by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 17, 2024 | Energy Rant
Last week and many other times, I’ve written about soaring electricity loads and prices climbing even faster. The reality is prices are rising much quicker than load. For example, grid loads in Oregon have increased at a compounded rate of a modest 2%, while...
by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 9, 2024 | Energy Rant
Remember the theory that deregulation in the late 1990s would waive the need for energy efficiency programs? If not, you can read up on the Great Depression in Energy Efficiency, the origins of which began with the 1992 Energy Policy Act. I believe the theory at the...
by Michaels Energy | Dec 3, 2024 | The Big Why
After about a year since it was installed, my heat pump is finally up and running correctly! Why did it take so long? Controls issues. More specifically, because it is a dual-fuel system (an air source heat pump with a backup oil furnace) all of the components did not...
by Jessica Wagner | Dec 2, 2024 | Awards
Michaels Energy’s 2024 Holiday Calendar earned an Award of Excellence from the Society of Marketing Professional Services – Wisconsin Chapter. The SMPS Wisconsin Red Granite & Marketing Communications Awards reinforce the Chapter’s mission to support...
by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 2, 2024 | Energy Rant
This week, we capitalize on last week’s basics of tire rolling resistance, how it translates to passenger vehicle fuel economy, and non-Newtonian and non-linear nuances. Tires by the Numbers Figure 1 shows the nameplate for one of my tires. Left to right: M+S...
by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 25, 2024 | Energy Rant
Back in the day, when I interviewed engineers for potential employment, I would ask what they’ve done in their lives to study and reduce energy consumption. As an example, this week, I nerded out on tires. As an efficiency nut and passionate driver of our curvy...
by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 19, 2024 | Energy Rant
The race is on to decarbonize the grid, and those states that are forcing it too quickly are seeing soaring electricity prices. This is fabulous for our industry because energy efficiency and load management have become much more cost-effective. But are higher prices...
by Michaels Energy | Nov 15, 2024 | News
From The Green Insider Podcast Episode 260 is coming to you from our podcast lounge at the Commodities People conference, Energy Trading Week Americas in The Woodlands, TX. Stan Nabozny from Michaels Energy joined us again to tell us about the Department of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 12, 2024 | Energy Rant
Two weeks ago, I described the chasm before mass-market electric vehicle adoption. The chasm, as shown in Figure 1 and depicted in the EV Rant as a moat, is the gap between enthusiastic nerds and mainstream curmudgeons. I’m often among the mainstream...
by Michaels Energy | Nov 11, 2024 | News
From Inc: When Jeffrey Ihnen was growing up on a farm in Minnesota, the country faced a reckoning in the form of the 1973 oil crisis. That event marked an early inflection point for the U.S. and its shift toward energy conservation, and for Ihnen, it was the beginning...
