
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- What If
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- Busting Myths About Heat Pumps Heat pumps are perhaps the most efficient heating and cooling systems available. Recent literature distributed by utilities hawking natural gas and other sources use performance figures from heat pumps as they were available 15 years ago. See today’s.
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- Lenny Smith's CHAOS: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION This is a PDF version of Lenny Smith’s book of the same title, also available from Amazon.com
- London Review of Books
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- Logistic curves in market disruption From DollarsPerBBL, about logistic or S-curves as models of product take-up rather than exponentials, with notes on EVs
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- Healthy Home Healthy Planet
- Simon Wood's must-read paper on dynamic modeling of complex systems I highlighted Professor Wood’s paper in https://hypergeometric.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/struggling-with-problems-already-attacked/
- Slice Sampling
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- In Monte Carlo We Trust The statistics blog of Matt Asher, actually called the “Probability and Statistics Blog”, but his subtitle is much more appealing. Asher has a Manifesto at http://www.statisticsblog.com/manifesto/.
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- Beautiful Weeds of New York City
- Ted Dunning
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- Mike Bloomberg, 2020 He can get progress on climate done, has the means and experts to counter the Trump and Republican digital disinformation machine, and has the experience, knowledge, and depth of experience to achieve and unify.
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- American Statistical Association
- Earle Wilson
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Higgs from AIR describing NAO and EA Stephanie Higgs from AIR Worldwide gives a nice description of NAO and EA in the context of discussing “The Geographic Impact of Climate Signals on European Winter Storms”
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Gavin Simpson
climate change
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- The great Michael Osborne's latest opinions Michael Osborne is a genius operative and champion of solar energy. I have learned never to disregard ANYTHING he says. He is mentor of Karl Ragabo, and the genius instigator of the Texas renewable energy miracle.
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 2 of 2) The idea of a global warming slowdown or hiatus is critically examined, emphasizing the literature, the datasets, and means and methods for telling such. The second part.
- Sea Change Boston
- Earth System Models
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- David Appell's early climate science
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- Paul Beckwith Professor Beckwith is, in my book, one of the most insightful and analytical observers on climate I know. I highly recommend his blog, and his other informational products.
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Model state level energy policy for New Englad Bob Massie’s proposed energy policy for Massachusetts, an admirable model for energy policy anywhere in New England
- CLIMATE ADAM Previously from the Science news staff at the podcast of Nature (“Nature Podcast”), the journal, now on YouTube, encouraging climate action through climate comedy.
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- Skeptical Science
- Mathematics and Climate Research Network The Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN) engages mathematicians to collaborating on the cryosphere, conceptual model validation, data assimilation, the electric grid, food systems, nonsmooth systems, paleoclimate, resilience, tipping points.
- "Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming" By Risbey, Lewandowsky, Hunter, Monselesan: Betting against climate change on durations of 15+ years is no longer a rational proposition.
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- Isaac Held's blog In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “big ideas come from small models” in his textbook, PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY CLIMATE, Dr Held presents quantitative essays regarding one feature or another of the Earth’s climate and weather system.
- The net average effect of a warming climate is increased aridity (Professor Steven Sherwood)
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- James Hansen and granddaughter Sophie on moving forward with progress on climate
- And Then There's Physics
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- The Sunlight Economy
- "Mighty Microgrids" Webinar This is a Webinar on YouTube about Microgrids from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), featuring New York State and Minnesota
- Simple box models and climate forcing IMO one of Tamino’s best posts illustrating climate forcing using simple box models
- The Keeling Curve The first, and one of the best programs for creating a spatially significant long term time series of atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Started amongst great obstacles by one, smart determined guy, Charles David Keeling.
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- Risk and Well-Being
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- Simple models of climate change
- Social Cost of Carbon
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: argoecology
You want to know where we really are?
This is Professor William Moomaw, Tufts, really telling you like it is. Professor Moomaw also spoke on “Food & Climate” on 11th January 2021 at the Dedham-Walpole-Westwood League of Women Voters meeting of that day.
Posted in argoecology, being carbon dioxide, Botany, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate mitigation, ecocapitalism, ecology, Ecology Action, extended producer responsibility, fossil fuel infrastructure, global warming, greenhouse gases, zero carbon
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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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Good news, and a beacon of progress, with hope for more to come
That’s Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet. Ørsted : “Love your home”
Posted in afforestation, agrivoltaics, Alphabet, argoecology, Ørsted, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide sequestration, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate mitigation, climate policy, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electricity, emissions, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, Global Carbon Project, global warming, global weirding, Green New Deal, greenhouse gases, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mark Jacobson, moral leadership, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Sundar Pichai, sustainability, technology, the green century, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
Tagged Alphabet, cumulative carbon emissions, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, Google, solar domination, solar energy, solar pv, zero carbon energy
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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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Handel, 2018, “As the seas rise, can we restore our coastal habitats?”
Professor Steven Handel presents: Hint, hint: A subtle plug for allowing evolutionary dominance to advance, including permitting hearty invasive species to Do Their Thing. Indeed, it is my opinion, that the supposed plague of “invasive species” and associated regulations is … Continue reading
Posted in agroecology, Aldo Leopold, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, argoecology, Botany, bridge to somewhere, Cape Cod, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, corporations, corruption, ecological disruption, Ecological Society of America, ecology, ecopragmatism, environment, environmental law, evolution, fragmentation of ecosystems, greenwashing, herbicides, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, invasive species, living shorelines, Nature, pesticides, Peter del Tredici, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, regulatory capture, shorelines, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, wishful environmentalism, yves tille
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Weekend break: Theme for Earth Day
By John Williams:
Posted in agroecology, Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, an uncaring American public, argoecology, biology, Botany, Buckminster Fuller, climate, David Suzuki, dynamical systems, E. O. Wilson, earth, Earth Day, ecological disruption, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, Ecology Action, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, Eli Rabett, environment, Equiterre, evolution, fragmentation of ecosystems, global warming, green tech, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, invasive species, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lotka-Volterra systems, marine biology, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, microbiomes, NOAA, oceans, Peter del Tredici, Peter Diggle, Pharyngula, physical materialism, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rate of return regulation, scientific publishing, Spaceship Earth, statistical dependence, Stefan Rahmstorf, Tamino
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Winter composting: How to make friends with microbes and defy weather (podcast, too)
(Slightly updated 2019-04-08, although the podcast has not been updated to be consistent.) (This blog post is accompanied by an explanatory podcast. See below.) Many people compost. It can be easy or hard, depending upon your tolerance for turning and … Continue reading
Posted in agroecology, argoecology, Botany, Carbon Cycle, composting, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, engineering, environment, fermentation, First Parish Needham, karma, local self reliance, Nature, science, solid waste management, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Humanists, UU Needham, water as a resource
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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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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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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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The global vegetative biosphere
(Click on figure to see a larger image, and use browser Back Button to return to blog) Data derived in part from SeaWIFS and image is from the NASA Earth Observatory here. Related links: Global Biosphere Global Biosphere over time … Continue reading
The South Shore Recycling Cooperative can save you money!
Abington, Cohasset, Duxbury, Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Hull, Kingston, Middleboro, Norwell, Plymouth, Rockland, Scituate, Weymouth, Whitman Join ’em. Ask your town governors on the South Shore to check ’em out. It’s your tax dollars wasted if you don’t. What your town … Continue reading
Posted in Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, argoecology, coastal communities, composting, destructive economic development, ecological services, ecology, economics, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, Hyper Anthropocene, John Farrell, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, pollution, recycling, Sankey diagram, sociology, South Shore Recycling Cooperative, stranded assets, sustainability, the green century, UU Needham
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Cape Cod National Seashore: Testament to how fragile our collective hold is on any land
(Click on photo to see larger image, and use browser Back Button to return to blog.) About the Cape Cod National Seashore.. How Cape Cod changes. (Click on photo to see larger image, and use browser Back Button to return … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, climate change, coasts, conservation, ecological services, ecology, environment, Equiterre, flooding, Hyper Anthropocene, living shorelines, oceanography, physical materialism, quantitative ecology, science, sea level rise, shorelines, the tragedy of our present civilization, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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David Suzuki on Agroecology
See Feeding humanity in a warming world. Dr Suzuki links University of California, Berkeley, Professor Miguel Altieri’s “Principles and strategies for designing sustainable farming systems“.
Posted in adaptation, agriculture, Anthropocene, argoecology, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide sequestration, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, David Suzuki, demand-side solutions, drought, ecology, environment, Epcot, extended supply chains, food, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Life Cycle Assessment, local generation, Miguel Altieri, optimization, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, resiliency, Sankey diagram, sociology, Spaceship Earth, spatial statistics
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