Capacity Market v Energy Market – What’s the Diff?

Is Energy Recovery Always Good? No.

Last week we introduced exergy and at least one application of it in a building. First, let me make something very clear, for the refrigeration cycle, if I’m cooling beer or freezing leftovers, the heat that is sucked out of those masses is rejected somewhere else....
Capacity Market v Energy Market – What’s the Diff?

Exergy, Easy – Heavy Savings

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!...
Capacity Market v Energy Market – What’s the Diff?

Climate Change – Surveys and Truth Telling

I have written rather popular articles on critical thinking and climate change in greenhouse gas basics, tribal views (non-critical thinking) on climate change, and others.  This week, I am going to bring the two together, with this article from the New York Times...
The Roots of our AC Power Grid

The Roots of our AC Power Grid

A while back, a reader asked, “why don’t we switch to at least localized direct current power grids?” The simple answer is it would cost a fortune for both the utility and the consumer to change all distribution and consuming loads to take DC power. As I researched...
The Roots of our AC Power Grid

Power Factor Cures for Toenail Fungus

This post ends with a quiz and more than 49 $5 Starbucks card winners for correct answers. Why the quiz for this post? Because the subject is power factor. Most descriptions of power factor remind me of riding the NYC subway many years ago before passengers buried...