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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
Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Design an Attractive, Cozy Home

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Minnesota’s Clean Energy Resource Teams recently published an online article, Things I learned about heat pumps: a homeowner's perspective. I shared this with some folks, and in response, I was asked for general advice on new home construction. I am not a residential efficiency expert, but I performance-specified a new home built for my wife and me back in 2000, and in recent years I side-graded to a smaller home built in 1934. I learned a lot from both experiences. I won’t advise, but I will say what I would do if I were to provide a conceptual design[1] with...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Developing Nations are Going Nuclear – Will the West Follow or Fall Futher Behind?

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Last week I provided an extensive analysis of how Chernobyl’s RBMK reactor design and the chain of reckless events led to its 1986 disaster. The study sets the stage to explain why that won’t happen with power plants in the United States. Let’s take a minute to examine why nuclear power is a good fit for our needs. Nuclear Power’s Plug into Our Grid Commercial nuclear power plants operate continuously at full power for 90-95% of the year. They require an average of three to four weeks a year for maintenance and refueling. One charge of nuclear fuel, about 3%...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Safe Nuclear Power v Chernobyl

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Green and climate change warriors – see how important nuclear power is to CO2 emissions in one chart, courtesy of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). The closure of two nuclear plants wiped out more than twice the carbon-free electricity generated by all renewables in the state. Why is nuclear power overlooked or not an option? I can think of three reasons: 1) it’s scary, and people don’t understand it; 2) it’s too expensive; 3) radioactive waste. Accidents and Disasters Reason #1, it’s scary, is due to prejudice and ignorance. There has only been one nuclear power plant disaster...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Phony Avoided Cost Models in a Free-Agent Market

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The last two posts, Nuclear Power over the White Rabbit and the Clean Power Plan Corpse, demonstrated the fruits of an undiversified baseload fleet of power generation. Electricity prices, which were so low during most of my career that few cared about them, are soaring as natural gas - the basket in which all eggs lie - has become a global fuel. I predicted this as recently as 2017; Reverse Diversification Coming to a Utility Near You. Solar, wind, and storage will never compete with thermal baseload power generation in our lifetimes. I’m covering three things in this post due...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Clean Power Plan – The Corpse Phase

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Last week I cracked open the most recent edition of Public Utilities Fortnightly and discovered an interesting topic worth sharing. It is an attorney’s commentary on the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion, West Virginia v EPA. You may not have heard of this directional case because the Dobbs case released a week before West Virginia dominated the news cycle. Upon reading the SCOTUS opinion, I learned that it references the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP). I wrote about the CPP three times, most recently in February of 2016, Clean Power Plan, The Coma Phase. There, I predicted Mitch McConnell would not...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Nuclear Power over White Rabbits for a Reliable, Affordable, Zero-Carbon Future

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I update my electrification slides for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s Utility Basics course every year with the latest technologies, sales data, and energy, commodity, and equipment/vehicle prices. Year over year, electricity prices at my home have increased 15%, for now, based on fuel alone. That is minuscule compared to what is proposed in the Northeast. EnergyCentral.com linked to a Patch article that said Eversource Massachusetts is filing for a 38% hike on top of a 22% jump last winter. National Grid is filing for an unprecedented (in my world) “increase from last winter's 14.82 cents per kilowatt-hour rate to...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Decarbonization Strategies for Manufacturing

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Last week a Yahoo News reporter headlined an article, Biden Administration Seeks to Lower Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions-and-That-Won't Be Easy. My first reaction: It won’t be easy to decarbonize any sector: residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation, although I did see that, like wind energy, the passenger blimp is making a comeback (say whaaat?). Will it replace passenger jets? I don’t think so. I focus on the above-linked article and industrial electrification and decarbonization in this post. The Yahoo author references the chart below for shares of GHG emissions. I assume that emissions from electricity generation are not double counted into...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Strategic Energy Planning

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I don’t think my mom played football, but she thought she knew how to take down a ball carrier. “Hit them low! Take out their legs.” This was her solution to arm tackling up high where the defender grabs on around the shoulder pads and goes for a ride – like a weakling trying to take down a steer. Bulldoggin, I think it’s called. Why would you bulldog rather than say, use a lariat? Boys will be boys, I suppose. Come to think of it - I don’t think bull riding accomplished anything useful down on the ranch either. I...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Channeling Patton for Energy Policy

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Of 34 personality characteristics, my top strength, according to Gallup CliftonStrengths®, is “context.” What does context mean, according to Gallup? History. Gallup describes the history strength: “You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present. From your vantage point, the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time when the plans were being drawn up that the present regains its stability. The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints.” Hmm. This...
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Energy Rant, Michaels Energy

Champion Elements for Energy and Demand Management Programs

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This is the finale of better than best commercial and industrial program practices – including a summary cheat sheet for program administrators. Energy Analyses Utilities want to build efficiency businesses in their service territories, which is very important. However, few service providers, designers, or contractors are proficient with energy calculations, especially for complex measures. Moreover, they don’t live in our goofy world of arbitrary baselines and will likely determine actual savings or some other goalposts to give their project a better shine. If you have reviewed papers, articles, or maybe some reports, you know what I mean when I say,...
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