
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Healthy Home Healthy Planet
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Risk and Well-Being
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- London Review of Books
- 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
- 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.
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Lenny Smith's CHAOS: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION This is a PDF version of Lenny Smith’s book of the same title, also available from Amazon.com
- 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.
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Awkward Botany
- Slice Sampling
- 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/
- Ted Dunning
- Mertonian norms
- Gavin Simpson
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- 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
- What If
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION Cathy O’Neil’s WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION,
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- 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/.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Charlie Kufs' "Stats With Cats" blog “You took Statistics 101. Now what?”
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- All about ENSO, and lunar tides (Paul Pukite) Historically, ENSO has been explained in terms of winds. But recently — and Dr Paul Pukite has insisted upon this for a long time — the oscillation of ENSO has been explained as a large-scale slosh due to lunar tidal forcing.
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- Label Noise
- Number Cruncher Politics
- "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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- Higgs from AIR describing NAO and EA Stephanie Higgs from AIR Worldwide gives a nice description of NAO and EA in the context of discussing “The Geographic Impact of Climate Signals on European Winter Storms”
- Brian McGill's Dynamic Ecology blog Quantitative biology with pithy insights regarding applications of statistical methods
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
climate change
- Simple box models and climate forcing IMO one of Tamino’s best posts illustrating climate forcing using simple box models
- Climate model projections versus observations
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- Professor Robert Strom's compendium of resources on climate change Truly excellent
- "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.
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- Spectra Energy exposed
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- Rabett Run Incisive analysis of climate science versus deliberate distraction
- Warming slowdown discussion
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- weather blocking patterns
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- “The discovery of global warming'' (American Institute of Physics)
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- Ice and Snow
- Steve Easterbrook's excellent climate blog: See his "The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet?" for example Heavy on data and computation, Easterbrook is a CS prof at UToronto, but is clearly familiar with climate science. I like his “The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet” very much.
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- "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.)
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- The Sunlight Economy
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- David Appell's early climate science
- 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%.
- RealClimate
- 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.
- 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.
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- 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.
- And Then There's Physics
- 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
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- Earth System Models
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: photovoltaics
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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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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Baseload is an intellectual crutch for engineers and utility managers who cannot think dynamically
This is an awesome presentation by Professor Joshua Pearce of Michigan Technological University. (h/t Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week) The same idea, that “baseload is a shortcut for engineers who can’t think dynamically”, was similar in the … Continue reading
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, CleanTechnica, control theory, controls theory, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, electrical energy engineering, electrical energy storage, electricity, Kalman filter, optimization, photovoltaics, rate of return regulation, solar domination, solar energy, solar revolution, stochastic algorithms, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
Tagged baseload, controls theory, dynamics, electrical engineering, energy storage, marginal cost of energy, solar energy, wind energy
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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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“…. [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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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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The next time you hear someone sayin’ how dirty wind turbines and solar panels are to manufacture …
Bloomberg reports that the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline may yield 48,000 tons of scrap metal. That’s for its 107 mile length. That’s not all the pipeline in the world. And that doesn’t count the drilling equipment, the pumps, the compressors, … Continue reading
Posted in bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, Cult of Carbon, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, photovoltaics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, tar sands, 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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Fossil fuels have no future
Posted in afforestation, alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg Green, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, climate activism, climate disruption, climate mitigation, climate policy, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, global warming, Mark Jacobson, photovoltaics, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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On the Nuclear option
Where does a state government turn when they have a strong mandate to remove fossil fuels from electricity generation, heating, cooling, and transportation? Suppose they proposed a cross-border hydropower purchase from Quebec? Suppose they planned to roll out land-based wind, … Continue reading
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Solar Energy Society, an uncaring American public, atmosphere, Ørsted, Benji Backer, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, CleanTechnica, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate mitigation, climate nightmares, climate policy, climate science, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electricity, electricity markets, energy utilities, environment, Ernest Moniz, Falmouth, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, investment in wind and solar energy, New England, nuclear power, NuScale, ocean warming, On being Carbon Dioxide, photovoltaics, solar energy, stranded assets, technology, the green century, Tokarska and Zickfield, wind power, zero carbon
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RethinkX update on Wind, Solar, and Storage
Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Amory Lovins, being carbon dioxide, Benji Backer, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, children as political casualties, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate business, climate economics, climate education, Conservation Action Coalition, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, disruption, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecological disruption, ecomodernism, ecopragmatist, electric vehicles, electrical energy storage, electricity, electricity markets, energy storage, energy utilities, entrpreneurs, Green Tea Coalition, grid defection, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, keep fossil fuels in ground, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, Michael Bloomberg, microgrids, On being Carbon Dioxide, photovoltaics, RevoluSun, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Talk Solar, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Opposition to solar PV field at new Hanlon-Deerfield school, Westwood, MA
(Updated 2020-10-07, 17:36) This is sometimes was called the “Shuttleworth Solar Field Project”. In addition to building a combined pair of schools on Town of Westwood property, there is a proposal for building a 2 MW solar array on adjacent … Continue reading
Posted in agrivoltaics, American Solar Energy Society, an uncaring American public, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, climate activism, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecocapitalism, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, fossil fuel divestment, greenhouse gases, Greta Thunberg, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, John Farrell, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, NIMBY, On being Carbon Dioxide, Our Children's Trust, photovoltaics, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Talk Solar, Tony Seba, Westwood
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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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Alex Steffen on The Climate Strike
Excerpted from The Nearly Now at Medium, by Alex Steffen. “You’re right to strike; you’re right to march; you’re right to feel your fear and rage and longing for a better world. You are the victims of a terrible intergenerational … Continue reading
Posted in #climatestrike, #sunrise, #youthvgov, Alex Steffen, American Solar Energy Society, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Arctic amplification, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, climate disruption, climate justice, climate mitigation, ClimateAdam, Ecology Action, global blinding, global warming, global weirding, Greta Thunberg, insurance, Jennifer Francis, Juliana v United States, life cycle sustainability analysis, On being Carbon Dioxide, photovoltaics, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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“Climate Science for Climate Activists” is a wrap
The class “Climate Science for Climate Activists” I have taught for the last 6 or so weeks is now completed. The slides are available here.
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, Anthropocene, Association to Preserve Cape Cod, being carbon dioxide, Blackbody radiation, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, cement production, Clausius-Clapeyron equation, clean disruption, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, Climate Adam, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate grief, climate models, ClimateAdam, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecomodernism, electric vehicles, electricity, Emily Shuckburgh, emissions, energy utilities, environment, evidence, EVs, flooding, floods, fluid dynamics, fluid eddies, food, food scarcity, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, Gavin Schmidt, geoengineering, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, Grant Foster, Green New Deal, Green Tech Media, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, John Marshall, klaus lackner, lapse rate, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, life cycle sustainability analysis, Mark Jacobson, meteorological models, meteorology, Nathan Phillips, National Center for Atmospheric Research, negative emissions, nonlinear systems, nor'easters, ocean warming, oceanic eddies, oceanography, oceans, permafrost, personal purity, photovoltaics, precipitation, Principles of Planetary Climate, radiative forcing, Ray Pierrehumbert, Robert Young, science, sea level rise, seismology, shorelines, Sir David King, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Stanford University, Stefan Rahmstorf, Steven Chu, Stewart Brand, sustainability, Svante Arrhenius, Tamino, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral, Wally Broecker, water, water as a resource, WHOI, wild fires, wind power, wishful environmentalism, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon
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