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Oct 10
Love49

Electrified Heating without Breaking the Grid or Bank

By Energy Rant No Comments
Here are my last words, for now, on artificial intelligence: I do not claim to understand the computations or systems behind AI whatsoever. However, I do understand human behavior very well, so when I saw a headline last week, JPMorgan CEO: AI Will Eventually Lead to 3.5-Day Workweek, my response was, never, not going to happen. I mean, people will not be compensated with 40 hours of pay for 28 hours of work. That is fantasy. I remember dispelling such fiction as a grade schooler because the same concept was floated back in the 1970s. Only the mode of automation…
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Oct 07
Love0

Phase Change Materials for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs)!

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week in Thermal Storage for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs), I introduced the importance of phase changes from solid to liquid to vapor, and the reverse, to our modern world. Benefits include heating, cooling, and refrigeration for all types of uses, including space conditioning, food storage and transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, and of course, thermal storage. The simplest everyday thermal storage material is ice. Grocery and convenience companies have enormous ice-making facilities for guess what: thermal storage and your lowly Igloo or swanky Yeti coolers. I have a Coleman Lil Oscar cooler that I’ve used since Ha School. Now that is…
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Oct 22
Love0

Behavior by a Left Brain Efficiency Freak

By Energy Rant One Comment
E2e, and I have no idea what that stands for, is a joint initiative of University of California-Berkeley, The University of Chicago, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their charter is to assess and quantify the energy efficiency gap between estimated, or ex-ante savings, and observed or measured savings; kind of like the Energy Rant attempts to provide. In Kool-Aid and Happy Face Rugs, I first referenced one of their reports in which they critiqued WAP – the federal government’s weatherization assistance program. That paper indicated WAPs produce only 40% of claimed energy savings. The methodology caught a lot of flak…
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Jan 24
Love0

Flying Rodents

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Before I get to this week’s rant, or I should say, this week’s primary rant, I need to share this with you.  Just before the holidays in Strange Magic,I tore into hands-free energy audit software.  All you need is an address and billing information and voila, there it is; an energy audit that tells you everything you need to know to cut your energy bills by a certain guesstimate. This week I came across an apparent competitor to the one discussed in Strange Magic, so I viewed their online charting and graphics.  They present analysis via bar chart for various…
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Mar 30
Love0

Fortune 100 Energy Efficiency

By Energy Rant No Comments
One of the downsides of the surging awareness and growth in energy efficiency and renewable energy, in my opinion, are all the Johnny Come Lately energy services arms of giant corporations.  Companies include Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Eaton, and Chevron.  These giants have revenues of $45 Billion, $53 Billion, $12 Billion and a meager $176 Billion, respectively.  Poor Chevron’s revenue dropped from $275 Billion from the year prior.  Maybe they should focus on their core business and leave the energy saving to the rest of us.  Among these, only measly Eaton isn’t in the Fortune 100 (Eaton comes in at…
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All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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