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Mad States of Saudi America

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Remember peak oil?  That was the glorious theory, which at some point will occur and no one will know, or maybe it won’t matter, that the stewards of the planet have maxed out oil production, and we would be headed for terminal depletion – and we adopt Mad Max-like diplomacy to survive.  By the way, the Mad Max dog is an Australian Cattle Dog, or Blue Heeler, and his name is Dogmeat and he has his own Facebook page.  We had a Red Heeler when I was a kid, and her nickname was Tough Dog for a reason.  Not mean. …
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Talking Heads

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff No Comments
This is not about the excellent 80s band, unfortunately. Companies that provide necessities of life serve as punching bags to the public, media, and politicians.  I’ve said this before.  This week, we have more examples of beating up electricity and other utility providers. First, as I was explaining in my “Energy Efficiency 101” course Friday for new and recent hires at Michaels Energy, power companies are expected to provide power 24/7, every minute of the day, hell or high water, with no emissions, no nukes, out of sight, and with negligible cost.  It would be easier and less controversial to…
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Boredom or Drone?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Last week’s AESP Spring Conference in Baltimore wrapped up with Dr. Julie Albright’s presentation, The Social Utility – great stuff. I had already attended a similar presentation by Dr. Albright, apparently during last fall’s conference (crap for memory here). As the title suggests, the subject is social media: LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and dozens of offshoots that aggregate and/or process information from these sites into a preferred presentation. It’s mind blowing. Dr. Albright’s presentation includes generational views of these things – the people aspect. There are three generations of folks in the workforce today, from old to young: boomers…
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Dow Chemical Finds Free-Market Religion

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus, Sustainability, Tax Stuff No Comments
I was going to talk about sane solutions for ground transportation this week and I was going to lead with a tidbit, but that snowballed into the entire rant of its own. Last week I was reading The Wall Street Journal on my 1994 organic cotton-stuffed futon when I had a “Ha!  You scheming, scamming, shysters!” moment.    In Law of Gravity Repealed, I accused for-profit corporations who are in favor of carbon caps of essentially getting in bed with the political hacks in Washington to form the rules of the game such that they come out ahead of their competitors. …
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