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Energy Rant

May 13
Love133

States’ Rights in the TOMB

By Energy Rant No Comments
Trump's world strategy is to flood the zone with tariffs, executive orders, and chaos. Anti-Trump, aka Team Orange-Man-Bad (TOMB, get it?), fires back with temporary restraining orders. I haven't watched newer television or movies for three or four decades because real-life drama is all around if you pay attention. And the outcome is uncertain, like a football game, so that's my jam. The worst part of Trump's chaos is the uncertainty. To honor my mother for Mother's Day, I realized my very first post, and indeed, these 750 or whatever Energy Rants over the past 15.5 years, may have resulted…
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May 06
Love132

Will Musk Derangement Destroy the EV?

By Energy Rant No Comments
To update readers on my 2025 harbingers posted on January 7, the title nails one thing: "2025 in One Word: DOWZH,". Declaration: Victory. Some Fans Turn on Their Man One result is the schism between Elon Musk and his Tesla-buying fan base. However, I will say this: except for the most heinous criminals on the planet, there are always things to admire about people, and the thing I admire in Musk is pressing on with his convictions without fear. I must have some weird or defective gene because I find it amusing when fans turn on their man, like when…
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Apr 29
Love131

A Bridge to Chaos

By Energy Rant No Comments
It is challenging to avoid artificial intelligence and its implications for the electric grid and limit AI-centric blog posts to one per month. This post follows up and doubles down on AI, Manufacturing, and the Bridge Out Ahead, which discussed Trump's tariffs, manufacturing, AI, and the associated soaring electric loads. Trump's Negotiating Tactics Fortunately, I attended a two-hour session with world-class negotiating expert Deepak Malhotra from Harvard Business School. The topic everyone enjoyed the most was his assessment of Trump's "art of the deal" negotiating tactics. It's safe to say Malhotra is no fan of Trump, in his own words.…
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Apr 21
Love131

Fanatical Execution Beats the Box

By Energy Rant No Comments
Did you notice the lights flickering or dimming around noon on Saturday? That was me stomping on the AI gas pedals to inspire this week’s edition of the Energy Rant. I asked ChatGPT for an example of thinking outside the box, which, duh, is precisely what artificial intelligence cannot do worth a hoot. It only brings solutions within the massive data set from which it has to draw. Outside the Box I asked, “Give me an example of thinking outside the box.” It gave me the nine-dot puzzle, which many or most of you have already seen: Challenge: Connect all…
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Apr 15
Love130

Electrified Heating – Thinking it Through

By Energy Rant No Comments
Daylight Savings Rant It's looking bleak for my annual predictions from January. I must come from behind to realize a 50% hit rate. Last week, Trump implored Congress to make daylight saving permanent. Zerohedge provides a comprehensive assessment of issues from economic to safety. I sum it up this way – people like to complain. They don't like to think. If daylight savings is locked in, it will be dark until 9:00 AM in the winter. If standard time is locked in, the sun will rise at 4:00 AM in the summer. Which would you like? I remember when coming…
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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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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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