Jeff Ihnen, Author at Michaels Energy

Aug 04

Electric Vehicles; I’ll Take the Bus, Thanks

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments

When consumers are considering the purchase of an electric vehicle, what are they thinking? Good question. I would be thinking, how can I fully utilize it and what are the limitations? The limitation nearly anyone would consider include the limited driving range. What can I do with the 70 mile or so cap between charges? Obvious (I think) answers include driving to work and running errands around the city. But there are a boatload of other owner and societal issues no one mentions – not this article from Green Tech Media, which is based on this report from the Edison…

Jul 28

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Why Is Electricity Use Flat? – A Different Look

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff 3 Comments

As readers of this blog are sure to know, electricity consumption growth has leveled out and essentially disappeared in recent years. This is celebrated, but I say, beware of what you wish for – kind of like winning the lottery. It may seem wonderful until reality and the unintended consequences set in. But I want to do a deeper dive into why energy consumption in buildings, in particular electricity, is on the fall. As ACEEE reported back in February of this year, Why is Electricity Use No Longer Growing, efficiency is a significant contributing factor. I agree. But I also…

Jul 21

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DC Circuit’s Smackdown of FERC re Demand Response

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment

I’ve written dozens of proposals, and I’ve read dozens and dozens of requests for proposals from all sorts of entities including states, local governments, private corporations, and of course, utilities. With this comes scope of work requested, required proposal content, rules, terms and conditions, and due dates. I always consider content of the RFP to mean what it says, and if it isn’t clear what it means, either ask a question via the process detailed in the RFP, or ignore it and work it out later, or it is a minor thing – irrelevant in the big picture. Enter the…

Jul 14

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Major Tom to Ground Control – Enough Already

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment

I think the time when we pine for simpler days may be just around the corner. The rage in recent years has been smart grid and more recently, smart home controllers and learning thermostats. The problems with these things are multiple. They are too complex. Who wants to be tethered to their coffee pot, stereo, and porch light 24/7? They may even result in greater peak demand and energy use than “back in the day”. On a related note, everyone knows about the hazards of using a cell phone for talking, texting, checking email and the weather forecast while driving. …

Jul 07

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Misunderstood Uranium – Boogeyman and Small Boxes

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments

If we are to get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we must put down the mud balls, enjoy some sacred-cow burgers, burn the little boxes in which we confine ourselves, and maybe have a little counseling about that boogeyman under the bed. This post first addresses the little boxes and may assuage fear of the boogeyman. A major step in the right direction is a rebirth of nuclear power as discussed in a recent post, The Nuclear Option. One thing is for sure, if you find yourself in any sort of reader comment and chat session, there is apparently…

Jun 30

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Steps too Far- Don’t Forget the Customer!

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments

I haven’t taken any marketing courses like I haven’t taken political science courses – but this does not mean I, or anyone else, can’t learn some things about these two, or any other, subjects. The one thing I learned about marketing, and have repeated a thousand times within our organization is: it doesn’t matter what we think or what our opinions are for certain matters. We must view things from the other side. What does the buyer think? What are their “pain points”, concerns, anxieties, problems and bottlenecks? I think it is safe to assume that the vast majority of…

Jun 23

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Cooling System Temperature Control- No Savings

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 5 Comments

Let’s skip the energy supply side this week and talk about thermostats used for cooling. Let’s broaden the discussion to include both programmable thermostats and “smart” or “learning” thermostats. The Nest falls into the latter group. Speaking for the Nest, which I have controlling my heating and cooling, it will learn user patterns by when, and to what level, the user changes temperature setpoints. It also secretly learns the users’ occupancy patterns by keeping an infrared eye on them. For instance, if the thermostat is in a heavy traffic area, it will learn to expect a lot of traffic, and…

Jun 16

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The Nuclear Option – Show Me the Love

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement a couple weeks ago to decrease carbon emissions from power generating plants by 30% has kicked up a lot of cheering, but also mudslinging and absurd statements. As an engineer, I am an emotionless number crunching, skeptical coot constantly in search of reality and facts – trying to illuminate others who are swayed by hype, 24/7 news, and the internet. Opinions may change, and should, based on facts that do not. Friday morning I was stretching in my hotel room and reading The Wall Street Journal on my iPad when I came across this…

Jun 09

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Carbon Abatement – Is that Pulp in Your Teeth?

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, to repeat a phrase of one rant fan a while back – that describes carbon slayers’ victory laps in the past couple years. I am talking about the natural gas boom introduced by the development to near perfection of the hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling methods used on private land, mostly east of the Mississippi River. Pile on top of this last Monday’s release of the EPA’s carbon goals by 2030, and we have about three or four weeks of blog material. So, let’s get started. Natural gas is a wonderfully versatile energy source. It doesn’t…

Jun 02

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Energy Program Evaluation, Not Activism

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments

In my day, we didn’t have peewee soccer, football, gymnastics, or tee-ball. We had to improvise and make up game rules to play two-on-two football. We had no gear; not even the cheap plastic crap from Sears. We set the lawn mower as low as it would go to cut the sidelines and goal lines and made up the rules as we went. We were a bunch of hayseeds throwing a rubber football around, inflicting bone-on-bone pain to each other, pretending to be in the NFL – and we liked it!This may sound like the Grumpy Old Man, but it…

Electric Vehicles; I’ll Take the Bus, Thanks

Why Is Electricity Use Flat? – A Different Look

DC Circuit’s Smackdown of FERC re Demand Response

Major Tom to Ground Control – Enough Already

Misunderstood Uranium – Boogeyman and Small Boxes

Steps too Far- Don’t Forget the Customer!

Cooling System Temperature Control- No Savings

The Nuclear Option – Show Me the Love

Carbon Abatement – Is that Pulp in Your Teeth?

Energy Program Evaluation, Not Activism

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