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generating capacity

Question: Carbon and Benefits? Answer: Efficiency

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” and being as objective as possible are how I roll. If you feel otherwise, by all means, let me know. Driving across Southern Minnesota recently, a billboard like the image nearby caught my eye. I thought this would be worth looking into to see what they have to say. As I expected, the paper it promotes is jaded against wind energy. But what arguments do they make? Are they legitimate? Wind is Fuel When thinking about wind-driven power generation, it has a lot of hurdles to overcome to be cost-effective. One near the top of the…
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PJM

Four Shades of Electrical Demand – A Riveting Cliffhanger

By Energy Rant One Comment
Last week I related electrical demand in kW with electrical energy in kWh. Energy is the area (power times time) under the kW curve. Without cheating, I’ll do an example. Elementary Calculus In energy-nerd world, a curve is a line of any form, including a straight line. Consider the simple ax + b curve on the right, where a is the slope and b is the y-intercept.  The equation is y = 2x +4. C’mon you had this in elementary school. Challenge yourself!If I want the energy consumed from hour two to hour ten, I simply take the integral of…
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Wind Energy – Finally Going Somewhere

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
This week’s post features a strong shot of irony.  South Dakota ranks 49th of 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus the District of Columbia) in ACEEE’s 2014 Energy Efficiency Scorecard report, yet its citizens overwhelmingly support wind power.  And when I say they support wind power, they act on it – not “yes, I love it ”.  This isn’t a “do you support renewable energy” question – which, as discussed in last week’s post about freeridership, is a question loaded with social pressure.  No.  South Dakotan’s aren’t slaves to political correctness; nor are they complainers.  I know because I went to…
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