Month: January 2018
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Quote from Max Planck
(Hat tip to Professor Richard Kleeman of the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences.) “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.” — Max Planck For more information, see the excellent text, highly recommended for students of Climate Science, T.…
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Senn’s `… never having to say you are certain’ guest post from Mayo’s blog
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in abstraction, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, cancer research, data science, ecology, experimental design, generalized linear mixed models, generalized linear models, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, medicine, sampling, statistics, the right to knowvia S. Senn: Being a statistician means never having to say you are certain (Guest Post) See also: E. Cai’s blog post “Applied Statistics Lesson of the Day – The Matched Pairs Experimental Design”, from February 2014 A. Deaton, N. Cartwright, “Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials”, October 2017, NBER S. Senn, “Seven myths of…
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[reblog] David Suzuki: Consumer society no longer serves our needs
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in Adam Smith, adaptation, affordable mass goods, Anthropocene, climate economics, climate justice, consumption, David Suzuki, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, ethics, evidence, science, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizonFrom David Suzuki, who I’ve cited here more and more often, from his blog post, Consumer society no longer serves our needs, of 11th January 2018. An excerpt: But where is the indication of our real status — Earthlings — animals whose very survival and well-being depend on the state of our home, planet Earth?…
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(thought of the day)
One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions. — Grace Murray Hopper Hat tip to Pat’s blog.
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wind+storage 2.1 ¢/kWh, solar+storage 3.6 ¢/kWh
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in American Petroleum Institute, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Cape Wind, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy storage, energy utilities, FERC, Green Tech Media, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, microgrids, natural gas, petroleum, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regulatory capture, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, zero carbonUpdate, 2018-01-16 Vox has a widely acclaimed update to this story. (rubbing hands gleefully) Utility scale bids at Xcel Energy had median prices of 2.1 ¢/kWh for wind-with-storage, and 3.6 ¢/kWh for solar-with-storage. Hat tip to Utility Dive. In U.S. Energy Information Administration projections for 2020, the price per kWh of natural gas advanced combined…
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(repost) How the recent New England cold snap and nor’easter did not cause natural gas prices to spike
I wrote a piece a bit back about the volatility in natural gas prices. These were seized upon by proponents of natural gas pipelines, whether Gordon von Welie from ISO-NE, to various representatives of petroleum and power generators councils, or even that recurring denizen of the Commonwealth Magazine comments, NortheasternEE to, once again, argue that…
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2017 Arctic Report Card
From NOAA. 2017 Arctic Report Card: Summer temperatures are rising rapidly in most Arctic seas, by Tom Di Liberto. 2017 Arctic Report Card: Extreme fall warmth drove near-record annual temperatures, by Rebecca Lindsey.
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a dystopian Commonwealth
I repeat a link to a post I made in May 2016 regarding how it seemed Governor Baker and Massachusetts House Speaker DeLeo were bent on a dystopian Massachusetts. Both then, and now, by the actions of their charges, they fail to really understand the importance of a clean energy future for the Massachusetts economy.…
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FERC: No multi-billion dollar bailout for coal and nuclear generating facilities
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in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Berkeley, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, CleanTechnica, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, electricity markets, energy utilities, FERC, green tech, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, microgrids, rate of return regulation, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind powerExcerpts from statements by Richard Glick, FERC commissioner are given below. The Microgrid Knowledge (“MGK”) news article summarizes the context by writing: The commission rejected the energy secretary’s assertion that retirement of coal and nuclear plants threatens electric resilience. Instead FERC plans to look at broader challenges that may influence the reliable flow of energy…
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1992 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity
Professor David Suzuki, as ever, reminds us urgent warnings about our `collision course with Nature’ are nothing new. This one came in 1992 … Introduction Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many…
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reality of natural gas prices: volatile, undependable, and contrary to social interest
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in Amory Lovins, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, clean disruption, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, electricity markets, evidence, explosive methane, financial series, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, natural gas, pipelines, public utility commissions, rate of return regulation, regulatory capture, reworking infrastructure, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, risk, stranded assets, supply chains, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, zero carbonUpdated, 11th January 2018 There’s been a lot written about natural gas, New England, and supposed price spikes due to constraints on pipeline capacity. I’ve had my turn a couple of times here (and here), as a matter of fact (to cite a couple). That’s why it is refreshing to put prices of natural gas…
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perceptions of likelihood
That’s from this Github repository, maintained by Zoni Nation, having this description. The original data are from a study by Sherman Kent at the U.S. CIA, and is quoted in at least once outside source discussing the problem. In addition to the base rate fallacy (see an investment-related definition, too), which is just ignorance of…
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Early 2018 Nor’easter
via Early 2018 Nor’easter The following are from GFS/NCEP/U.S. National Weather Service model runs: Bombogenesis indeed! The following are from the Meteocentre UQAM in Montreal, PQ, Canada, running the European Weather Model, as well as others.
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Klaus Lackner: brilliant mind with a good idea
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in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, clean disruption, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, economics, emissions, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, klaus lackner, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Spaceship Earth, zero carbonWally Broecker‘s “hat tip” of Lackner’s work:
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Cloud Streets
From NASA’s Earth Observatory and MODIS, here’s cloud streets due to double inversion layers warm-atop-cold-atop-warm: (Click image for a larger figure, and use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) Dr Marshall Shepherd at Forbes puts the present cold snap in perspective. Dr Shepherd was previously President of the American Meteorological Society. By the…
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What are the odds of net zero?
What’s the Question? A question was posed by a colleague a couple of months ago: What are the odds of a stock closing at the same price it opened? I found the question interesting, because, at first, it appeared to be a one-dimensional version of another problem I looked at here, which was in two…
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From Xian’s blog, “drivers are not interested in maths formulas”
via drivers are not interested in maths formulas