar and wind power through a large variety of policies and programs (to date, the most effective of which seems to be feed-in tariffs).

This is critical for our future, and even our present. Any more thoughts on this critical, underrated issue, or on solutions to it?

The post Most Underrated Issue Of The Century, And A Critical Solution appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
From an early age, I was labelled as “gifted” and “honored,” but I never really felt that I was particularly special or superior to any of my colleagues. Often, I could simply see what was holding them back, keeping them from doing better.

However, it wasn’t really until now, as a much “more mature” or weathered adult, that I really took a comprehensive glance at what led to my success in school as a kid, as well as later as a teenager and adult. Throwing in my success in soccer (I was a starting player on one of the top soccer teams in Florida for several years, while Florida was a top state in the country for soccer) and work, I was able to further clarify what has led to practically every success I have “achieved” in my life.

1. First of all, while I wasn’t always obsessed with it, more than others, I’ve always been interested in learning. I’ve been curious. I’ve soaked up information with a keen interest in hearing the full story, learning was I was being taught, or even finding things out on my own.

I think I first noticed this in college — I did really well in my final 3 years of my bachelor’s degree (at the “Honors College” of Florida’s state university system) because I was very interested in what I was learning. I was more studious than almost all of my colleagues in that time.

But I was really hit in the head with how obvious my greater interest in learning was while I was studying in the Netherlands for 5 months during graduate school. I was a bit annoying (I think) to many of the other students because of how interested I was in the topics, and how frequently I’d chime in with questions. Looking back on things, this started long before that time.

This interest in learning has led me to basically all of my successes. Can’t think of one where that wasn’t the case.

The bottom line (if you want a bottom line), if you want to do well, or want your child to do well, try to stimulate a genuine (it has to be genuine) interest in learning.

2. A lack of fear is one that really just hit me. More than others (because, let’s face it, success is largely a relative term or idea… at least how it’s generally used and how I’m using it today), I seem to fear failing a lot less than other people.

Derek Sivers has a really excellent video on “why you need to fail” that is worth a full watch. But one of the key points is that, in order to master basically anything, we have to fail a TON first. Without a willingness to fail, and then to pick oneself up and try again, we simply won’t master anything.

Another key point is simply that we become good at something by repeating it and repeating it and repeating it. Generally, we’re not fond of repeating things we aren’t good at (i.e. difficult things), but that’s necessary in order to lead one to success most of the time.

Heck, really, just watch this video and then carry on with the post:

Notably, my willingness to fail is something that really served me well in soccer. I had one of the best “touches” on my team. Anyone who knows soccer knows that is critical to being a good player. But my touch wasn’t simply something I was gifted with — I worked my ass off to develop it. We were instructed by our coach to go “juggle” the soccer ball for an hour a day on our own (i.e. kick the ball repeatedly with our feet, thighs, chest, head, shoulders as long as we could without letting it hit the ground). Now, when you start out doing this, you fail every few seconds. As a kid at least, after years of practice, you fail every few minutes (if you’re lucky). You have to be pretty willing to fail a ton in order to get better than that.

Well, I think I put in more time at home failing, trying to follow my coach’s instructions, day after day than almost anyone on the team (maybe, actually, more than anyone). We had an ongoing competition regarding who could hit the ball the most times without letting it drop. Not surprisingly, I had the title more than anyone else. I remember the last time I broke the title, actually. I think it was at about 700 something at the time. We were off for a bit because it was summer, but I was still practicing my juggling. I got in the zone and just kept going and going. I hit 1,500 and then, without thinking, simply put my foot out one more time and got 1,501. But that was after years of practicing religiously. (Notably, I never got to report that back to the team, because I decided that summer to quit the team. Why? I had a t-shirt for a long time that said “Soccer Is Life.” I really imbibed that. But then one day it hit me — maybe soccer shouldn’t be my entire life. So I just decided to quit the team….)

Again, reflecting more broadly, I can see that a willingness to fail has driven me through every success I’ve had — at least, every one I can think of.

Without a willingness to fail, a lot, you really can’t very far with anything.

3. Time.

This is going to be a short one. Basically, similar to a willingness to fail, success with most things simply require putting in the time.

Just put in the time.

4. I’ve wanted to help others since as long as I can remember. As I matured into an adult, I really wanted to help the world with the huge problems it was (and still is… even more so) facing. That has been a desire, a passion, that has driven me through most of my successes.

Notably, though, I would say a desire “to help others” is the root factor for #4. The factor here is simply passion or desire. Passion and desire will drive us through failures, will drive us through hour after hour after hour after hour of whatever we need to do. Passion and desire will fuel our willingness or eagerness to learn.

Passion and desire to help others wasn’t always my driving force — sometimes they were other passions or desires. But I cannot think of a success that didn’t grow out of those.

It’s a rather popular phrase these days, but it bears repeating: follow your passions. You will learn from them. You will grow from them. And you will eventually achieve what you need. (Now, many folks these days — and probably since the beginning of time — actually advise one not to follow their passion. Quite simply, while that could make your life “easier,” I think that leads to a life of discontent, limited/stunted growth, and some feelings of deep unhappiness. Don’t follow their advice — follow your passion. But perhaps think about it, too.)

5. Grace.

To be quite honest, this is the underlying source of all my successes. Not only because I was lucky at times, or put into an environment that nurtured me enough and hit me enough to let me achieve success. But also because I really wouldn’t have any of the above without Grace.

Where did my interest in learning come from?

Where did my willingness to fail come from?

Where did my perseverance (willingness to put in the time) come from?

Where did my passions and desires come from?

It’s all Grace. It’s all simply a gift. I could be anyone. I could lack all of the things above. I could lack just one important piece of the puzzle each step of the way. Why didn’t I?

It’s all Grace, imho.

The post 5 Things Responsible For 99.99% (Or More) Of My Success appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
Good news from the good folks over at Vegan Outreach and Counting Animals (source of graph below): animal flesh consumption and demand are down! (Note: this is only for the US.)

Here’s part of Harish’s intro to the graph:

“The USDA, on November 16, released its most recent forecast of meat production and consumption through the rest of 2012 and the year 2013. These projections indicate a continued decline in the per capita consumption of all four major meat categories: beef, pork, chicken and turkey. The graph [above] plots the per capita consumption (as implied by per capita disappearance of a product into the market) of meat products beginning with 1966 (the first year for which per capita disappearance data is available for broiler chickens in the food availability data released by the USDA.)”

Nice. Still a long way to zero, but nice to at least see that consumption is going down.

Here’s a bit more from Harish on the consumption side of things:

“Per capita chicken consumption is projected to drop by more than 8% in 2013 compared to the peak reached in 2006. During this same period, per capita beef consumption is projected to drop by about 17%. The per capita pork consumption is projected to drop by almost 11% since a recent peak in 2007 and the per capita turkey consumption is projected to drop by more than 9% since a recent peak in 2008.”

Now, as Harish points out, that’s all just about consumption. Demand is another matter. If you want to get into the economics talk (e.g. compensated demand elasticity).

If you just want to get to the kicker of it, here’s a useful table and Harish’s well considered conclusions (emphasis added):

Take a look at the last two columns and note the larger percentage change in the last column in comparison to the last but one. The actual per capita meat consumption has declined far more than what can be attributed to changes in the price of meat brought about by any of the reasons usually given including reduced production, higher feed costs and drought.

Nearly 70% of the decline in per capita consumption of beef since 2006 is likely due to a decline in demand. More than 93% of the decline in per capita consumption of chicken is also likely due to a decline in demand.

Dear animal advocates, rejoice this holiday season in the knowledge that the demand for meat—and not just consumption—is on the decline!

Again, a big thanks to Counting Animals and Vegan Outreach for the work they’re doing. (Note that any donations to Vegan Outreach will be doubled right now by a matching donor.)

The post Animal Flesh Consumption & Demand Down appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.

 
Here are 3 great global warming cartoons, each with their own specific focus. In my humble opinion, these are some of the most important issues facing humanity this century, and probably all time.

1. This first one uses the recent superstorm Sandy to drive home a very important point: no matter what anyone tells you, ignoring climate change isn’t good for business. It isn’t good for the economy. It isn’t good for jobs. It isn’t good for the welfare of society. And it isn’t good for you.

2. This one tackles the business and economy issue from the other side (as well as a few other issues). The ironic thing about opposition to global warming action is that global warming solutions would actually help many things — it would create jobs, improve the economy, improve our health and quality of life… why the heck does anyone have a problem with it? (Note: if your income is based on the short-term success of the fossil fuel industry and the ruin of society, ignore that question.)

3. This is the most concerning one. I’m sure you’re familiar with the old story that a frog sitting in water that is slowly brought to a boil will not jump out and will simply die. (Note: it’s actually frogs with their brains removed that act in such a way.) You might have also heard the metaphor that we are like such frogs. That seems to be, sadly, very true. Global warming and the resulting problems which could tear society to pieces doesn’t happen overnight — it happens slowly, in phases. Record warm here, by less than 1 degree. Record fires there. Record Arctic melt. Record hurricane. Record drought. Each thing is a big problem, but it;s not societal collapse. However, eventually, it could very likely add up to that. The question is, how long will we go ignoring the fact that the pot we are in is heating up? And how wil we wait so long that the warming will take a life of its own (due to reinforcing feedbacks loops) and will be out of our control?

The path we need to take is completely clear. However, fossil fuel industries are rich, money has a lot of influence in politics and policy, money has a lot of influence in media (and can thus sow confusion and misunderstanding the the minds of the public), and those at the head of fossil fuel industries would rather ignore (or stay in denial about) this whole story rather than bite the bullet and do their part to save society.

Of course, you can still do your part to slowly move the tide — go solar, drop the car (or, at least, the gasoline-powered car), vote for and campaign for candidates interested in saving our butts, & spread important news and commentary.

The post 3 Global Warming Cartoons Worth Your Contemplation appeared first on ZacharyShahan.com.