
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- American Statistical Association
- 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.”
- London Review of Books
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- "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.
- 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/
- 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/.
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- 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/
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Earle Wilson
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Gavin Simpson
- "The Expert"
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION Cathy O’Neil’s WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION,
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- Mertonian norms
- Comprehensive Guide to Bayes Rule
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Awkward Botany
- 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
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Gabriel's staircase
- 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
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- 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
- 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
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- Brian McGill's Dynamic Ecology blog Quantitative biology with pithy insights regarding applications of statistical methods
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- James' Empty Blog
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- 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.
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- Slice Sampling
- Charlie Kufs' "Stats With Cats" blog “You took Statistics 101. Now what?”
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- 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.
climate change
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- 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)
- RealClimate
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- 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%.
- The net average effect of a warming climate is increased aridity (Professor Steven Sherwood)
- History of discovering Global Warming From the American Institute of Physics.
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- Eli on the spectroscopic basis of atmospheric radiation physical chemistry
- Skeptical Science
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- "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.
- Sea Change Boston
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- 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.
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- "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
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- Climate model projections versus observations
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- Tamino's Open Mind Open Mind: A statistical look at climate, its science, and at science denial
- 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.
- 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.
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- David Appell's early climate science
- 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.
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- Social Cost of Carbon
- 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
- Risk and Well-Being
- Ice and Snow
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: MA
Eli, who offers a clever and consistent consumption-based accounting scheme. Consumption-based Carbon accounting: Does it have a future? Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions
Testimony to MassDEP, M.G.L. chapter 21N, section 3(d) (from the Global Warming Solutions Act)
I testified to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (“MassDEP”) yesterday regarding means of enforcing limits as required by the Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 21N, Section 3(d), otherwise known as (a portion of) the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act, as … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, AMETSOC, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, Carbon Tax, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate business, climate disruption, coastal communities, coasts, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, environment, environmental law, evidence, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, living shorelines, MA, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, meteorology, methane, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regulatory capture, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, 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
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“Sharon’s Water Problem” (by Paul Lauenstein)
(Click on image to see a bigger version of this figure. Use your browser Back Button to return to this blog.) The town of Sharon, MA, has a water problem. Click on the link and see Paul’s presentation about it. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, agriculture, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Boston, citizen science, climate change, climate disruption, diffusion processes, drought, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, forecasting, global warming, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, MA, New England, Paul Lauenstein, precipitation, quantitative ecology, science, statistics, the tragedy of our present civilization, water, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Can the City of Boston adapt to and help mitigate climate disruption?
(See the major update at the bottom of this post as well.) (On “Less Science and More Social Science” at And Then There’s Physics) And Then There’s Physics is one of my favorite blogs discussing climate disruption and related policy … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Bill Nye, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bollocks, Boston, bridge to somewhere, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, climate justice, Daniel Kahneman, destructive economic development, economics, engineering, environment, finance, floods, forecasting, Gaylord Nelson, global warming, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, insurance, investing, John Englander, Joseph Schumpeter, Kerry Emanuel, MA, Massachusetts, meteorology, Minsky moment, nor'easters, organizational failures, politics, risk, sea level rise, sociology, statistics, supply chains, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
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Now, if we could only say the same thing about Massachusetts …
Massachusetts is supposed to be a Blue State. Massachusetts is supposed to be concerned about the environment, full of tree-hugging eco-weenies (like myself!), and sprouting solar panels from every other rooftop. Massachusetts is supposed to have aggressive support for zero … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Cape Wind, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, clean disruption, climate business, corruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, explosive methane, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, Green Tea Coalition, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, MA, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, Michael Osborne, natural gas, New England, Nikola Tesla, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, supply chains, Texas, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Our Children’s Trust
Washington State Climate Lawsuit has a second win for the plantiffs. Detailed complaint here. The details are available at Our Children’s Trust. In granting the youth a remedy, Judge Hill noted the extraordinary circumstances of the climate crisis, saying, “this … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, case law, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corruption, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, MA, Massachusetts, organizational failures, Our Children's Trust, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Boston, are you ready?
Yeah, how about warming up the seas a bit more by building pipelines, buying into more explosive methane (*), and encouraging fracked gas people to export? What could it hurt? There are many alternatives, most sketched here on this blog. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bollocks, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, false advertising, floods, Florida, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, global warming, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, MA, Massachusetts, methane, mitigation, natural gas, NOAA, nor'easters, physics, pipelines, prediction, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, utility company death spiral
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“Things going fast”: Summary of a class on climate disruption taught by Professor Ricky Rood
Dr Ricky Rood is a professor at the University of Michigan, both a meteorologist and climate scientist, and a regular contributor to the climate and weather blogs at Weather Underground. In a post from April 6th (titled “No Way to … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Antarctica, Arctic, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, liberal climate deniers, MA, marine biology, Massachusetts, meteorology, methane, MIchael Mann, natural gas, New England, physics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, Ricky Rood, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Techno Utopias
Professor Kevin Anderson on Techno Utopias. The Paris “COP21” agreement is/was not only expecting miracles, it was counting on them. Y’think climate disruption causes ecosystem disruption: Try geoengineering. Well the answer was simple. If we choose to continue our love … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, complex systems, consumption, COP21, corporate supply chains, denial, disingenuity, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, exponential growth, extended supply chains, FEMA, finance, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, glaciers, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, ignorance, IPCC, James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, Lenny Smith, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, MA, meteorology, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, physics, planning, population biology, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, regime shifts, Sankey diagram, science, sea level rise, selfishness, silly tech devices, Techno Utopias, the right to know, the value of financial assets
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Massachusetts Solar Suburbs (a Google group)
I have just created the Massachusetts Solar Suburbs Google group. It’s Welcome Message reads: Welcome to the Massachusetts Solar Suburbs! This group exists to provide a forum for owners of solar installations, typically residential, or serving residences, to share their … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Carbon Tax, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, diffusion, diffusion processes, economics, education, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Google, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, MA, meteorology, microgrids, optimization, physics, planning, politics, public utility commissions, rationality, reasonableness, risk, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Global Sea Level Rise by NASA Satellite since 1993
Y’know those NASA satellites Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is so proud to tell us say that there’s been no warming of Earth in 18 years? Well, that’s wrong, of course, but it’s the same organization and the same kinds … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Cauchy distribution, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, destructive economic development, economics, floods, forecasting, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, living shorelines, MA, meteorology, oceanography, planning, politics, rationality, reasonableness, science, sea level rise, statistics
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Why coastal New England is good for wind
(Click on image for larger graphic.) By the way, this “sigma.995” says the wind speeds are for where the atmospheric pressure is 0.995 of Sea Level atmospheric pressure. Compare with Texas. And see this chart of installed wind capacity: (Click … Continue reading
Posted in Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecology, economics, EIA, energy, energy utilities, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, MA, meteorology, NCAR, NIMBY, NOAA, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, wind power
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BOYCOTT University Station, Westwood, MA
Details here: https://goo.gl/1HleSW. Image below. Additional reasons were given here. And here. Here’s the re-cap: https://www.neponset.org/your-watershed/natural-history/ The Town of Westwood has pushed, encouraged, supported, and, some might say, rushed and railroaded through the development of a major shopping mall on … Continue reading

