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Jeff Ihnen

Apr 08
Love129

AI, Manufacturing, and The Bridge Out Ahead

By Energy Rant No Comments
President Trump plans to remake the world economy, and he's not going to flinch on the tariffs he leveled on "liberation day," April 2, 2025. The man is resolute, noting for 40 years that the United States has been "ripped off" by nations around the globe. Here are links to his appearances on Larry King Live in 1987 and the Oprah in 1988, illustrating he hasn't changed his mind. How do the tariffs work? According to Axios, it's simple – each country's trade deficit is divided by exports to the United States, divided by two, with a minimum of 10%.…
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Mar 31
Love128

Anatomy of a Brazen Scam

By Energy Rant No Comments
Some readers may recall headlines last fall stating that the PJM Interconnection would stop accepting energy efficiency resources for its forward capacity auctions. Capacity auctions work in the following simplified process: Local distribution companies, aka utilities, determine peak load contributions at multiple levels of aggregation – e.g., zonal and network transmission. PJM aggregates those loads and adds reserve margins to ensure there will always be enough power to keep the grid energized at specified voltages and 60 Hz alternating current frequency. Capacity providers, including generators and demand side and load management aggregators, bid their resources into the market until the…
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Mar 25
Love127

Windows Worth a View

By Energy Rant No Comments
When I read a headline such as A Piece of Glass Thinner Than a Credit Card Could Solve America’s $25 Billion Energy Problem, there is a pretty good chance I’m going to investigate and a lesser chance that I will write about it – but here, we go. The Wall Street Journal article states that double-pane windows have hardly changed in their 100-year history, although I find it hard to believe they existed a hundred years ago. More likely, they are speaking of the old double-hung, rattling windows with counterweights with crappy storms on the outside. Want to see what…
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Mar 18
Love126

Jevon and the Transformative Chameleons

By Energy Rant No Comments
Four years ago, in the Four Horsemen of the Rebound, I lampooned what is known as Jevon’s Paradox. A paradox is a statement of contradiction or puzzle. For example, I remember Zeno’s Paradox from my goofy philosophy professor in college. Our class discussed Zeno’s Paradox and that you can never get through a doorway because to get to the doorway, you must first reach the halfway point, and the next halfway point, and so on, and so forth, until the measurements get to be infinitesimally small – and you never get there. Beyond that, we learned that objects are all…
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Mar 11
Love125

Externalities In Your Grill

By Energy Rant No Comments
Before getting to the main topic this week, I wanted to give an update on the Moss Landing battery fire. Is the fire out? What did investigators find? My investigation took on a life of its own. In my search, I found a webpage from Moss Landing plant-owner Vistra Energy, Moss Landing Fire Update – Everything You Need To Know. Everything? Mmm, I don’t think so. That’s the plant-owner side of the story. Here’s an interview with Erin Brockovich in The Mercury News, dated Sunday, March 9, 2025. Mmm, I don’t think so. This is the no-pander zone in either…
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Mar 04
Love123

The Next Energy Frontier in Texas

By Energy Rant No Comments
Pouring Into Texas Money talks, and if states were holding speech contests, Texas would be the frontrunner. While states like California boycott conferences in Florida and Texas over DEI and reproductive policies, those things, unfortunately, don’t matter to some of the most progressive private-sector companies. Last week, Apple announced plans for a new 250,000-square-foot facility to manufacture servers to serve the artificial intelligence market. Per The Wall Street Journal, Austin has the largest concentration of employees outside of Cupertino. I would guess within a decade that Apple will move its HQ to Austin. The Journal also reports Meta moved its…
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Feb 25
Love121

Electrification Gangsters

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, I explored the macro impacts of electrifying our heating systems and using ground source (aka geothermal) heat pump (GHP) systems rather than cold-climate air-source heat pumps (CCHPs). In a nutshell, deploying GHPs in the colder regions of the country would reduce necessary electric demand growth by 77 percentage points compared to CCHPs. Ground source heat pumps would also avoid the construction of 43,500 miles of transmission lines, enough to crisscross the United States 16 times. At $2 million per mile, that's $87 billion. That's a rounding error in Washington, but it's a lot of money for the rest…
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Feb 18
Love120

Boring DERs, Saving Billions with Geothermal Heat Pumps

By Energy Rant No Comments
Over the many years I have taught electrification basics for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s (WPUI) Energy Utilities Basics course, I dive deeply into heat pumps and their impact on the grid. I explain the messy chart in Figure 1 like a palm reader, except I have engineering behind my assertions rather than mystical conjectures. Cold-Climate, Air-Source Heat Pump Performance As outdoor temperatures fall below zero Fahrenheit, as they do from the panhandle of Idaho and Wyoming across the country to Maine and Massachusetts, cold-climate air source heat pump (CCHP) performance and capacity dive while heating loads increase. The chart…
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Feb 11
Love119

Trump’s Energy Emergency – A Mystic’s Perspective

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, I described elements of Trump's Unleashing American Energy executive order. It: Expands oil and gas exploration on federal lands Promotes mining and recovery of rare and exotic earth minerals for manufacturing leadership Targets federal spending on electric car infrastructure and EV mandates Something about lightbulb and appliance standards that is OBE (overtaken by events) Pauses spending for portions of the Investment Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) I surmised that this EO only affects spending in the short term. Tax deductions and credits cannot be signed away with the President's Sharpie Armada without Congressional…
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Feb 04
Love118

Ins and Outs of Trump’s American Energy Executive Order

By Energy Rant No Comments
President Trump's top priorities include closing the border and restoring "energy dominance." Readers know he ran on "drill baby, drill" and ending wind generation and electric vehicle subsidies, but what are some of the finer points? His day-one "Unleashing American Energy" executive order (EO) provides some insights. Although it would be a massive undertaking to drill down on all of it, I will describe some iceberg tips that I see. The Hit List I see four targets of the EO and one dragnet as follows. Access to Federal Lands The EO encourages "energy exploration and production on Federal lands and…
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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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