
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Slice Sampling
- James' Empty Blog
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Pat's blog While it is described as “The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher”, this is false humility, as it chronicles the present and past life and times of mathematicians in their context. Recommended.
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- 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
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- Risk and Well-Being
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Charlie Kufs' "Stats With Cats" blog “You took Statistics 101. Now what?”
- Label Noise
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model Five Thirty Eight’s take on why pandemic modeling is so difficult
- Why "naive Bayes" is not Bayesian Explains why the so-called “naive Bayes” classifier is not Bayesian. The setup is okay, but estimating probabilities by doing relative frequencies instead of using Dirichlet conjugate priors or integration strays from The Path.
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- Earle Wilson
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- 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
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Karl Broman
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- 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
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- Mertonian norms
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- London Review of Books
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- All about ENSO, and lunar tides (Paul Pukite) Historically, ENSO has been explained in terms of winds. But recently — and Dr Paul Pukite has insisted upon this for a long time — the oscillation of ENSO has been explained as a large-scale slosh due to lunar tidal forcing.
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- Ted Dunning
- NCAR AtmosNews
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
climate change
- 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.
- "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
- "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.
- Spectra Energy exposed
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- History of discovering Global Warming From the American Institute of Physics.
- RealClimate
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- Eli on the spectroscopic basis of atmospheric radiation physical chemistry
- 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 model projections versus observations
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- 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.
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- Risk and Well-Being
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- 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.
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- And Then There's Physics
- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- AIP's history of global warming science: impacts The American Institute of Physics has a fine history of the science of climate change. This link summarizes the history of impacts of climate change.
- The Green Plate Effect Eli Rabett’s “The Green Plate Effect”
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Earth System Models
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- 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.
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- Solar Gardens Community Power
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: Bloomberg Green
Losing sight of the big picture
When chasing political solutions to mitigating climate disruption, it’s long been tempting to go after relatively easy quick wins in the short term rather than facing up to the real problem: Emissions of Carbon Dioxide. So, in a world where … Continue reading
Posted in #youthvgov, air source heat pump, alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Blackbody radiation, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, children as political casualties, climate economics, climate emergency, climate hawk, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, development as anti-ecology, ecopragmatism, electric vehicles, electrical energy engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, Glen Peters, grid defection, heat pump, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, investment in wind and solar energy, James Hansen, Juliana v United States, keep fossil fuels in ground, Ken Caldeira, Mark Jacobson, mitigating climate disruption, On being Carbon Dioxide, organizational failures, Our Children's Trust, photovoltaics, Ray Pierrehumbert, solar democracy, solar domination, solar power, solar revolution, stranded assets, Susan Solomon, The Demon Haunted World, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism
Tagged climate disruption, lack of climate ambition, short-lived climate pollutants
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Jeremy Grantham credits Greta Thunberg and XR for pressuring governments to finally do something to cut emissions
The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder has recently become my favorite podcast. I eagerly await each new episode and, as a paying subscriber, I enjoy the delightfully long and geeky assessments, analyses, and opinions from really stellar guests. There … Continue reading
We Are Here
This is written from the perspective of New England, particularly southern New England, but the argument made by these charts is a bounding one. Namely, as CleanTechnica the original source of the story noted, “Germany has solar resources comparable to … Continue reading
People opposing wind, solar, and battery placement deserve the climate disruption they will reap, without my sympathies
That was 2011. And note the opposition to putting PV on roofs, let alone putting panels on already cleared agricultural fields. Yeah, all well and good, but we’re on a clock. Whether or not the climate system will wait for … Continue reading
Posted in agrivoltaics, alternatives to the Green New Deal, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Bloomberg Green, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, economic disruption, global warming, solar domination, solar power, the energy of the people, the green century, wind energy, zero carbon
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Greta Thunberg, in July 2021
(The above was changed from the YouTube video on 3rd July 2021 because the YouTube video was cracked or altered to switch to an Austrian leader or politician speaking nonsense instead of the last part of Ms Thunberg’s address.) (And … Continue reading
Posted in #climatestrike, #sunrise, #youthvgov, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, children as political casualties, climate activism, Climate Adam, climate disruption, climate economics, climate emergency, extreme events, fossil fuels, global warming, Green New Deal, greenhouse gases, Greta Thunberg
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Codium fragile for 27 June 2021, or 2021J178
Dr Rob Young, Center for the Study of Developed Shorelines: Mr Elon Musk in three presentations and two interviews:
Baseload is an intellectual crutch for engineers and utility managers who cannot think dynamically
This is an awesome presentation by Professor Joshua Pearce of Michigan Technological University. (h/t Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week) The same idea, that “baseload is a shortcut for engineers who can’t think dynamically”, was similar in the … Continue reading
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, CleanTechnica, control theory, controls theory, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, electrical energy engineering, electrical energy storage, electricity, Kalman filter, optimization, photovoltaics, rate of return regulation, solar domination, solar energy, solar revolution, stochastic algorithms, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
Tagged baseload, controls theory, dynamics, electrical engineering, energy storage, marginal cost of energy, solar energy, wind energy
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‘It begins with attitude’, and about an understated victory
Bill Nye’s Climate Meltdown, introducing Professor Mark Z Jacobson of Stanford University. And Climate Adam reviews a climate action breakthrough:
Posted in #youthvgov, Bill Nye, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate activism, Climate Adam, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, climate emergency, climate mitigation, climate policy, ClimateAdam, ecomodernism, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global blinding, global warming, global weirding, Mark Jacobson
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Spread the Sun
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, climate disruption, controls theory, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecological disruption, ecomodernism, economics, ecopragmatism, electrical energy storage, energy, environment, environmental law, evidence, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, field biology, field science, global blinding, Global Carbon Project, global warming, Green Tech Media, gun violence as public health crisis, guns
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“… [W]e need to address the climate crisis at the pace and scale it demands.”
“Dear President Biden, “We, the undersigned businesses and investors with a major presence in the U.S., applaud your administration’s demonstrated commitment to address climate change head-on, and we stand in support of your efforts. “Millions of Americans are already feeling … Continue reading
Posted in being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg Green, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate emergency, climate hawk, climate policy, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, global weirding, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, wind energy, wind power
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Texas. Wonderment.
h/t ClimateAdam. See also: Cohen, Judah, Xiangdong Zhang, J. Francis, T. Jung, R. Kwok, J. Overland, T. J. Ballinger et al. “Divergent consensuses on Arctic amplification influence on midlatitude severe winter weather.” Nature Climate Change, 10(1), 2020: 20-29. Ayarzagüena, Blanca, … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amory Lovins, Bloomberg Green, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate denial, climate disruption, climate economics, ClimateAdam, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, electrical energy engineering, electricity markets, energy utilities, fossil fuels, global warming, photovoltaics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Wind turbines in winter
Drone footage in first from Peter Sinclair of Climate Denial Crock of the Week. (Skip to time step 80 in the next if you just want to see wind turbines.) Five GE Halide 6MW turbines, near Block Island, RI.
“…. [T]here’s something wonderful about … shooting for 200% renewable generation [over what’s needed] rather than struggling to get to 90% or net zero”
Professor Saul Griffith, MIT I think our failure on fixing climate change is just a rhetorical failure of imagination. We haven’t been able to convince ourselves that it’s going to be great. It’s going to be great.
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Australia, Bloomberg Green, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electricity, engineering, green tech, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, photovoltaics, Saul Griffith, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, the energy of the people, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Where We Be
From David E Rovella, Managing Editor, Bloomberg News: The past year has witnessed millions die in a pandemic, a global economic downturn and political ferment fueled by extremists. But none of those things mean the biggest antagonist of the planet’s … Continue reading
Posted in #climatestrike, #youthvgov, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Bill McKibben, Bloomberg Green, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate disruption, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, geophysics, global warming, zero carbon
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Simple: Stop burning things
Bill McKibben, at The New Yorker. And, to go with that, stop burning things down.
Posted in Amory Lovins, Ørsted, being carbon dioxide, Bill McKibben, Bloomberg Green, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized energy, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, global warming, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, the green century, the value of financial assets, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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“The U.S. should lead the world on climate change”
This excerpt is from Bloomberg Opinion, written by its Editorial Board. I recommend the entire op-ed. Climate change is a global threat requiring global action, so it’s essential that the U.S. join, and preferably guide, worldwide cooperative efforts. Among Biden’s … Continue reading
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Benji Backer, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, capitalism, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate hawk, climate justice, climate policy, climate science, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electrical energy engineering, electricity markets, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Ragabo, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local generation, making money, marginal energy sources, Mark Carney, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Osborne, ocean warming, On being Carbon Dioxide, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Stewart Brand, stranded assets, the green century, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Fossil fuels have no future
Posted in afforestation, alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, climate activism, climate disruption, climate mitigation, climate policy, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, global warming, Mark Jacobson, photovoltaics, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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A SimCity for the Climate
SimCity is/was a classic simulation game teaching basics of public policy, energy management, and environmental regulation. My kids played it a lot. Heck, I played it a lot. Now, Climate Interactive, Tom Fiddaman of Ventana Systems, Prof John Sterman of … Continue reading

