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Jan 02
Love61

Twelve Pack Lookback

By Energy Rant No Comments
This post features my predictions from a year ago and what has happened since. Forecast #1: “The Ukraine war will not end peacefully with a desirable outcome as long as the bipartisan U.S. Congress keeps laundering money through the military-industrial complex (and others) in this proxy war with Russia.” The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2023: “Nearly two years into the war, Putin’s gamble that Russia can outlast Kyiv’s Western backers appears to be paying off.” That was after Ukrainian President Zelensky visited Washington in December to urge Congress to send more weapons, to no avail. The average Ukrainian soldier…
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Dec 05
Love58
Image of broken mirror with text that reads '24-7 carbon-free energy hall of mirrors'

24-7 Carbon-Free Energy Hall of Mirrors

By Energy Rant No Comments
The ESG cabal seems to be drawing up another hall of mirrors to persuade credulous stakeholders and bystanders that they are siphoning only carbon-free energy (CFE) from the electric grid. The Electric Power Research Institute calls it 24-7 carbon-free energy, oddly enough. “Large companies from Starbucks to eBay have pledged 100% renewable energy targets to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their electricity use. Recently, several large companies, including Google, Microsoft, and others, have started procuring something called carbon-free energy that more closely matches their corporate electricity load on a 24/7 hourly basis. This is known as 24/7 carbon-free energy.” Unquestionably,…
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Aug 28
Love43

Modern Electric Rates from the Slide Rule Era

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, we looked at Total Resource Cost (TRC) tests that were developed decades ago to put a high value on avoided source energy costs. That was right for the time, but not today. I demonstrated that energy costs, mostly dominated by natural gas, are near historic lows, while zero-energy-cost renewables supply more electricity than coal-fired generation. Of course, renewable sources have zero source-energy consumption. Yet, utility commissioners are laser-focused on keeping electricity prices in check and maintaining the reliability of the electric grid. Electric Rate Basics Like the TRC, most utility rates (tariffs) are stuck in the 1970s. I…
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Jun 06
Love32
Image shows shape of Texas and text "Electricity Market Manipulation - Higher Costs, More Emergencies."

Electricity Market Manipulation – Higher Costs, More Emergencies

By Energy Rant No Comments
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 summer (every month). Many records fell, and several times on consecutive days. It was relentless. The next steamiest summer was 1995, while I was in graduate school in Madison. The temperature peaked at around 117F with a staggering dewpoint over 80F. It's bad when sunglasses and bicycles fog over when you take them…
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Jun 15
Love0
Minimum Offer Price Rule

Know Grid History and the MOPR

By Energy Rant No Comments
The electric grid is the most complex beast on the planet, ever. Let’s set the table. Electricity has been inexpensive and very reliable in the US for the better part of 100 years. At first, electric utilities were hub and spoke systems that sent power from the hub (power plant) to customers around its service territory. Then, high voltage transmission systems were used to interconnect the hubs for reliability-sake, redundancy, and likely lower prices. Neighboring utilities cut deals to buy and sell power to each other to further keep prices low for their customers. And, of course, electricity sales kept…
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Jul 16
Love0

Shared Economy and Distributed Capitalism? Pffff

By Energy Rant No Comments
I spent last week at the Grid Evolution Summit presented by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) in the Nation’s Capital. The opening speaker, Jeremy Rifkin, has authored 20-some books, the most recent of which is called, “The Zero Marginal Cost Society.” This post is based on a related article you can read yourself, here. The crux of the book, message, and article is that “investor-based capitalism, which focuses on resources for immediate returns, will inevitably be replaced by a more distributed and streamlined network-based capitalism, alongside a sharing economy governed by a high-tech global commons.” You have heard the…
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Mar 13
Love0

The Roots of our AC Power Grid

By Energy Rant No Comments
A while back, a reader asked, “why don’t we switch to at least localized direct current power grids?” The simple answer is it would cost a fortune for both the utility and the consumer to change all distribution and consuming loads to take DC power. As I researched power factor, I recalled why we have an alternating current power grid in the first place. This is interesting and worth knowing, Rant Pack. With that, I apologize for making you wait another week to understand why power factor matters to energy efficiency, directly. A Short Story You know I can’t resist…
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Feb 20
Love0

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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Jul 20
Love0

A Frivolous Novelty

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Renewable Energy, Stimulus, Sustainability 9 Comments
For this week’s publication, I was trying to think of an expensive, short-lived, duplicative, inconvenient, limited use, frivolous novelty.  Did I mention expensive?  After a half-hour of wonderment, the best I could do is a Homer Simpson bottle opener.   But really the Homer Simpson bottle opener will last longer and at least be useful (note, I didn’t say serve it’s purpose, which is to make people laugh) probably for a far longer period than the electric car. Twenty years ago “they” were talking about developing electric cars, I guess to save us from carbon dioxide, but I don’t recall the…
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All things energy. That’s our jam.

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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