
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- 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
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- 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”
- American Statistical Association
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- Professor David Draper
- 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.
- 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
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- Ted Dunning
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- 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.
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- All about models
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- What If
- Label Noise
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- 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
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- 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.
- All about Sankey diagrams
- London Review of Books
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- 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.”
- Awkward Botany
- Slice Sampling
- James' Empty Blog
- Gavin Simpson
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- Mertonian norms
- Comprehensive Guide to Bayes Rule
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- Karl Broman
climate change
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- James Hansen and granddaughter Sophie on moving forward with progress on climate
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- "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.
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- weather blocking patterns
- 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
- Sea Change Boston
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- Skeptical Science
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- Simple box models and climate forcing IMO one of Tamino’s best posts illustrating climate forcing using simple box models
- “The discovery of global warming'' (American Institute of Physics)
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- Thriving on Low 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
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- Climate model projections versus observations
- "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.)
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- And Then There's Physics
- 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.
- "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.
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- David Appell's early climate science
- The Sunlight Economy
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- 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%.
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- "Getting to the Energy Future We Want," Dr Steven Chu
- "Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming" By Risbey, Lewandowsky, Hunter, Monselesan: Betting against climate change on durations of 15+ years is no longer a rational proposition.
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- 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.
- Rabett Run Incisive analysis of climate science versus deliberate distraction
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- Paul Beckwith Professor Beckwith is, in my book, one of the most insightful and analytical observers on climate I know. I highly recommend his blog, and his other informational products.
- Solar Gardens Community Power
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: pipelines
“What just happened to wind and solar is a really big deal”
From Bloomberg New Energy Finance: “This is massive,” said Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. policy analysis at BNEF. In the short term, the deal will speed up the shift from fossil fuels more than the global climate deal struck this … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Cape Wind, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, COP21, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamical systems, economics, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, microgrids, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Wind and Solar are Cheaper than Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Right Now
… and that’s based upon levelized cost of energy, without subsidies! See a summary of Lazard’s report, the key chart below: (Click on image to see a larger version. Click on your browser’s Back button to return to blog.) the … Continue reading
Posted in bifurcations, Cape Wind, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, methane, microgrids, natural gas, nuclear power, open data, pipelines, politics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, temporal myopia, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power
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“Wealthy nations spend 40 times as much money subsidizing fossil fuel production as they contribute to the Green Climate Fund”
The next time you hear or read some wag, random solar-hater, or shill for a dirty fossil fuel company (like “natural gas”, really, explosive methane), or the likes of Spectra Energy bemoan the subsidies states like Massachusetts and New York … Continue reading
Posted in Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disingenuity, efficiency, energy, energy utilities, environment, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, investment in wind and solar energy, methane, microgrids, mitigation, pipelines, planning, politics, public utility commissions, rationality, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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How fossil fuels “help the poor” in developing nations, like Nigeria
(From The Atlantic.) CAPTION (Credit– The Atlantic): A man working at an illegal oil-refinery site pours oil under a locally made burner to keep the fire going, near River Nun in Nigeria’s oil state of Bayelsa on November 27, 2012. … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disingenuity, economics, energy reduction, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, microgrids, natural gas, obfuscating data, pipelines, rationality, reasonableness, risk, selfishness, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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What the future of energy everywhere looks like
What will the energy landscape look like after utility companies are either dead, dying, or revert to a tiny portion of their territory? Silicon Valley CCE Partnership gives us all a clue. It’s been described in the San Francisco Chronicle, … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, capricious gods, chance, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, living shorelines, mesh models, meteorology, microgrids, mitigation, obfuscating data, oceanography, physical materialism, physics, pipelines, planning, politics, prediction, probabilistic programming, public utility commissions, PUCs, quantum, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, Sankey diagram, science, sea level rise, selfishness, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, Svante Arrhenius, taxes, temporal myopia, the right to know, the value of financial assets, transparency, UU Humanists, WHOI, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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“… [A] fair, legally binding and truly transformational climate agreement …”
Bishops from around the world have appealed to the COP 21 meeting in Paris to create a “fair, legally binding, and truly transformational” climate agreement. That’s from Vatican Radio which has the full statement. There is more coverage from the … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bill Nye, bridge to nowhere, Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, compassion, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecology, education, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, microgrids, natural gas, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, religion, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, Unitarian Universalism, UU Humanists, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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“Projected Costs of Generating Electricity” (IEA report)
The 2015 edition is now available. Some highlights: They included a sensitivity analysis (!) along with their statistical findings. Applause!! Figure ES.2 shows the LCOE ranges for various renewable technologies – namely, the three categories of solar PV in the … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, forecasting, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, natural gas, NIMBY, pipelines, planning, public utility commissions, rationality, reasonableness, solar power, SolarPV.tv, temporal myopia, time series, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Foul concerns (UPDATE: 14th September 2015)
Updated, 14th September 2015 I submitted a Letter to the Editor of The Westwood Press last week, one which was published in Friday’s paper edition. It did not/has not yet made it online. It was in response to an article … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, methane, microgrids, mitigation, natural gas, pipelines, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, temporal myopia, Tony Seba, Westwood, wind power, zero carbon
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“Natural Gas Pipeline Replacement Programs Reduce Methane Leaks and Improve Consumer Safety”
Update, 2018-11-19 Pipeline replacements, yes, assuming they are done correctly. Otherwise, strand them. See “NTSB faults NiSource for deadly Massachusetts gas explosions“. NiSource is the parent company of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts. Here are the NTSB recommendations and report. Natural … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate disruption, consumption, economics, energy utilities, environment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, methane, mitigation, natural gas, pipelines, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, sociology, spatial statistics, the right to know
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“Dismantling the Utility Model is the Fastest Path to a Cleaner Electricity Infrastructure”
Dismantling the Utility Model is the Fastest Path to a Cleaner Electricity Infrastructure, by Thomas Conroy.
Posted in Cauchy distribution, clean disruption, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, maths, mitigation, natural gas, optimization, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, rationality, reasonableness, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Tony Seba, zero carbon
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Leaks in Westwood: Natural Gas — a bridge to nowhere
These are ongoing leaks of natural gas in the Westwood area. They are reported, as required by law, by Eversource, the local utility, to Massachusetts government authorities, along with an indication of Eversource’s estimate of the severity of the leak. … Continue reading
Posted in bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, ecology, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, methane, natural gas, open data, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, spatial statistics, sustainability, the right to know, zero carbon
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Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change (from grist.org)
“Utilities are shielded by a force field of tedium.” “Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities.” Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change“, a compact introduction, from grist.org. And there’s an additional … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, conservation, consumption, corruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disingenuity, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, education, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, finance, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, microgrids, natural gas, optimization, physics, pipelines, politics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, statistics, sustainability, taxes, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon
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California solar users already affecting per-residence rates of non-solar utility customers
Lead article in the San Francisco Chronicle today addresses how non-solar customers of Pacific Gas & Electric are already carrying a larger burden of the network costs for that utility, costs which are reflected in their rates. This is the … Continue reading
Posted in bifurcations, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, differential equations, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, exponential growth, finance, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, maths, microgrids, natural gas, pipelines, politics, rationality, reasonableness, solar power, statistics, temporal myopia, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon
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Hausfathers “Climate Impacts of Coal and Natural Gas”
(Updated below, 21st June 2018.) Zeke Hausfather published “Climate Impacts of Coal and Natural Gas” on the BEST project site. He makes a close analysis of the relative benefits of coal and natural gas, considering the subtleties and pitfalls of … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, consumption, COP21, ecology, energy, energy reduction, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, James Hansen, methane, natural gas, physics, pipelines, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, statistics, the right to know, zero carbon
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