Category Archives: regime shifts

“Strong First Quarter Growth and Fracked Gas Takes a Hit”

(To see a larger figure, click on image to open it in a new browser window. This is from ILSR‘s “Of New Power Generation, How Much is on the Roof? Quarterly Update — 2019 Q1“.) It was once warned, and … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electricity markets, energy utilities, green tech, grid defection, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, John Farrell, Karl Ragabo, Michael Osborne, microgrids, public utility commissions, regime shifts, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, solar revolution, Talk Solar, technology, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Installed Non-Utility Solar, Massachusetts, 12/2016

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

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

Dikran Marsupial’s excellent bit on hypothesis testing applied to climate, or how it should be applied, if at all

Frankly, I wish some geophysicists and climate scientists wrote more as if they thoroughly understood this, let alone deniers to try to discredit climate disruption. See “What does statistically significant actually mean?”. Of course, while statistical power of a test … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, anti-science, Bayesian, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, D. K. Marsupial, Frequentist, global warming, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, John Kruschke, regime shifts, statistics, Student t distribution | Leave a comment

Westwood Solar & Energy Fair

Today. Flyer. Position yourself to ride the Energy Revolution. Adapt to warming due to human-caused climate change in the Northeast U.S. by changing over your heating and cooling sources. Make Money. Increase the value of your home. Move towards your … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate economics, consumption, Debbie Dooley, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, education, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, engineering, environment, Epcot, Equiterre, exponential growth, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Green Tea Coalition, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, making money, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, New England, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, RevoluSun, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Solpad, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, SunPower, supply chains, sustainability, Tea Party, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, zero carbon | Leave a comment

What’s going on in the ocean off the Northeast United States

Hint: Climate change has somethin’ to do with it. Schematic diagram illustrating the component parts of the AMOC and the 26◦ N observing system. Black arrows represent the Ekman transport (predominantly northward). Red arrows illustrate the circulation of warm waters … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bifurcations, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, critical slowing down, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid dynamics, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, John Marshall, meteorology, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, regime shifts, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, thermohaline circulation, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | Leave a comment

Who paved the roads?

Professor Tony Seba of Stanford University is a great leader, visionary, speaker, and business expert. He often starts his talks with two successive public domain images to illustrate technological and business disruption. These are shown below. One is a photograph … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, Gaylord Nelson, global warming, green tech, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, marginal energy sources, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, meteorology, microgrids, Minsky moment, planning, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, resiliency, risk, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Stanford University, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

‘A Time To Choose’

Charles Ferguson and a “Time To Choose”. (Much large image available by clicking on photo. Use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Trailer:

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Ferguson, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, regime shifts, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

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 | Leave a comment

Gustin and companies lack technological and business imagination

Carl Gustin, a consultant to the New England Coalition for Affordable Energy, which “includes many of New England’s major business and industry organizations and labor representatives”, wrote an op-ed in favor of additional natural gas and pipelines for Massachusetts in … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, disruption, distributed generation, economics, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, green tech, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, insurance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, lobbying, local generation, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, methane, microgrids, natural gas, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

`The Future of Energy’

Writing in Newsweek, Kevin Maney talks about the Future of Energy and Elon Musk’s long term plan to kill Big Oil. Hat tip to Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week where I first found the mention of … Continue reading

Posted in American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, CleanTechnica, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, Michael Osborne, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, regime shifts, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral, zero carbon | Leave a comment

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 | Leave a comment

“Disrupt climate disruption”

From Science Music Videos … And if you have the time, a 52 minute movie … Power concedes nothing without a demand. “No leader is coming to save us [from climate disruption].”

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bollocks, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, Daniel Kahneman, denial, dynamical systems, Eaarth, ecology, Ecology Action, Gaylord Nelson, George Monbiot, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, moral leadership, Our Children's Trust, regime shifts, science, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Carbon Sinks in Crisis — It Looks Like the World’s Largest Rainforest is Starting to Bleed Greenhouse Gasses

Originally posted on robertscribbler:
Back in 2005, and again in 2010, the vast Amazon rainforest, which has been aptly described as the world’s lungs, briefly lost its ability to take in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its drought-stressed trees were not growing…

Posted in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, disruption, dynamical systems, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Minsky moment, model-free forecasting, physics, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, random walk processes, Ray Pierrehumbert, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists | 2 Comments

Energy Democracy

I’ve actually written about this before, but John Farrell of the ILSR (“Institute for Local Self-Reliance” a famous Emerson essay, by the way) presents an up-to-date synthesis of developments, incorporating policy as well as Tony Seba-like, Hermann Scheer-like, and Michael … Continue reading

Posted in abstraction, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, citizenship, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, extended supply chains, feed-in tariff, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, investment in wind and solar energy, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, life purpose, local generation, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Michael Osborne, microgrids, open data, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, spatial statistics, statistics, stranded assets, sustainability, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Dramatis personæ: How to do zero Carbon emissions at a residence (Westwood, MA)

Updated, 1st October 2019 (To see a larger picture for this and all images, click on image and then use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Our external meter is now reading negative. Peak was 2850 in April 2016. … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, citizenship, clean disruption, climate business, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, green tech, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Michael Osborne, microgrids, New England, open data, regime shifts, RevoluSun, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, SunPower, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 11 Comments

TOO LATE: “There will be no golden age of [natural] gas”

Last month, Tom Randall at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (“BNEF”) profiled a new forecast which shows costs for zero Carbon energy and energy are plummetting so fast that coal, oil, and natural gas will begin their terminal decline within a … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, American Petroleum Institute, Anthropocene, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Chevron, citizenship, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, disruption, distributed generation, Ecology Action, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, explosive methane, Exxon, false advertising, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, geoengineering, global warming, green tech, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Gulf Oil, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, methane, microgrids, natural gas, petroleum, pipelines, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Standard Oil of California, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, 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, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 5 Comments

A model of an electrical grid: A vision

Many people seem to view the electrical grid of the future being much like the present one. I think a lot about networks, because of my job. And I especially think a lot about network topologies, although primarily concerning the … Continue reading

Posted in abstraction, American Meteorological Association, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Boston, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Canettes Blues Band, clean disruption, climate business, climate economics, complex systems, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, differential equations, distributed generation, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, extended supply chains, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Kalman filter, kriging, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Lenny Smith, local generation, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mesh models, meteorology, microgrids, networks, New England, New York State, open data, organizational failures, pipelines, planning, prediction markets, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, resiliency, risk, Sankey diagram, smart data, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, thermodynamics, time series, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wave equations, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Three stories of solar energy domination: Which outcome would YOU prefer?

(Updated, 2016-07-14) See Shayle Kann’s great piece at GreenTech media. The choices: “Version one: Aimless transformation” “Version two: The balkanized grid” “Version three: Embracing the transformation” In addition to solar PV, wind energy of all forms (especially underutilized local wind … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, Chris Goodall, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, Internet, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 2 Comments

Plunging costs for Solar PV

Offered without comment. Hat tip to Bloomberg and to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. (Click on image to see a larger figure. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.)

Posted in adaptation, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

China as a zero Carbon energy powerhouse

(Click on image for a larger figure, and use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) Figure courtesy of the International Energy Agency. (Click on image for a larger figure, and use your browser Back Button to return to … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, economics, electricity, energy, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, public utility commissions, PUCs, regime shifts, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, zero carbon | 2 Comments

“Catching long tail distribution” (Ted Dunning)

One of the best presentations on what can happen if someone takes a naive approach to network data. It also highlights what is, to my mind, the greatly underappreciated t-distribution, which is typically only used in connection with frequentist Student … Continue reading

Posted in Cauchy distribution, complex systems, data science, Lévy flights, leptokurtic, mathematics, maths, networks, physics, population biology, population dynamics, regime shifts, sampling, statistics, Student t distribution, time series | Leave a comment

Hermann Scheer in California, at Google, hosted by MIT and GABA

I am increasingly thinking of myself as a solar revolutionary or, at least, a solar evangelist in the spirit of Hermann Scheer, whose advocacy for solar and renewable energy is as much a social revolution as it is a technological … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, clean disruption, Debbie Dooley, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, exponential growth, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, microgrids, planning, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, RevoluSun, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, 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 | 4 Comments

synopsis of NY-REV

What New York State is doing, and Massachusetts, apparently not. Cheap supplies of domestic natural gas have driven the New England power plant market toward that fuel and away from the more expensive coal, oil and nuclear material. Limited capacity … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, causal diagrams, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, coastal communities, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, economics, efficiency, electricity markets, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, environment, extended supply chains, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, marginal energy sources, meteorology, microgrids, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

“Oil’s Big Dive” (by Peter Sinclair)

Originally posted on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
I posted last week the news that Saudi Arabia seems to have recognized that the age of Oil is drawing to an  end. Below, Amory Lovins Whale oil analogy might have…

Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, extended supply chains, Exxon, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, Gulf Oil, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, methane, natural gas, petroleum, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, resiliency, risk, Sankey diagram, solar domination, supply chains, Texaco, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral | Leave a comment

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 | 1 Comment

This is what the future looks like, for towns and villages — and utilities

Welcome to Minster, Ohio. (Hat tip to Clean Technica.) Check One: A 4.3 MW solar array. Check Two: A history of being supportive to local residents, and a plan for making them more efficient and reducing their electrical energy needs. … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, zero carbon | 8 Comments

Bye, bye Kinder-Morgan! Spectra, hey, listen up: Why don’t you do the same?

(Click on image to see larger picture, and use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Energy giant Kinder Morgan Inc. has pulled the plug on its controversial natural gas pipeline proposed through parts of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate disruption, climate justice, consumption, corruption, destructive economic development, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, lobbying, local generation, Massachusetts, methane, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, supply chains, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon | Leave a comment

“Preserving the climate can also save you money.”

“Can you power a business on 100% renewable energy? Ikea wants to try.” From Guardian sustainable business The new bottom line. I also monitor Bloomberg New Energy Finance. (Update: 2016-04-20) And not preserving the climate will be very, very expensive, … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bloomberg, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, environment, extended supply chains, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, meteorology, microgrids, mitigation, 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, supply chains, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Ray Kurzweil predicts dominance of energy industry by Solar in 12 years

Read it and weep, Carbon Worshippers. Facts are, with so much cheap solar electricity around, even if its supply is uneven in any particular locale, (a) the energy storage business will have big incentives to roll out, and roll out … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, Bill Nye, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, energy, engineering, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, liberal climate deniers, local generation, planning, politics, population dynamics, public utility commissions, PUCs, quantitative ecology, rate of return regulation, rationality, Ray Kurzweil, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Stanford University, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Remember 2012?

“Welcome to the rest of our lives …” Peter Sinclair speculates 2016 will be as bad and possibly worse than 2012.

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, environment, Exxon, FEMA, forecasting, forest fires, fossil fuels, fracking, games of chance, geophysics, George Sughihara, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, liberal climate deniers, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, meteorology, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, science, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets | Leave a comment