ArchivesTag : energy
Future of Energy
I just finished a day of consulting with GHD Engineering in Kuala Lumpur (I am doing a long range planning project with them) and we discussed, among many trends, the future of energy. As I flew back and forth I was reading the recent book by James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren. In it he [...]
Full StoryClimate Science Video – Is it Convincing?
As we watched the last days of the Olympics the past few days, I zeroed in on television ads sponsored by the American Oil & Gas industry – lots of these ads – and by the American coal industry. Both emphasized, with patriotic overtones, how important they are to creating jobs, and to achieving national [...]
Full StoryEnergy in a box
The Bloom Box is the talk of the day, after the break out on 60-Minutes yesterday. This is a new fuel cell approach, already in use in some larger scale test operations, such as providing 15% of EBay’s electric needs. Very encouraging, if the mass-production costs are realistic. Not a lot of technical details are [...]
Full StoryEnergy and the future – space based power and cognitive dissonance
One of the most interesting and challenging bits of cognitive dissonance you can find these days is the following conflict: On one side are those who believe that a technological breakthrough related to energy is needed, and that massive investment in said technologies along with life-style changes are vital to the survival of modern civilization. [...]
Full StoryEconomic Turn-Around Leads to Slow Recovery
Yesterday, on April 1, 2009, not as an April Fools Day gag but as a serious forecast I posted my Quarterly Forecast for 2009 Q2, titled “Economic Turn-Around Leads to Slow Recovery.” As far back as my 2009 annual Outlook article and video for 2009, I have run counter to the prevailing wisdom on the [...]
Full StoryEconomic Turn-Around Leads to Slow Recovery: Glen Hiemstra Quarterly Forecast Q2 2009
By Glen Hiemstra, March 31, 2009 The world economy, mired in recession, will reach a turn-around point sooner than expected. However, anyone waiting to get back to doing what they were doing before the recession will be disappointed. As I said in my first speech this year, on January 8, 2009, to the Cobalt company, [...]
Full StoryFuture of Cities: Atlanta Fifty Forward
The Atlanta Regional Commission is the regional governance organization for Atlanta and surrounding counties. I first met them in the 1990’s when they invited me to assist in a project called Atlanta Vision 2020. In 2007, I assisted their Board and management in a long-range planning retreat. Later that year the ARC kicked off a [...]
Full StoryHydrogen Fuel Cell Tractor
Autoblog Green, one of my favorite sites for tracking what is going on with green transportation alternatives, has an interesting lead article on the debut of a hydrogen fuel cell tractor, in Europe. The tractor looks great, and illustrates both the promise of, and problems with hydrogen fuel cells as a core technology for future [...]
Full StoryFour Peaks we don’t want to climb
Via The Oil Drum, we learn about the current world energy conference being held in Dubai. The conference began with an address by Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange and the Netherlands, who is “perhaps the only prince in the world who regularly uses a bike to get around and save fossil fuels…” Being [...]
Full StoryFuturist Speaker Glen Hiemstra: Outlook 2009
Outlook 2009 Watch the video of my Outlook for 2009 as a futurist, speaker, and consultant. This is my final blog entry of 2008, before we take a couple of weeks off. I am cautiously optimistic about 2009. This may surprise you. Here is why. Future of EEE – Economy, Energy, Environment Economy: When I [...]
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