
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- Number Cruncher Politics
- American Statistical Association
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- 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
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Gabriel's staircase
- NCAR AtmosNews
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Mertonian norms
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- 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
- Comprehensive Guide to Bayes Rule
- Awkward Botany
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- Los Alamos Center for Bayesian Methods
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- 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.
- 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/
- James' Empty Blog
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- What If
- Risk and Well-Being
- 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
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- 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.
- "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.
- 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
- 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/
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
climate change
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- 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%.
- Earth System Models
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Climate model projections versus observations
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- 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.
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- SolarLove
- Sea Change Boston
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- 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.
- 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.
- Spectra Energy exposed
- James Hansen and granddaughter Sophie on moving forward with progress on climate
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- Social Cost of Carbon
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- The Green Plate Effect Eli Rabett’s “The Green Plate Effect”
- "Getting to the Energy Future We Want," Dr Steven Chu
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- "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.
- "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.
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- World Weather Attribution
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Reanalyses.org
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- The Keeling Curve The first, and one of the best programs for creating a spatially significant long term time series of atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Started amongst great obstacles by one, smart determined guy, Charles David Keeling.
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- "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.
- 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.
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- Simple models of climate change
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- RealClimate
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- Grid parity map for Solar PV in United States
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: selfishness
A lesson for Boston
And, from the Harvard Business Review: There was a time a decade or two ago when society could have made a choice to write off our massive investment in a fossil fuel-based economy and begin a policy driven shift towards … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, coasts, Cult of Carbon, Daniel Kahneman, environment, flooding, floods, Florida, global blinding, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, John Englander, living shorelines, Mark Carney, nor'easters, oceanic eddies, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, sea level rise, seawalls, selfishness, shorelines, solar energy, the right to be and act stupid, water
Leave a comment
Taking advantage of the natural skepticism and integrity of scientists and their co-workers, and their commitment to scientific process
I’ve seen this. One can seldom discuss or debate a science denier, whether at (my) presentations at UUAC Sherborn or in many places online, without their employing moving the goalposts or, when they fail to response to an explanation, trotting … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, bridge to nowhere, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, climate disruption, climate economics, climate zombies, Daniel Kahneman, destructive economic development, engineering, ethics, evidence, force multiplier, George Sughihara, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, military inferiority, Minsky moment, organizational failures, Our Children's Trust, rationality, reasonableness, science, science denier, selfishness, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, United States
Leave a comment
This Earth Day: The Data
(Amendments on 25the April 2016.) Sorry, folks, it’s It’s not just El Niño. El Niño’s have gotten bigger over the years. (Click on image for a larger picture. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on image … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, Dan Satterfield, ecology, El Nina, El Nino, ENSO, environment, evidence, Exxon, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, ignorance, James Hansen, John Cook, La Nina, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, organizational failures, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, selfishness, Spaceship Earth, statistics, sustainability, Texaco, the problem of evil, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists, WAIS, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon
Leave a comment
Bill Nye’s “Global Meltdown”: Climate grief in 5 steps
Postscript, 2nd April 2016 I’ve been asked offline whether I buy McPherson’s catastrophic warming scenario. I don’t, or at least I wouldn’t bet on it. Each of the components of Professor McPherson’s scenario are based upon solid science. But in … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bill Nye, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, denial, Eaarth, Earle Wilson, energy, environment, Florida, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, physics, planning, rationality, reasonableness, science, selfishness, zero carbon
4 Comments
patents disincentivize progress
Very interesting.
seek the beautiful, and avoid “climate justice”
Some people along the coast of Massachusetts are missing out. No matter. After the homes are flooded and razed, because their parents and grandparents were too foolish and short-sighted to see what should be done, the kids will turn the … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Canettes Blues Band, Cape Wind, capricious gods, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, coastal communities, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, destructive economic development, disingenuity, ecology, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, engineering, environment, extended supply chains, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, local generation, meteorology, microgrids, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, Sankey diagram, Scituate, sea level rise, selfishness, sociology, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, T'kun Olam, temporal myopia, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
1 Comment
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
1 Comment
Climate Conclusions: The American Petroleum Institute (1980)
The following are excerpted from a memorandum quoted by the Inside Climate News team, documenting the minutes of a 29th February 1980 of a task force on climate change at the American Petroleum Institute. Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Petroleum Institute, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorology, natural gas, open data, physics, pipelines, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, selfishness, Standard Oil of California, sustainability, Texaco, the right to know, the value of financial assets
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
Irrelevant power utilities
Irrelevant. Power utilities and fossil fuel companies are the walking dead, because they simply cannot compete in a free market with solar installations and locally installed and used wind, even without subsidies. And, they are trying to use regulations and … Continue reading
Posted in bridge to nowhere, chance, clean disruption, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, microgrids, optimization, physics, planning, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, selfishness, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, Tea Party, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
1 Comment
The Koch brothers are afraid, very afraid … and should be
And, accordingly, the Koch brothers are turning their attention to spreading misinformation about solar power, through their Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which is publishing silly stuff in things like a report, Filling the Solar Sinkhole. See the link, from the Solar … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate justice, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy utilities, environment, Exxon, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, obfuscating data, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, selfishness, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, transparency, wind power, zero carbon
Leave a comment
“Ultimately the public will understand that they were being lied to, betrayed”
Professor Michael Mann: … [W]e will look back with revulsion at those who did the bidding of the fossil fuel industry to try to confuse the public about the reality of this problem. The problem is we don’t have that … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate disruption, denial, disingenuity, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, geophysics, global warming, ignorance, meteorology, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, selfishness, statistics, Tamino, temporal myopia, the right to know, UU Humanists, zero carbon
1 Comment

