Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Pale Blue Dot
Originally posted on hypergeometric:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWPFmdAWRZ0 Compassion, yes. Love, no.
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Spectra Energy pipeline explodes.
Spectra Energy transmission line explodes. I highlight transmission because, by all reports, transmission lines are advertised to be “much safer” than distribution lines. The pipeline in question, from reports, was installed in 1981 and last inspected in 2012. Of course, … Continue reading
Posted in energy, firefighters, greenhouse gases, methane, natural gas, pipelines
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Germany’s Energiewende aims to make baseload power obsolete
In a December 2015 article in Forbes, William Pentland seeks to answer the question “What is so revolutionary about Germany’s Energiewende?” Mr Pentland begins: Germany’s energy revolution has become the perennial punching bag of American energy policy. In particular, American … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, bifurcations, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, Ecology Action, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, Epcot, feed-in tariff, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, local generation, marginal energy sources, mesh models, microgrids, optimization, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Our Children’s Trust
Washington State Climate Lawsuit has a second win for the plantiffs. Detailed complaint here. The details are available at Our Children’s Trust. In granting the youth a remedy, Judge Hill noted the extraordinary circumstances of the climate crisis, saying, “this … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, case law, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corruption, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, MA, Massachusetts, organizational failures, Our Children's Trust, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Mr Buffett bets the farm
From Dr James Hansen’s blog, of today. So, Mr. Buffett, I am heartened by the words in your last annual report, where you conclude that continued inaction on climate change “is foolhardy.” You wrote: “Call this Noah’s Law: If an … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, environment, extended supply chains, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, hurricanes, Hyper Anthropocene, insurance, investing, James Hansen, liberal climate deniers, meteorology, oceanography, physics, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, science, statistical dependence, statistics, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Wally Broecker, Warren Buffett, zero carbon
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This is what the future looks like, for towns and villages — and utilities
Welcome to Minster, Ohio. (Hat tip to Clean Technica.) Check One: A 4.3 MW solar array. Check Two: A history of being supportive to local residents, and a plan for making them more efficient and reducing their electrical energy needs. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, zero carbon
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Kevin Anderson’s latest
Also note Oxfam’s “World’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while poorest 3.5 billion account for just a tenth“. Update, 2016-04-28: And what, exactly, does the Paris agreement (COP21) mean? See this story.
Posted in adaptation, agriculture, Anthropocene, biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, environment, ethics, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, liberal climate deniers, local generation, microgrids, natural gas, rationality, reasonableness, science, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Boston, are you ready?
Yeah, how about warming up the seas a bit more by building pipelines, buying into more explosive methane (*), and encouraging fracked gas people to export? What could it hurt? There are many alternatives, most sketched here on this blog. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bollocks, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, false advertising, floods, Florida, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, global warming, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, MA, Massachusetts, methane, mitigation, natural gas, NOAA, nor'easters, physics, pipelines, prediction, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, utility company death spiral
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This Earth Day: The Data
(Amendments on 25the April 2016.) Sorry, folks, it’s It’s not just El Niño. El Niño’s have gotten bigger over the years. (Click on image for a larger picture. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on image … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, Dan Satterfield, ecology, El Nina, El Nino, ENSO, environment, evidence, Exxon, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, ignorance, James Hansen, John Cook, La Nina, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, organizational failures, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, selfishness, Spaceship Earth, statistics, sustainability, Texaco, the problem of evil, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists, WAIS, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon
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reblog: “The Big 3: CO2, CH4, N2O”, from Tamino
Originally posted on Open Mind:
The four greenhouse gases with the strongest effect on climate through their climate forcing are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) (I’m omitting halocarbons, which come in a wide…
“Preserving the climate can also save you money.”
“Can you power a business on 100% renewable energy? Ikea wants to try.” From Guardian sustainable business The new bottom line. I also monitor Bloomberg New Energy Finance. (Update: 2016-04-20) And not preserving the climate will be very, very expensive, … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bloomberg, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, environment, extended supply chains, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, meteorology, microgrids, mitigation, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, supply chains, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Tony Seba’s latest. Yes, there’s new stuff.
Posted in Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, business, decentralized electric power generation, disruption, distributed generation, economics, energy storage, exponential growth, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, investing, Mark Jacobson, Sankey diagram, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Stanford University, supply chains, Tony Seba
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FERC requires energy storage plans
Energy Storage Participation in the Energy, Capacity, and Ancillary Services Markets On April 11, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced that it will expand its evaluation of ISOs/RTOs policies that could lead to revolutionary changes in the energy … Continue reading
Posted in BNEF, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, reasonableness, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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Ray Kurzweil predicts dominance of energy industry by Solar in 12 years
Read it and weep, Carbon Worshippers. Facts are, with so much cheap solar electricity around, even if its supply is uneven in any particular locale, (a) the energy storage business will have big incentives to roll out, and roll out … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Bill Nye, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, energy, engineering, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, liberal climate deniers, local generation, planning, politics, population dynamics, public utility commissions, PUCs, quantitative ecology, rate of return regulation, rationality, Ray Kurzweil, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Stanford University, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Remember 2012?
“Welcome to the rest of our lives …” Peter Sinclair speculates 2016 will be as bad and possibly worse than 2012.
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, environment, Exxon, FEMA, forecasting, forest fires, fossil fuels, fracking, games of chance, geophysics, George Sughihara, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, liberal climate deniers, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, meteorology, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, science, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
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“Number density, not mixing ratio”, from Eli
From this post: There is a cute little number called Loschmidt, the number of molecules in a cubic meter of air at 1 atm and 0° C, 2.6867774(47) x 1025 molecules/m3 … Eli Rabett provides a neat way to see … Continue reading
Posted in astrophysics, Boltzmann, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, Eli Rabett, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Loschmidt, meteorology, methane, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, science, theoretical physics, thermodynamics
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Clear of all trees
One drawback of solar panels at our home site is a significant stand of conifers to our southwest. (Click image for a larger picture. Use browser Back Button to return to blog.) It’s clear when the trees are casting shadows … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, electricity, energy, energy reduction, fossil fuel divestment, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, rationality, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, scattering, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, the energy of the people, the green century, time series, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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“Things going fast”: Summary of a class on climate disruption taught by Professor Ricky Rood
Dr Ricky Rood is a professor at the University of Michigan, both a meteorologist and climate scientist, and a regular contributor to the climate and weather blogs at Weather Underground. In a post from April 6th (titled “No Way to … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Antarctica, Arctic, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, liberal climate deniers, MA, marine biology, Massachusetts, meteorology, methane, MIchael Mann, natural gas, New England, physics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, Ricky Rood, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Gavin Simpson updates his temperature analysis
See the very interesting discussion at his blog, From the bottom of the heap. It would be nice to see some information theoretic measures on these results, though.
Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, astrophysics, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, ecology, environment, evidence, Gavin Simpson, Generalize Additive Models, geophysics, global warming, HadCRUT4, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, maths, meteorology, numerical analysis, R, rationality, reasonableness, splines, time series
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“What’s warming the world?”
Bloomberg has a nice and simple set of animations which show the relative effects of factors which might contribute to the warming of the world. It’s pretty simple, and it’s been known a long time: It’s us, and our burning … Continue reading
“The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Consensus”
“The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus“, T. C. Peterson, W. M. Connolley, J. Fleck, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1. Abstract Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate zombies, coastal communities, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid dynamics, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, investing
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ComEd: Enabling a smarter (utility) platform
Commonwealth Edison is reinventing itself as a smart energy platform, amidst New York State’s reforming the energy vision (“REV”) initiative.
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, causal diagrams, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, engineering, extended supply chains, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, planning, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Pipeline Forum, Sharon, MA High School, Thursday, April 7th, 7:00 p.m.
(Click on image to see a larger version. Use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Handout. Please post where applicable.
Posted in Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, causal diagrams, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, environment, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, methane, mitigation, natural gas, pipelines, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, sustainability, zero carbon
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Of my favorite things …
(Clarifying language added 4 Apr 2016, 12:26 EDT.) I just watched an episode from the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled “Force of Nature.” As anyone who pays the least attention to this blog knows, opposing human … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, bucket list, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, compassion, data science, Earle Wilson, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, evolution, geophysics, George Sughihara, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, life purpose, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, numerical analysis, optimization, philosophy, physical materialism, physics, population biology, population dynamics, proud dad, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, science, sociology, statistics, stochastic algorithms
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