
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Risk and Well-Being
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- 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.
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard on how businesses can help our collective environmental mess Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard set the standard for how a business can mitigate the ravages of capitalism on earth’s environment. At 81 years old, he’s just getting started.
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- Mertonian norms
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- Gabriel's staircase
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION Cathy O’Neil’s WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION,
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- 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
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- Beautiful Weeds of New York City
- Gavin Simpson
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- NCAR AtmosNews
- 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/.
- 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
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- 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.
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Label Noise
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- Brian McGill's Dynamic Ecology blog Quantitative biology with pithy insights regarding applications of statistical methods
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- 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.”
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- Awkward Botany
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- 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.
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- 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/
climate change
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
- Social Cost of Carbon
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- Risk and Well-Being
- "When Did Global Warming Stop" Doc Snow’s treatment of the denier claim that there’s been no warming for the most recent N years. (See http://hubpages.com/@doc-snow for more on him.)
- And Then There's Physics
- “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.
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- "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.
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- Reanalyses.org
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- The Green Plate Effect Eli Rabett’s “The Green Plate Effect”
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- 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.
- 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.
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- Non-linear feedbacks in climate (discussion of Bloch-Johnson, Pierrehumbert, Abbot paper) Discussion of http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015GL064240/abstract
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- 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
- SolarLove
- "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
- "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
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- Spectra Energy exposed
- 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.
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- World Weather Attribution
- Simple box models and climate forcing IMO one of Tamino’s best posts illustrating climate forcing using simple box models
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- James Hansen and granddaughter Sophie on moving forward with progress on climate
- MIT's Climate Primer
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- weather blocking patterns
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: climate economics
The story of RCP 8.5
What’s there to know about RCP 8.5 by Climate Adam.
Professor Katharine Hayhoe “Talking Climate” today
When did caring about the planet become “un-Christian”? Great stuff.
‘Keystone Pipeline Developers Seek $15 Billion From U.S. for Cancellation’
TC Energy Corporation is seeking to recover costs and damages from “regulatory roller coaster” and ultimate shutdown of the Keystone XL pipeline construction project. “We’re not doing this for symbolic or political purposes. This is a business decision,” Prior said … Continue reading
“Aggregating the harms of fossil fuels”
From Dan Farber at Legal Planet, the post.
Fecklessness
(A post inspired by Professor Christian Robert at his blog.) This is from The New Yorker‘s 7th November 2021 issue. It features an article by staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert titled “Running out of time at the U.N. climate conference” which … Continue reading
We are living through the closing door of climate targets
Where we are now, and what we have to do to limit to +2C: And, as far as +1.5C goes, it’s gone. Or at least that target can no longer met without invoking the fantasyland of negative emissions. There isn’t … Continue reading
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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“I have given up. I am here to talk about the science.”
Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
“How should children learn about climate change?”
Posted in #climatestrike, Banned Books Week, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate disruption, climate economics, climate hawk, climate justice, climate nightmares, climate science, ClimateAdam, ecological disruption, global blinding, global warming, global weirding
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Future liability for fossil fuel energy producers and conveyors
While I don’t entirely have the optimism which Professor Pearce expresses for the ability of climate models to be as specific as he describes, I am very optimistic that real time remote sensing resources, namely satellites, will get good enough … Continue reading
Posted in #youthvgov, an ignorant American public, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, climate disruption, climate economics, climate emergency, coastal investment risks, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, global warming, risk, Risky Business
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Comment on “Federal policy can drive the solar industry… but still may fall short”
Yuri Hurwitz posted an opinion piece at PV Magazine USA of the title in this post’s subject line. While I noted his concerns, I thought they were misplaced. And I thought he missed some other concerns which were more important. … Continue reading
Posted in agrivoltaics, American Solar Energy Society, Berkeley Haas Energy, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, climate business, climate disruption, climate economics, climate emergency, climate finance, climate justice, climate policy, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, distributed generation, ecomodernism, economic disruption, ecopragmatism, electric vehicles, electrical energy engineering, energy transition, engineering, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mark Jacobson, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Osborne, Our Children's Trust, photovoltaics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Talk Solar, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Climate Facts from James Hansen and Makiko Sato Ahead of COP26
From the newsletter of 14th October 2021: Left are greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, and right are cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, 1751-2018. Don’t think it’s China. Prior COPs have been characterized by self-delusion so blatant that one of us (JEH) … Continue reading
Posted in climate denial, climate disruption, climate economics
Tagged 100% wind water solar storage, anthropogenic global warming, BANANAS, climate disruption, economic disruption, energy policy, liberal climate denial, NIMBY, nuclear energy, progressives climate density, solar energy, wind energy
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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
CBAM, Carbon Tariffs, and Waste Reduction (Paul Krugman)
Professor Paul Krugman of The New York Times has what in my opinon is a great economics op-ed in today’s paper, one called “Wonking Out: Two Cheers for Carbon Tariffs.” He explains how Carbon Tariffs and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms … Continue reading
Posted in Carbon Tax, climate disruption, climate economics
Tagged Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, carbon tariff, Carbon Tax, CBAM, recycling
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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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CFTC and Climate: “We have to slam on the brakes”
To that end, in 2019 the U. S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) formed the Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee, and tasked it with producing a report to consider what climate-related risks might be; examine whether adequate information about climate risks … Continue reading
‘Could batteries replace a proposed peaker plant in Massachusetts?’
by Sarah Shemkus, Energy News Network June 2, 2021 Environmental activists and local residents in Massachusetts are urging the group behind a planned natural gas power plant to consider whether battery storage could do the job with fewer climate concerns. … Continue reading
‘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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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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Another reason air source heat pumps are a win
We have had air source heat pumps for house heating and cooling since 2014. For the most part, they’ve performed well, or, at least, there’s nothing inherent in the technology which has made the experience sound and enjoyable. If you … Continue reading
The recipe for success of green energy in the Massachusetts suburbs
This is Dr Saul Griffith entrepreneur and inventor at Otherlab, addressing impediments to putting solar on rooftops in the United States. Eventually, it will be ridiculous to people not to put solar on their roofs. And any bylaws or other … Continue reading
Posted in bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, climate economics, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecopragmatist, electric vehicles, fossil fuel divestment, investment in wind and solar energy, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, photovoltaics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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What is to be done? Personal ideological purity not only doesn’t help, it can be counterproductive
From “Warmer, Warmer” by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books, 2007: What is to be done? The first thing to do is to admit that Dick Cheney is right. ‘Conservation may be a personal virtue,’ he said in … Continue reading
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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Consumer, Employment, and Environmental Benefits of Electricity Transmission Expansion in the Eastern United States
If local towns and neighborhoods continue to oppose decentralized zero Carbon energy, whether solar ground mounts or utility scale solar farms or wind turbines, we’re going to need more transmission, much more transmission. Opponents to decentralized solar generation are either … Continue reading
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate policy, complex systems, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecomodernism, electric vehicles, electrical energy engineering, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy storage, energy utilities, extended supply chains, global warming, greenhouse gases, IEEE, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local generation, mitigating climate disruption, On being Carbon Dioxide, photovoltaics, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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banks aren’t interested …
From The Hill: The Trump administration auctioned off oil and gas rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for the first time ever Wednesday, selling off 1.6 million acres along the coast to primarily one major buyer: the state … Continue reading

