by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 19, 2022 | Energy Rant
This week in concert with critical thought prompted by the EPRI electrification conference, I introduce Rant Revelations. Some are not new, but it is time to start a list. Profit Rules Decarbonization can only happen if it is profitable. That is how we decarbonized to...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 12, 2022 | Energy Rant
I attended Electric Power Research Institute’s Electrification 2022 Conference in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago. As a critical thinker and engineer, I often listened and thought, what about this or that, what does that look like at scale, or what you really need to...
by Michaels Energy | Jul 6, 2022 | The Big Why
At their core, energy efficiency programs exist to help the market overcome barriers preventing the adoption of energy-efficient equipment or behaviors. Some barriers, like the high first cost of equipment, are obvious and often targeted, but they may mask other...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 27, 2022 | Energy Rant
When I was a kid, maybe in junior high, we were assigned a project to describe, step by step, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After moment of, “huh,” I understood the task and purpose of the assignment. There isn’t enough of this type of assignment in...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 21, 2022 | Energy Rant
I knew a little about ESG – environmental, social, and corporate governance. I even saved a few articles to my pile, but when Tesla was recently booted from the index and Elon Musk called it a scam, I thought, this is a good time to investigate. Musk took to Twitter,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 14, 2022 | Energy Rant
As of last week, year-to-date energy prices are up 58% for NYMEX crude oil, 91% for NYMEX gasoline, and only 39% for retail gasoline. Retail prices seem to have a long way to climb as the high NYMEX prices make their way to the local gasoline pump. This week we look...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 7, 2022 | Energy Rant
I drove the 3.5-hour route to see my mother last weekend. In preparation, I decided to fill my little tank the night before. And besides, I thought, prices are likely to be higher tomorrow. It was $4.149 per gallon. The next day, about 45 miles down the road on I-90...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 31, 2022 | Energy Rant
Another week and we have two more dire warning shots of forecast blackouts this summer. These come from The Wall Street Journal and describe challenges from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region to California. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 24, 2022 | Energy Rant
NERC sounds alarm on solar tripping in sobering summer reliability report, May 19, 2022, UtilityDive.com. This seems like a timely sequel to last week’s Blistering Wind and Solar Energy post, in which I summarized the results of a renewables integration study...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 17, 2022 | Energy Rant
Grid reliability issues are upon us, and they will become more severe and disruptive in the next 10-20 years. But first, why is this happening? If governments mandated things in medicine[1] as they do with the grid, they would declare that chemotherapy will phase out...
