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carbon emissions

Feb 05
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A Climate Change Challenge

By Energy Rant No Comments
A recent Grist blog post describes the virtues of a carbon tax as a great way to efficiently and effectively curb carbon emissions. That is the source of this post. The Grist post includes the following: A lad from Montana says he will give away a new shotgun to anyone who can prove he’s wrong on climate change. Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) claims the annual cost of floods, droughts, and fires is $300 billion. Grist talks about a record breaking year for environmental disasters. Sadly, we are a nation of finger pointers wanting somebody’s head on…
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Jul 06
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Energy Rant – Best of I Told You So

By Energy Rant No Comments
Don’t you hate it when the holidays come, and the A-Team of whatever it may be – radio show hosts, NPR, WPR, other talk radio and news stations - play their “best of” broadcasts? It is essentially retreads of irrelevant, untimely information. Of course we don’t do this at the Rant. Instead, this holiday week, I am going to add some recent reinforcement and other timely information in which you are sure to be interested. Guaranteed, or you may need to see a counselor. Customer Engagement, Take 2 A few weeks ago in Customer Engagement, Get with It or Get…
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Mar 27
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Climate Change – Surveys and Truth Telling

By Energy Rant No Comments
I have written rather popular articles on critical thinking and climate change in greenhouse gas basics, tribal views (non-critical thinking) on climate change, and others.  This week, I am going to bring the two together, with this article from the New York Times supplying the data/ammunition for this post. Survey Development Survey development is difficult for getting facts, such as doing phone surveys to assess what types of equipment, appliances, lighting, and so forth energy users have in their homes.  The questions need to be carefully considered, including whether customers will have a clue regarding the equipment in question.  For…
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Feb 20
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Energy and Demand Resource Soup

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
The AESP 2017 National Conference is in the rear view mirror. While I was, unfortunately, not able to attend many sessions, most of that time was spent talking with a lot of people. I absorbed a lot of information and hopefully some wisdom. This post discusses the increasingly complex and intertwined electric grid. Shifting Role to Grid Managers My findings from the conference jive with a recent article I read in Public Utilities Fortnightly (PUF). The subject of that article was the Power of Innovation, a utility executive’s roundtable that included representatives from Edison International, Exelon, Duke Energy, Oncor, Southern…
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Nov 10
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Clean Power Plan & 111(d)

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government One Comment
Last week I attended the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) conference in Atlanta.  With that, I have a confession to make: I rarely sit and listen to speakers or take notes either because there is nothing new, and there is rarely any sort of technical or programmatic breakthrough to learn from.  There are certainly differences in programs, but it comes down to blocking and tackling, so to speak – the basics – hard work, communication, persistence, trust, and so on.  A couple speakers pulled me away from my work.  One was a talk by Tim Echols, Commissioner from the Georgia…
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Jun 16
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The Nuclear Option – Show Me the Love

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement a couple weeks ago to decrease carbon emissions from power generating plants by 30% has kicked up a lot of cheering, but also mudslinging and absurd statements. As an engineer, I am an emotionless number crunching, skeptical coot constantly in search of reality and facts – trying to illuminate others who are swayed by hype, 24/7 news, and the internet. Opinions may change, and should, based on facts that do not. Friday morning I was stretching in my hotel room and reading The Wall Street Journal on my iPad when I came across this…
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Jun 09
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Carbon Abatement – Is that Pulp in Your Teeth?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments
Easy peasy lemon squeezy, to repeat a phrase of one rant fan a while back – that describes carbon slayers’ victory laps in the past couple years.  I am talking about the natural gas boom introduced by the development to near perfection of the hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling methods used on private land, mostly east of the Mississippi River.  Pile on top of this last Monday’s release of the EPA’s carbon goals by 2030, and we have about three or four weeks of blog material.  So, let’s get started. Natural gas is a wonderfully versatile energy source.  It doesn’t…
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Sep 14
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Is Theodore Nugent Vegan?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Sustainability 2 Comments
The EPA since the beginning of time, when I was born maybe, has provided city and highway mileage ratings for light vehicles.  Who among us users of the antiquated medieval English unit system of measurement doesn’t understand miles per gallon?  Who doesn’t know exactly what a mile is and exactly what a gallon is?  I would challenge you to rods, chains, cubits and ells.  My father used to estimate lengths in rods in the farm field.  All I figured out is that a rod x a half mile is an acre.  Very logical. EPA to the rescue, again.  They are…
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Aug 10
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Get a Grip

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Renewable Energy, Sustainability One Comment
As you may have heard, this year China powered past (cheesy pun warning) the United States in total energy consumption.  Apparently, back in 2007, they surpassed the US in carbon emissions.  This makes sense as almost 70% of China’s electricity is derived from coal as compared to just under 50% in the United States.  In the U.S., nuclear and natural gas make up most of the other 50%, roughly split evenly with renewable energy rounding out the 100%. In recent years, or especially since President Obama moved into the White House, there have been multiple verbose incomprehensible cap and trade…
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We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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