
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Number Cruncher Politics
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- Gabriel's staircase
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- 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.
- 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
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- Slice Sampling
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- 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/
- Earle Wilson
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- "The Expert"
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- 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.
- Beautiful Weeds of New York City
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Prediction vs Forecasting: Knaub “Unfortunately, ‘prediction,’ such as used in model-based survey estimation, is a term that is often subsumed under the term ‘forecasting,’ but here we show why it is important not to confuse these two terms.”
- Darren Wilkinson's introduction to ABC Darren Wilkinson’s introduction to approximate Bayesian computation (“ABC”). See also his post about summary statistics for ABC https://darrenjw.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/summary-stats-for-abc/
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- 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/.
- 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
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- 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”
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- American Statistical Association
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- 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
- All about models
- NCAR AtmosNews
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- James' Empty Blog
- Gavin Simpson
- 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.
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Risk and Well-Being
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
climate change
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Simple models of climate change
- The net average effect of a warming climate is increased aridity (Professor Steven Sherwood)
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- 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.
- Spectra Energy exposed
- MIT's Climate Primer
- "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.
- And Then There's Physics
- NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index report The annual assessment by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the radiative forcing from constituent atmospheric greenhouse gases
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- Skeptical Science
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- Ice and Snow
- "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
- David Appell's early climate science
- Social Cost of Carbon
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- World Weather Attribution
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 1 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. In two parts.
- 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.
- Earth System Models
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- Warming slowdown discussion
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- The Sunlight Economy
- Steve Easterbrook's excellent climate blog: See his "The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet?" for example Heavy on data and computation, Easterbrook is a CS prof at UToronto, but is clearly familiar with climate science. I like his “The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet” very much.
- 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.
- SolarLove
- 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.
- Eli on the spectroscopic basis of atmospheric radiation physical chemistry
- weather blocking patterns
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- US$165/tonne CO2: Sweden Sweden has a Carbon Dioxide tax of US$165 per tonne at present. CO2 tax was imposed in 1991. GDP has grown 60%.
- Grid parity map for Solar PV in United States
- Professor Robert Strom's compendium of resources on climate change Truly excellent
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: causal diagrams
Impacts of Hurricane Harvey upon regional manufacturing
See the report from AIR Worldwide.
synopsis of NY-REV
What New York State is doing, and Massachusetts, apparently not. Cheap supplies of domestic natural gas have driven the New England power plant market toward that fuel and away from the more expensive coal, oil and nuclear material. Limited capacity … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, causal diagrams, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, coastal communities, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, economics, efficiency, electricity markets, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, environment, extended supply chains, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, marginal energy sources, meteorology, microgrids, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, 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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George Monbiot: On leaving fossil fuels in the ground
Posted in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, causal diagrams, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, economics, energy, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, George Monbiot, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, perceptions, philosophy, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, supply chains, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon
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Facebook, Alphabet, Walmart, General Motors, and others create corporate Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance
Major United States corporations form a renewable energy buyers alliance. Facebook, Alphabet (Google’s new name), Walmart, and General Motors, while the environmental groups include the Rocky Mountain Institute, the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund. Fed up with … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, causal diagrams, citizenship, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, Ecology Action, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, Massachusetts, meteorology, microgrids, moral leadership, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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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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Causal Diagrams
Like Sankey diagrams, causal diagrams are a useful tool to assess and communicate complicated systems and their intrarelationships: It’s possible to use these for analysis and prescription: Here is the (promised) presentation on reenforcing loops: So how can these techniques … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, Carbon Worshipers, causal diagrams, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, demand-side solutions, differential equations, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, energy utilities, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, methane, mitigation, natural gas, planning, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, recycling, Sankey diagram, sustainability, the right to know, zero carbon
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