Deep Thoughts from a Scatterbrain

Deep Thoughts from a Scatterbrain

With most people off this week, it is a good time to probe the mysteries of life that I have accumulated in recent years. Food Let’s start with a great food mystery; the hamburger. Every other burger has the key ingredient in the name: turkey burger, walnut burger,...
Fusion Power May Not Be Giants

Fusion Power May Not Be Giants

Just before last week’s finale on permanent peak demand reduction went to press, news dropped that nuclear fusion was successfully pulled off in the Livermore Laboratory in California. A controlled fusion reaction “produced more energy than it consumed,” according to...
Demand Management for Good

Demand Management for Good

The last few posts[1][2] featured an overview and complete report card on load management to get beyond net zero to real zero, a term I discovered last week. As promised, I will describe some permanent peak load reduction opportunities this week. Like many efficiency...
A Ten-Dimensional Demand Response Examination

A Ten-Dimensional Demand Response Examination

This is the third installment of this series in demand response (DR) and load management. In the first post, Curing Net Zero described why net zero is not the answer: everyone over-generates with solar or wind simultaneously, and later, everyone needs power from...
Demand Response Primer

Demand Response Primer

Last week I described how net zero sounds grand, it’s easy to do, but it doesn’t work to support the transition to a clean-energy grid. The reason is that everyone, whether utilities or customers, overproduces simultaneously, and then later, customers all need energy...
Cure Net Zero with Demand Response

Cure Net Zero with Demand Response

I lambasted net zero many times, one time calling it an unserious weapon against climate change. Why is that? We’re going to see in this post. What is net zero? Simply, it is a building or property that produces as much renewable energy on-site as it consumes,...