Category Archives: engineering

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 | Leave a comment

Climate Resilience

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, children as political casualties, climate disruption, climate nightmares, climate science, climate sensitivity, distributed generation, ecological disruption, ecopragmatism, engineering, First Parish in Needham, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, global weirding, Greta Thunberg, investment in wind and solar energy, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mitigating climate disruption, Nature's Trust, ocean acidification, ocean warming, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, Ray Pierrehumbert, Reverend Catie Scudera, Robert Young, sea level rise, Steven Chu, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, zero carbon | Leave a comment

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.

Posted in Bloomberg Green, climate economics, ecopragmatism, engineering, Orsted, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

“…. [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 | Leave a comment

“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 | Leave a comment

Congratulations China!

No practice runs. Designed. Built. Worked first time out. That’s impressive.

Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, basic research, China, engineering, Moon | Leave a comment

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

Posted on by ecoquant | Leave a comment

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 | 5 Comments

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 , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What it takes to explore the oceans everywhere: WHOI’s got it

Support ’em!

Posted in Association to Preserve Cape Cod, bridge to somewhere, coasts, engineering, geophysics, glaciology, ocean warming, oceanic eddies, oceanography, oceans, science, WHOI | Leave a comment

Earth Day 2019: So how do people transition to the new energy economy?

I’ve been pretty hard on the Green New Deal. That’s partly because its proponents don’t seem to see that a transition to a new zero Carbon energy economy is inevitable. It’s opponents don’t see that either. It may not come … Continue reading

Posted in Amory Lovins, an ignorant American public, Ørsted, capitalism, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, compassion, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, corporations, ecomodernism, electric vehicles, engineering, ethics, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, Gaylord Nelson, global warming, Green New Deal, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, LBNL, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Carney, Mark Jacobson, microgrids, New England, NIMBY, organizational failures, Orsted, percolation theory, planning, public education, public welfare, RevoluSun, Richard Branson, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, SunPower, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, Talk Solar, technology, temporal myopia, Tesla, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, UU, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

So, y’say you want a Green New Deal …

There isn’t a lot known about the Green New Deal or “GND”. Its proponents are certainly making the rounds, but it is light on specifics, heavy on urgency, heavily coupled with advancing jobs and justice, racial, climate, and environmental. As … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, Ørsted, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, cement production, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate change, climate economics, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, education, electric vehicles, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy utilities, engineering, environment, extended producer responsibility, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, Gaylord Nelson, George Monbiot, global warming, Green Tech Media, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Jacobson, Mary C Wood, Peter del Tredici, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, rhetorical mathematics, rhetorical science, rhetorical statistics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, T'kun Olam, Talk Solar, Tesla, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, wishful environmentalism | 2 Comments

October 2013 retrospective … Karl Ragabo on ‘Talk Solar’ podcast, regarding value of solar generation

In October of 2013, Karl Ragabo was interviewed on the Talk Solar podcast from Beth Bond of Decatur, GA. This was shortly after the first version of the Value of Solar report was issued by IREC. Listen to it below: … Continue reading

Posted in Beth Bond, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, CleanTechnica, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Ragabo, microgrids, public utility commissions, regulatory capture, resiliency, RevoluSun, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, Stewart Brand, stranded assets, Talk Solar, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral | Leave a comment

Still a climate hawk, and appreciate all my climate friends: To the climate deniers, the greenwashers, the liberal environmental opportunists, and the environmental purists who will never compromise …

“Not ready to make nice” (Dixie Chicks) I stick by my friends in these hard times: Tamino’s community The Azimuth Project Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The American Statistical Association The International Society for Bayesian Analysis Losing Earth: The decade we … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, Bayesian, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate grief, coastal investment risks, ecological disruption, ecological services, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, engineering, environment, flooding, global warming, Grant Foster, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mathematics education, personal purity, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, regulatory capture, risk, riverine flooding, sampling without replacement, Scituate, secularism, shorelines, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, statistical dependence, SunPower, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, Unitarian Universalism, unreason, utility company death spiral, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, Walt Disney Company, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we'' | 1 Comment

Welcome to snowy New England … Bad place for solar PV, right?

And this is ISO-NE, who, as little as three years back were highly sceptical anything other than additional natural gas generation could supply the ever increasing electrical power needs of the region, particularly with the withdrawal of generation from oil, … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate economics, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, corporations, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, ecological disruption, economic trade, economics, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, engineering, entrpreneurs, green tech, Green Tech Media, grid defection, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, rate of return regulation, reworking infrastructure, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Sonnen community, Spaceship Earth, technology, 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, UNFCCC, Unitarian Universalism, unreason, utility company death spiral, Wally Broecker, wishful environmentalism, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon | Leave a comment

“About” section of this blog has been revised, and rules of commenting made more prominent

See the About section of this blog for a revision in the blog’s description and rules governing commenting made more explicit and prominent. In fact, I have copied these at the bottom of this post. The heading of the blog … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, blog, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, CleanTechnica, climate change, ecology, Ecology Action, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, engineering, global warming, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Carney, reasonableness, secularism, solar democracy, solar domination, Stewart Brand, technology, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Series, symmetrized Normalized Compressed Divergences and their logit transforms

(Major update on 11th January 2019. Minor update on 16th January 2019.) On comparing things The idea of a calculating a distance between series for various purposes has received scholarly attention for quite some time. The most common application is … Continue reading

Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, bridge to somewhere, computation, content-free inference, data science, descriptive statistics, divergence measures, engineering, George Sughihara, information theoretic statistics, likelihood-free, machine learning, mathematics, model comparison, model-free forecasting, multivariate statistics, non-mechanistic modeling, non-parametric statistics, numerical algorithms, statistics, theoretical physics, thermodynamics, time series | 4 Comments

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 | Leave a comment

Alex Steffen on Climate Defeatism

On 31st July 2018, Alex Steffen wrote (on Twitter) that: Reminder that climate defeatism—arguing that we are already so screwed that there’s no real point in acting to limit climate emissions or ecological damage—is absolutely a form of denialism, and … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, anti-science, attribution, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Bill Maher, Bill Nye, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, climate business, climate change, climate economics, corporations, denial, engineering, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, James Hansen, John Farrell, Kerry Emanuel, klaus lackner, liberal climate deniers, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, Michael Bloomberg, reason, reasonableness, science denier, secularism, Stewart Brand, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, zero carbon | 7 Comments

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 | Leave a comment

big generation day … first complete with WSS II online

Our additional 3.45 kW solar PV is up and generating today, collecting substantial numbers of photons (500 kWh) by 0800 ET. (Click on figure to see a larger image and use browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on … Continue reading

Posted in electricity, engineering, RevoluSun, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, SunPower, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral | Leave a comment

What gives me hope … And it ain’t the small stuff

AS Arman Oganisian of Stable Markets writes “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” That is a fundamentally engineering attitude. It is fundamentally about the economics, and, in particular, the dramatic drop in levelized cost of energy for wind and renewables, … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, biology, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economic trade, economics, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Green Tech Media, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Sankey diagram, smart data, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon | Leave a comment

What does it really mean for an electrical grid to be resilient?

(Slightly updated 2nd October 2017 to add a link to the Brattle Group’s report on the myth of baseload generation.) Secretary of Energy Rick Perry has recently called for `baseload` coal and nuclear plants which are no longer competitive in … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, corruption, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, denial, disingenuity, disruption, distributed generation, Donald Trump, electricity, energy utilities, engineering, ethics, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, FERC, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, local generation, local self reliance, making money, meteorological models, meteorology, microgrids, public utility commissions, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, regulatory capture, resiliency, science denier, superstition, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, transparency, utility company death spiral | Leave a comment

On the responsibilities of engineers

A recent tour of Titanic Belfast with my son, Dave, and pondering the responsibilities of engineers with respect to Big Constructs, like defending a city against floods, or advising on the ramifications of deploying geoengineering, and worrying about the tendency … Continue reading

Posted in aeroautics, engineering, NASA | 1 Comment

On Hoarding Electrons

I was once scolded by an energy wonk and political progressive at a semi-public forum for suggesting people “hoard electrons”. That is, instead of being grid connected, there seemed to me to be situations where becoming as independent of the … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, conservation, Debbie Dooley, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, economics, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy efficiency, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, Green Tea Coalition, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, Michael Osborne, microgrids, public utility commissions, rate of return regulation, RevoluSun, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Stanford University, SunPower, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Solar Costs at `Jaw-Dropping Lows`; `No Evidence That Changing Power Mix Endangers Electric System Reliability`

From GTM: `Solar Moves in a Curious Direction Since Trump Quit Paris Deal: Up‘ There is “[n]o evidence that the changing power mix endangers electric system reliability”. Two reports: Advancing past baseload to a flexible grid Electricity Markets, Reliability and … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, climate business, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, Donald Trump, economics, electricity markets, engineering, force multiplier, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, Green Tech Media, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, microgrids, public utility commissions, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 5 Comments

Deloitte: The drumbeats for the extinction of utilities have begun

Deloitte Resources 2017 Study — Energy management: Sustainability and progress. From The Economist, 25th February 2017: FROM his office window, Philipp Schröder points out over the Bavarian countryside and issues a Bond villain’s laugh: “In front of you, you can … Continue reading

Posted in Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, EIA, electrical energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, finance, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, grid defection, investment in wind and solar energy, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, reason, reasonableness, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Techno Utopias, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Installed Non-Utility Solar, Massachusetts, 12/2016

(Click on image to see a larger figure, and use browser Back Button to return to blog.)

Posted in Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, electricity markets, energy utilities, engineering, feed-in tariff, green tech, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, John Farrell, local generation, local self reliance, making money, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, microgrids, New England, regime shifts, RevoluSun, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, stranded assets, SunPower, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral, zero carbon | Leave a comment

`Evidence of a decline in electricity use by U.S. households’ (Prof Lucas Davis, U.C. Berkeley)

This is from a blog post by Professor Lucas Davis at his blog. In addition to the subject, that’s an interesting way of presenting a change over time I’ll need to think about: It seems the model could be used … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, anomaly detection, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, convergent cross-mapping, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, dependent data, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, green tech, local self reliance, Lucas Davis, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, model-free forecasting, multivariate statistics, public utility commissions, rate of return regulation, statistics, Takens embedding theorem | Leave a comment

I’m afraid, dear progressive friends, Mr Maher is 110% correct

I see nearly every week in the comedy called progressive plans for energy sources in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Progressives, it seems, eschew cooperation with business and attorneys and, as a result, never get anything respectable done. They are, as … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, atheism, Bill Maher, Buckminster Fuller, Canettes Blues Band, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, Daniel Kahneman, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, electricity markets, engineering, environmental law, fossil fuel divestment, free flow of labor, global warming, green tech, greenwashing, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local self reliance, Michael Osborne, politics, rationality, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon | 5 Comments