by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 25, 2023 | Energy Rant
Last week I attended the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Summer Policy Summit in chilly Austin, TX, where running shoes never dry. I also learned that the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) holds a...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 18, 2023 | Energy Rant
My top “strength,” as scientifically assessed by Gallup CliftonStrengths®, is context, which may also be defined as a historian. My other top strengths include attention deficit, information hoarder, and rabbit hole aficionado[1]. Orwell’s famous 1984 quote says, who...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 10, 2023 | Energy Rant
McDonald’s McNuggets I picked up an iPhone at the Verizon store for my mother last week as I visited her in Northwest Iowa. She’s wheelchair-bound with one good hand for daily functions such as eating. After the iPhone pickup, I decided to get some lunch for us at...
by Michaels Energy | Jul 6, 2023 | The Big Why
Over the past few years, in response to the growing climate change crisis, federal, state, and local governments’ funding of energy efficiency and decarbonization projects has increased substantially (to put it mildly). In many cases, both programs and participants...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 27, 2023 | Energy Rant
Lazard recently released its 16th levelized cost of energy or LCOE report. The LCOE represents the total cost of generating (or storing) electricity over the asset’s life divided by the total MWh or kWh delivered. The total cost includes construction, land,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 20, 2023 | Energy Rant
The origin of this post is a spicy Zerohedge article, The Phony Climate Change Catastrophe, specifically, carbon capture from ambient air. That reminded me of an April article in The Wall Street Journal that referenced the same redonkulous effort by Occidental...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 14, 2023 | Energy Rant
A couple weeks ago, I quickly read this article, Cracking the Code – Aligned Incentives, on EnergyCentral.com. It concerns incentives for high-performance employees, but my read was about incentives for efficiency programs. It applies to that too. Myopic Focus...
by Michaels Energy | Jun 13, 2023 | The Big Why
Evaluations can sometimes feel like a regulatory checkbox. This can seem especially true for process evaluations which may be required but provide seemingly limited value. However, process evaluations can provide programs with invaluable information if the...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 6, 2023 | Energy Rant
East of the Mississippi, we haven’t had a heat-induced stress test of the electric grid for a long time. I don’t remember names, but I remember weather events, places, and numbers well. The hottest summer of my life was 1988, with many days over 100F throughout the...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 30, 2023 | Energy Rant
We open this week’s Energy Rant with a called shot. Michael and Chantell Sackett are enjoying fresh mulch provided by the SCOTUS as they sent the EPA’s interpretation of “navigable waterways” to the woodchipper as predicted here last October. The energy transition is...
