by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 15, 2022 | Energy Rant
Last week’s Reckoning post featured findings from a Wall Street Journal article that demonstrated our power grid is becoming less reliable, and I added that this would accelerate in the wrong direction over the next ten years. Like the Texas fiasco of February 2021,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 8, 2022 | Energy Rant
“The U.S. electrical system is becoming less dependable. The problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.” – The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2022. I can take down another one of my seven predictions for 2022. Some numbers from the WSJ: in 2000, there...
by Michaels Energy | Mar 2, 2022 | The Big Why
Building energy codes programs are a very cost-effective opportunity for energy savings and many utilities consider these programs the next frontier of energy efficiency. The potential savings from adopting more efficient building energy codes can be significant, but...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 2, 2022 | Energy Rant
I’m breaking my word from last week’s natural gas shakedown in which I noted I would write about customer intolerance for high energy prices this week. Since then, a kerfuffle has broken out in the Eurasian landmass. I was asked if I might be interested in writing...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 22, 2022 | Energy Rant
My, how quickly some things can change, almost overnight, like natural gas markets. It seems only a year ago we had more natural gas than we could consume, as far as the eye could see. Barely three years ago, I wrote that Permian Basin oil production resulted in...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 15, 2022 | Energy Rant
I received a lot of feedback on last week’s Code Compliance Villains, which described blunders that occurred as part of my high-efficiency boiler installation. Such mistakes would likely erode 50% of the estimated savings claimed in a deemed savings document....
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 8, 2022 | Energy Rant
In case you missed last week’s post, you’ll need to go back and review the setup for this week’s demonstration of code challenges and mistakes. To summarize, I have an installed ENERGY STAR-qualifying 95% AFUE[1] (efficient) boiler with a brazed plate heat exchanger,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 1, 2022 | Energy Rant
Over the last forty years, computers have become orders of magnitude more powerful while they have become much easier to use. When I was in college, mainframe IBM computers owned all the muscle of computations. I was terrified of coding and wanted nothing to do with...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 25, 2022 | Energy Rant
Per the last couple of posts, we examined policies, trends, and physics behind property destruction, storms, and fire. This week provides ways to avoid destruction and loss from fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme cold, which we are experiencing again....
by Michaels Energy | Jan 19, 2022 | The Big Why
I am renovating my kitchen. The project was supposed to start in March 2020, but then the world shut down due to Covid. Now, nearly two years later, we are finally getting started. During that time, I have decided to switch from a gas range to an induction cooktop....
