
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- 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.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Label Noise
- 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
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Slice Sampling
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- London Review of Books
- Awkward Botany
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- Gabriel's staircase
- 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.”
- All about models
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- Gavin Simpson
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- 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.
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- Karl Broman
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- What If
- Risk and Well-Being
- Earle Wilson
- Mertonian norms
- 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
- 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/.
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- Ted Dunning
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- American Statistical Association
- 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.
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
climate change
- Climate change: Evidence and causes A project of the UK Royal Society: (1) Answers to key questions, (2) evidence and causes, and (3) a short guide to climate science
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- 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.
- And Then There's Physics
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- 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.
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- SolarLove
- Ice and Snow
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- MIT's Climate Primer
- Risk and Well-Being
- Professor Robert Strom's compendium of resources on climate change Truly excellent
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- Reanalyses.org
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- 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%.
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- weather blocking patterns
- Climate model projections versus observations
- Spectra Energy exposed
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- “The discovery of global warming'' (American Institute of Physics)
- `Who to believe on climate change': Simple checks By Bart Verheggen
- 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.
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Climate Change: A health emergency … New England Journal of Medicine Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., and Regina C. LaRocque, M.D., M.P.H., January 17, 2019 N Engl J Med 2019; 380:209-211 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1817067
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Social Cost of 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
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- David Appell's early climate science
- "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.
- "Getting to the Energy Future We Want," Dr Steven Chu
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: FERC
A glimpse of Solar Domination
Hat tip to PV Magazine: B. Frew, W. Cole, P. Denholm, W. Frazier, N. Vincent, R. Margolis, “Sunny with a Chance of Curtailment: Operating the US Grid with very high levels of solar photovoltaics“, (open access) iScience, 21, 22 November … Continue reading
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, climate economics, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, EBC-NE, ecocapitalism, ecopragmatism, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy storage, energy utilities, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, photovoltaics, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Spaceship Earth, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Eminent Domain, the Natural Gas Act, and Explosive Methane Pipelines
Courts are beginning to question the appropriateness of eminent domain as applied to rights of way for pipelines. Damn about time.
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, CleanTechnica, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, emissions, explosive methane, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, Governor Charlie Baker, greenhouse gases, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, mitigating climate disruption, natural gas, petroleum, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, public welfare, PUCs, regulatory capture, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, stranded assets, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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“… [N]ew renewable energy capacity could quadruple that of fossil fuels over next three years”
This is utility-scale capacity only. See the footnote from the original post repeated at the bottom. Also, given uncertainties related to federal data availability at federal Web sites during the partial federal shutdown, I have copied the cited report and … Continue reading
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, electricity, FERC, green tech, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, natural gas, rate of return regulation, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, the energy of the people, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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wind+storage 2.1 ¢/kWh, solar+storage 3.6 ¢/kWh
Update, 2018-01-16 Vox has a widely acclaimed update to this story. (rubbing hands gleefully) Utility scale bids at Xcel Energy had median prices of 2.1 ¢/kWh for wind-with-storage, and 3.6 ¢/kWh for solar-with-storage. Hat tip to Utility Dive. In U.S. … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Cape Wind, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy storage, energy utilities, FERC, Green Tech Media, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, microgrids, natural gas, petroleum, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regulatory capture, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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FERC: No multi-billion dollar bailout for coal and nuclear generating facilities
Excerpts from statements by Richard Glick, FERC commissioner are given below. The Microgrid Knowledge (“MGK”) news article summarizes the context by writing: The commission rejected the energy secretary’s assertion that retirement of coal and nuclear plants threatens electric resilience. Instead … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, Berkeley, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, CleanTechnica, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, electricity markets, energy utilities, FERC, green tech, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, microgrids, rate of return regulation, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power
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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
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Defying technology, trends … nay, defying Mathematics!
The creatures from Trumpland are planning an Energy Week in the upcoming, probably to lead up to the Fourth of July celebrations. Our Orange Leader … will tout surging U.S. exports of oil and natural gas during a week of … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, climate business, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporations, destructive economic development, Donald Trump, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, evidence, explosive methane, exponential growth, extended supply chains, false advertising, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, fracking, global blinding, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, military inferiority, Minsky moment, pipelines, politics, pollution, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, risk, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, the energy of the people, the green century, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, United States, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power
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Once more, with feeling: Responding to Kostrzewa in The Providence Journal
It’s making the rounds. Today it’s John Kostrzewa, Assistant Managing Editor of The Providence Journal, arguing the necessity of natural gas and its pipelines with his “Why R.I.’s economy needs a natural-gas pipeline”. And my response, below, which allowed me … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizen science, citizenship, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, disruption, distributed generation, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, evidence, extended supply chains, FERC, fossil fuels, fracking, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, microgrids, natural gas, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Rhode Island, risk, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, stranded assets, supply chains, the energy of the people, the green century, 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, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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Eversource withdraws from the Spectra-Algonquin “Access Northeast” pipeline project
(Click on image to see a bigger copy. Use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Yes! Now let’s hope the remaining customers for Spectra’s Access Northeast pull out, and FERC denies permission to proceed. Their next meeting is 22nd … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, electricity markets, energy utilities, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, New England, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, regime shifts, regulatory capture, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral
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Mayor Robert Hedlund demonstrates awesome moral leadership
Mayor Robert Hedlund demonstrates awesome moral leadership Here’s Mayor Hedlund’s statement from his Facebook page: As State Senator, I fought and opposed Spectra’s proposed compressor station in North Weymouth. As Mayor, I took a hard and proactive stance in opposition … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, clean disruption, consumption, corruption, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, extended supply chains, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, methane, moral leadership, natural gas, pipelines, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, temporal myopia, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
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Germany’s Energiewende aims to make baseload power obsolete
In a December 2015 article in Forbes, William Pentland seeks to answer the question “What is so revolutionary about Germany’s Energiewende?” Mr Pentland begins: Germany’s energy revolution has become the perennial punching bag of American energy policy. In particular, American … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, bifurcations, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, Ecology Action, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, Epcot, feed-in tariff, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, local generation, marginal energy sources, mesh models, microgrids, optimization, planning, politics, 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, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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FERC requires energy storage plans
Energy Storage Participation in the Energy, Capacity, and Ancillary Services Markets On April 11, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced that it will expand its evaluation of ISOs/RTOs policies that could lead to revolutionary changes in the energy … Continue reading
Posted in BNEF, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, reasonableness, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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