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isentropic efficiency

Shared Economy and Distributed Capitalism? Pffff

By Energy Rant No Comments
I spent last week at the Grid Evolution Summit presented by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) in the Nation’s Capital. The opening speaker, Jeremy Rifkin, has authored 20-some books, the most recent of which is called, “The Zero Marginal Cost Society.” This post is based on a related article you can read yourself, here. The crux of the book, message, and article is that “investor-based capitalism, which focuses on resources for immediate returns, will inevitably be replaced by a more distributed and streamlined network-based capitalism, alongside a sharing economy governed by a high-tech global commons.” You have heard the…
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Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant

Exergy, Easy – Heavy Savings

By Energy Rant No Comments
Exergy is a sexy word (maybe only to energy nerds), but it represents a vital class of measures and opportunities as we sprint head-on into the game changer (cliché alert) that will be the post-gravy-train-of-lighting-retrofit-era of energy efficiency. Pay attention!Exergy, also known as availability, is the total useful energy that can be captured before a system comes into equilibrium with the surroundings. Equilibrium can be as simple as a mass coming to rest. Potential Energy Consider a hydropower plant. The potential energy is in the form of elevated water on one side, the reservoir, and a shallow stream for whitewater…
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