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energy cost

Jun 27
Love36
Image shows graphic of a bike, car and a plane.

Planes, Bikes, Automobiles, and the Deceptive LCOE

By Energy Rant No Comments
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, operations, maintenance, fuel, interest, etc. Questionable Comparisons The LCOE can be misleading, it's like comparing the levelized cost of transportation (LCOT) of a bicycle, automobile, and passenger jet. The LCOE only applies when comparing automobiles against automobiles, bikes against bikes, etc., for obvious reasons. Similarly, LCOE for electricity storage is mostly reasonable. However, comparing LCOE of renewable power generation…
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Nov 04
Love0
RTO and ISO Map

Good, Perfect, and Real Carbon Targets – Part 3

By Energy Rant No Comments
In this week's Energy Rant, we're covering part three of good, perfect, and real carbon targets.In Part I of this series, we examined how various storage technologies work, their pluses, and minuses. In Part II, we put numbers to generation and storage technologies, including maximum power, duration of discharge (for storage), cost per megawatt and megawatt-hour to build and operate, and a slew of other great stuff. In Part III, we will size up the numbers from Part II to actual grid demand. The objective is to provide scale to see what we would need to pair high percentages of…
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Aug 19
Love0
energy cost

Property Value, Rent, and Energy Cost Exclusivity

By Energy Rant, Uncategorized No Comments
About twenty years ago, I moved into my first home, which sits on a beautiful lot where the cattle used to graze. When you think about it, all homes sit where wildlife used to frolic, but I digress. The point is, a first-time homeowner, especially one with a substantial lot and a long driveway, is in for a few surprises. I remember saying $10,000 checks were flying left and right, and that’s not even for the mortgage payments. Driveway: $5,000. Lawn seeding: $2,000. Mowing tractor and snow removal equipment: $7,500. There were at least twice that many nickels and dimes.…
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Jun 30
Love0

Breaking Bread with Lost Sheep

By Energy Rant No Comments
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” – Mathew 9:10-12. I was lost in the wilderness in search of inspiration for another post when Jesus came to mind. So I thought, “Jesus ate with sinners. I’ll look that up and see what I find.” What I found…
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May 20
Love0

Low Hanging Fruit – Meet Vortex Madness

By Energy Rant No Comments
This week, we are taking a trip down easy street to explore what I called three years ago in DOE Pumping Standards a nauseating term, “low hanging fruit.” I love charts like the one below. Where can you find stuff like that? Well, the source vanished, except that I posted it in the Rant, it lives!Because of associated nausea and our love of acronyms, let’s call it LHF. On that note, it looks like left-handed fingering (think guitar playing) dominates the market for the LHF acronym. What does the idiom LHF mean? Lighting and Motors Lighting and motors are the…
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Jan 07
Love0
Percent GHG Savings

Ethanol – Where Physics, Politics, and Emission Limits Collide

By Energy Rant One Comment
I recently researched many attributes and market effects for liquid fuels for a project we are working on, and like my digging into the wind and climate studies, this research results in several findings. This post covers ethanol and gasoline blends. A future post will cover fuel cost and impacts on electric vehicles and utilities. My journey began with the ethanol market. We produce a lot of corn-derived ethanol here in the northern plains. By 2020 there may be a big demand for Midwest ethanol as California caps the carbon intensity of its liquid fuels. The cap, part of their…
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Dec 18
Love0

High Crimes in Custom Efficiency?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Custom efficiency programs are held to a higher standard than others (prescriptive). The customer pursuing custom incentives must wait to see what the incentive amount will be before they purchase anything. If they buy first and ask second, no rebate for you. This is not the case for prescriptive programs, where customers know they will get $75 for the purchase of a smart thermostat, or $100 for the replacement of an evaporator fan motor with an electronically commutated motor. Prescriptive participants can make their purchases and claim their rebate any time, usually before the end of the calendar year. Custom…
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Aug 07
Love0

Motivating Efficiency and Incinerating Obstinance

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
A few weeks ago in Complexities of Home Energy Retrofits, I wrote about the many factors to consider when making deep investments in home energy efficiency. You didn’t think I just made all that up, right? The basis for that was an 85-year-old home I recently purchased. Regarding floor space, it forces efficiency. It has 1,200 square feet of finished space on a 770 sf footprint with a full basement. First, I’m going to write about features I changed toward efficiency. Then, I will tell you why. Then, I will write about how the rest of the world might view…
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Apr 24
Love0

Is Energy Recovery Always Good? No.

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week we introduced exergy and at least one application of it in a building. First, let me make something very clear, for the refrigeration cycle, if I’m cooling beer or freezing leftovers, the heat that is sucked out of those masses is rejected somewhere else. For refrigerators and freezers, it is rejected to the room in which they exist. For air conditioning, most commercial refrigeration, and all industrial refrigeration, it is rejected outside – unless, it is captured for useful heating. Commercial HVAC For commercial HVAC, if CONsultants don’t think holistically about the entire heating and cooling needs, and…
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Jan 23
Love0

Low Electricity Prices – Impacts and Longevity

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
As I’m sitting here reading about topics including electricity prices, electric cars, and utility innovation in Public Utilities Fortnightly, it occurs to me: why are so many organizations and companies in the utility industry named after Edison when the electric car company is named after Tesla? This makes no sense, whatsoever. Edison was the vehement direct current advocate, and Tesla was the alternating current advocate. They were fierce rivals. But the car uses Edison’s direct current, while the utilities, of course, produce and deliver Tesla’s alternating current. I can only conclude that Edison was a better marketer, but I’ll bet…
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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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