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Energy Rant

This is a satirical and at times humorous but critical commentary on energy efficiency issues of the day.

“Keep up the good work! I like the variety of topics; never boring. It's like a Box of Energy Chocolates.... you never know what you're gonna get!”

Mike MernickSenior Vice President, ICF
Jeff Ihnen
By In Energy Rant

Are You Serious About the Climate Apocalypse?

Washington Post headline last week: “World is on brink of catastrophic warming, U.N. climate change report says.” Wolf! Wolf! People…
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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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Jan 27
Love118

Polar Vortex Reality Check

By Energy Rant No Comments
I was triggered a couple of weeks ago by this article in The Wall Street Journal: 2024 Was the Hottest Year. Here Are Climate Trends to Watch in 2025. I’m not debating that 2024 was the hottest year on record. My micro observation is that our winters in the Midwest have become cream puffs compared to 40-50 years ago. Warning, old man—talk straight ahead. A Dismal Winter Indeed, last winter was the mildest I can recall. We had winter for about 15 days, starting with significant snow, followed by frigid temperatures that shattered tough plastics, like my dog Sunny’s Chuck-It…
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Jan 21
Love117

Lithium-Ion Lessons

By Energy Rant No Comments
I bet you didn’t see or hear on your favorite news platform, whether it’s NPR, MSNBC, CNN, FNC, Axios, Facebook 🙄, the big three networks, or some dying newspaper platforms, that one of the largest lithium-ion electricity storage plants in the world caught fire and burned uncontrollably at Vistra’s Moss Landing, California site. I have often visited Moss Landing Harbor, where honking, slobbering, rude, and amusing sea lions took over the public fishing pier (Figure 1). This local natural attraction features a profuse abundance of wildlife species and activity. It is a kayaking destination. The fiery Vistra plant, spewing a…
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Jan 13
Love116

Rumblings of Utility Reregulation

By Energy Rant No Comments
Eight and a half years ago in Betting with Deregulation – A Risky Proposition, I wrote the following in this blog, “Companies who want deregulation of anything must be prepared for eventual pain – just ask the major airlines and a bunch of telecom companies, many of which no longer exist. There will be pluses and minuses for producers and customers alike. For example, the industry is now flooding into natural gas and renewables because they’re cheap. The market is de-diversifying, and at some point, probably within a decade, that will not end well for consumers. Deregulated markets don’t care…
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Jan 07
Love115

2025 In One Word: Dowzh

By Energy Rant No Comments
These are quite the times in which we live, energy and otherwise. It makes predictions tricky, especially when business titans Vivek Ramaswami and Elon Musk hone their meat axes for the federal government. The administrative branch doesn’t pass budgets and write tax law, but… there is a lot it can do, and I suspect it will chop and cleave while stretching up against legal precedents. Impoundment Will See Court Testing For instance, the word impoundment and its connected legal implications will become familiar as cable news networks invite guest attorneys to haggle over impoundment’s Constitutionality. Impoundment refers to the administrative…
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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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