Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: adaptation
“If I were Secretary of Energy”
Saul Griffith’s musings: Rather than secretary of energy, I’d prefer a bigger role. If efforts to curb climate change are only housed within DOE, we won’t succeed at the scale required. I’d like a job that doesn’t yet exist, analogous … Continue reading
Selfish Routing is Why, in the Long Term, CDNs are not in everyone’s best interest
It’s all about the Price of Anarchy, and its implications for routing on the Internet. These are not only greedy measures, they are monopolistic. And they support oligopoly.
Choices.
This is a retake of a presentation at the invitation of the Walpole Greens and made at their meeting of 9th November 2020. It is longer and more leisurely. I interleave some of the answers to questions that followed the … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, agriculture, agrivoltaics, agroecology, alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, argoecology, Ørsted, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Botany, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, Clausius-Clapeyron equation, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate hawk, climate policy, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Conservation Action Coalition, Debbie Dooley, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecological services, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, electric vehicles, electrical energy storage, electricity, emissions, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, environment, explosive methane, forests, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, fragmentation of ecosystems, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, Google Earth, Green Tea Coalition, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Ragabo, Keeling curve, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local generation, local self reliance, meteorology, microgrids, mitigating climate disruption, natural gas, nuclear power, NuScale, ocean acidification, ocean warming, oceans, On being Carbon Dioxide, plankton, Principles of Planetary Climate, public utility commissions, RethinkX, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Stewart Brand, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Cloud brightening hits a salty snag
The proposal known as solar radiation management is complicated. It just got moreso. Released Wednesday: Fossum, K.N., Ovadnevaite, J., Ceburnis, D. et al. “Sea-spray regulates sulfate cloud droplet activation over oceans“, Climate and Atmospheric Science, 3(14): (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-0116-2 [open access] … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate disruption, climate mitigation, climate nightmares, climate policy, cloud brightening, ecomodernism, emissions, geoengineering, global warming, Ken Caldeira, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorological models, meteorology, mitigating climate disruption, NASA, National Center for Atmospheric Research, oceanography, Principles of Planetary Climate, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, solar radiation management, sustainability, Wally Broecker, water vapor, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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“On the road again …”
Suggested citation: Davis, Lucas. “Electrification? We Are Already On The Way“, Berkeley Haas Energy Institute Blog. Even without environmental incentives, the United States has moved towards greater electrification. Note, however, that Massachusetts is not numbered amongst the Enlightened.
Posted in adaptation, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, Berkeley Haas Energy, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, CleanTechnica, cliamate mitigation, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, electricity, electricity markets, energy utilities, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, ILSR, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution
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Ted Rall’s “Left, Center and Right: We’re All in Denial About Climate Change”
(Friend, fellow congregant, and committee chair Will Rico of First Parish in Needham sent me this highly appropriate link.) Ted Rall argues at Counterpunch that: Those who deny that climate change is real are engaging in what psychologists call “simple … Continue reading
Posted in #climatestrike, #sunrise, #youthvgov, adaptation, agroecology, an uncaring American public, being carbon dioxide, Bill Maher, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, capitalism, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, clean disruption, climate activism, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, climate grief, climate mitigation, climate policy, consumption, Cult of Carbon, development as anti-ecology, distributed generation, ecological disruption, ecological services, Ecology Action, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, energy efficiency, First Parish in Needham, FiveThirtyEight, fossil fuel divestment, global blinding, Global Carbon Project, global warming, global weirding, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Greta Thunberg, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, keep fossil fuels in ground, life cycle sustainability analysis, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, zero carbon
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How quickly temperature barriers are breached!
This is from the Economist‘s special issue this week on climate disruption. What’s striking is how quickly delay in substantial action takes us from +1.5C to +2C tp +2.5C to +3C, and it’s almost independent of how much we cut, … Continue reading
“Sustainability failed. The future is just climate.” (Simon Propper)
Simon Propper has an excellent blog post at Context. An excerpt: Societies in most countries rumble on, worried about other things. The French are arguing about wealth distribution and church restoration. The Americans about abortion and trade tariffs. The British … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Aldo Leopold, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, bag bans, being carbon dioxide, Bill Gates, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, climate policy, coastal investment risks, Daniel Kahneman, global warming
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Review of “No … increase of Carbon sequestration from the greening Earth”
(As promised.) Introduction and Abstract This is a review, re-presentation, and report on the August 2019 article, Y. Zhang, C. Song, L. E. Band, G. Sun, (2019), “No proportional increase of terrestrial gross Carbon sequestration from the greening Earth“, Journal … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, afforestation, agriculture, agroecology, algal blooms, American Statistical Association, argoecology, being carbon dioxide, biology, Botany, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, chemistry, citizen science, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, climate mitigation, di-nitrogen oxide, ecocapitalism, ecological disruption, Ecological Society of America, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, environment, evidence, food, forests, fossil fuels, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, greenhouse gases, James Hansen, John Holdren, p-value, phytoplankton, pollution, population biology, quantitative biology, resource producitivity, scholarship, science education, significance test, statistics, Steven Chu, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, wishful environmentalism
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The state of the science: “Heißzeit” … where we are heading.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. ― Lao Tzu Professor Johan Rockström, again. Yeah, and that makes me feel, this way … (Ricardo Maranhão with Indiara Sfair) (Indiara Sfair and Joe Flip) … Continue reading
Posted in #youthvgov, adaptation, alternatives to the Green New Deal, Amory Lovins, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Canettes Blues Band, carbon dioxide, climate business, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, climate policy, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, Daniel Kahneman, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, environmental law, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, green tech, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Indiara Sfair, Mark Jacobson, Nature's Trust, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Spaceship Earth, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon
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“Between grounded hope and radical hope, that’s what we’re going to need for climate change.”
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/despairing-about-climate-crisis/ Certainly, for me, one of the reasons to get out of bed is that we really haven’t tried everything. Having done miserably at communication, having done miserably at policy, having done miserably at market responses to climate change gives … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, climate activism, climate change, climate disruption, climate grief, ClimateAdam, demand-side solutions, ecopragmatism, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Juliana v United States, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Tony Seba
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“Strong First Quarter Growth and Fracked Gas Takes a Hit”
(To see a larger figure, click on image to open it in a new browser window. This is from ILSR‘s “Of New Power Generation, How Much is on the Roof? Quarterly Update — 2019 Q1“.) It was once warned, and … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electricity markets, energy utilities, green tech, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, John Farrell, Karl Ragabo, Michael Osborne, microgrids, public utility commissions, regime shifts, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Talk Solar, technology, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Marine microbes are eating plastics
The news item was reported in Science. I wrote about the possibility earlier, but, there, WHOI scientists had not confirmed that microbes were actually consuming plastics. This has been suspected since 2011, due to the work of WHOI scientist Dr … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, basic research, ecological services, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, environment, marine biology, marine debris, materials science, microbiomes, microplastics, oceans, plastics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Sir David King on `Climate Repair`
Interview with Sir David King at Ecologist on the climate restoration agenda.
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, APCC, being carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, climate, climate change, climate education, David Spiegelhalter, differential equations, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, risk, Sir David King
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Happy Earth Day: Doubt climate change? Just be patient and watch
And know that, because of our collective inaction, even if we were to fix everything immediately, now, because of the built-up momentum in the climate system, things will get steadily worse for two-to-four decades after we stop. Don’t like those … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, climate change, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, science, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon
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On plastic bag bans, and the failure to realize economic growth cannot be green
(Updated 2019-01-12.) Despite the surge of interest in plastic bag bans, the environmental sustainability numbers haven’t been run. For example, it makes no sense to trade using paper bags instead of plastic ones, even if the paper is recycled, because … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, development as anti-ecology, E. O. Wilson, environment, evidence, evolution, exponential growth, fragmentation of ecosystems, global warming, greenwashing, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, local self reliance, plastics, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, supply chains, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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International climate negotiations, the performance: `Angry and upset’
Climate Adam, who you should follow:
The Climate Crunch
(with the possibility of rapid 15-20 foot SLR out there) David Suzuki aptly calls the corner we’ve painted ourselves into “the climate crunch”. See his article. Why a “crunch”? Had we heeded early warnings and had political representatives done more … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Petroleum Institute, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, cement production, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, Cult of Carbon, David Suzuki, emissions, geoengineering, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, klaus lackner, Wally Broecker
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Seven degrees, whaddya get, a century older and deeper in Carbon debt …
In an amazing report, the Trump administration forecasts +7F rise in global temperatures by 2100, insisting nothing can be done to prevent it happening. In the associated report, the administration claimed that the deep cuts in emissions needed to prevent … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, capitalism, carbon dioxide, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corruption, Cult of Carbon, dump Trump, global warming
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Today, now, and what of the future?
From Aldo Leopold in his A Sand County Almanac: One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, agroecology, Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, being carbon dioxide, biology, Boston Ethical Society, Botany, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Darwin, climate, climate change, David Suzuki, Earle Wilson, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Action, ethics, George Sughihara, Glen Peters, global warming, Grant Foster, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU Humanists
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What will happen to fossil fuel-fired electric bills everywhere, eventually, including those fired by natural gas
See Cost of Coal: Electric Bills Skyrocket in Appalachia as Region’s Economy Collapses, by James Bruggers at Inside Climate News. Excerpt: The common denominator is American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest utilities. It owns Kentucky Power, along with … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, an uncaring American public, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, electricity, electricity markets, energy utilities, engineering, exponential growth, fossil fuels, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, local generation, local self reliance, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, natural gas, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Local Energy Rules!
As John Farrell says, Keep your energy local. If you want to take back control of your democracy, a priority is taking back control of your energy supply. Centralized energy centralizes political power and influence. Listen to more from a … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, efficiency, electricity markets, energy efficiency, energy utilities, feed-in tariff, force multiplier, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, local self reliance, public utility commissions, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Leaders (say they) Don’t Know About Lags
Maybe they don’t. Most people don’t. On the other hand, there’s little more to them than understanding skeet, realizing aiming where the clay pigeon is now is a useless tactic for hitting it. Aim where the pigeon will be is … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, atmosphere, attribution, Boston Ethical Society, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cult of Carbon, dynamical systems, environment, ethics, evidence, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, moral leadership, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU, UU Humanists
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This flooding can’t be stopped. What about the rest?
Tamino is writing about this subject, too. That entirely makes complete sense as it is the biggest geophysical and environmental story out there right now. I’ve included an update at this post’s end discussing the possible economic impacts. It’s been … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, coastal communities, coastal investment risks, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, environment, Eric Rignot, flooding, floods, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, investing, investments, John Englander, living shorelines, Massachusetts, New England, real estate values, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Robert M DeConto, Scituate, sea level rise, seawalls, shorelines, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, wishful environmentalism, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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Sidney, NY: The lead example of how the USA will deal with future coastal and riverine flooding?
From Bloomberg, the story of Sidney, NY, not that far from where I used to live in Endicott, NY. More than 400 homes and businesses ended up underwater in Sidney, affecting more than 2,000 people. It was months before Spry … Continue reading
Sustainable Landscaping
Update: 2018-05-26 It’s not about plants, not entirely. But it seems that, in one agricultural area, pollinators (bees) under stress have ceded their pollinating responsibility to a couple of species of exotic (read invasive) flies. See: J. R. Stavert, D. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, biology, Botany, Carl Safina, complex systems, conservation, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, fragmentation of ecosystems, invasive species, land use to fight, living shorelines, New England, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, water as a resource
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Sea-level report cards, contingency upon model character, and ensemble methods
Done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, new sea-level report cards offer a look at current sea-level rise rates, and projections. What’s interesting to me is making the projections conditional upon the character of the model used to project. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, Bayesian model averaging, changepoint detection, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, coastal communities, coasts, dynamical systems, ensemble methods, ensemble models, flooding, geophysics, global warming, Grant Foster, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, living shorelines, meteorological models, nonlinear systems, prediction, sea level rise, shorelines, Skeptical Science, spaghetti plots, temporal myopia, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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Will soils hang on to their Carbon?
(Update, 2019-07-01) Another obstacle to afforestation as a means of rapidly drawing down CO2 from the climate system: U.Büntgen, P.J.Krusic, A.Piermattei, D.A.Coomes, J.Esper, V.S.Myglan, A.V.Kirdyanov, J.J.Camarero, A.Crivellaro, C.Körne, “Limited capacity of tree growth to mitigate the global greenhouse effect under … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, argoecology, bacteria, being carbon dioxide, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carl Safina, climate, climate change, climate disruption, Global Carbon Project, global warming, microbiomes, nonlinear, nonlinear systems
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[reblog] David Suzuki: Consumer society no longer serves our needs
From 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 — … Continue reading
Posted 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 horizon
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