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energy

May 16
Love30
Image shows graphic of clouds, trees and a factory with text "CO2 Pipelines and Ethanol- Entropy Factories"

CO2 Pipelines and Ethanol – Entropy Factories

By Energy Rant No Comments
Now and then, a seemingly dumb idea flies through my neocortex like a bat at dusk. Bats have Mr. Magoovian eyesight and rely on radar technology to catch bugs. They are silent in flight. A few weeks ago, one such metaphorical flying rodent got too close for me to ignore. That bat was carbon dioxide pipelines used to sequester CO2. This could be the dumbest idea I have investigated. The pipeline would carry liquid CO2 from ethanol, fertilizer, and “other agricultural industrial plants” from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, to be sequestered under North Dakota or Illinois. Developers…
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Apr 25
Love27
Image shows electric car with text "Electric Vehicle Plans with the End in Mind"

Electric Vehicle Plans With the End in Mind

By Energy Rant No Comments
This week I’m repackaging recent news on electric vehicle (EV) developments – market, technical, and utility impacts. I like to look at scale (macro) rather than ubiquitous siloed micro thinking. Is it realistic to scale rare earth mineral mining, battery manufacturing, and battery disposal? What about charging logistics, third-world labor, and grid impacts? Breaking the Grid? Let’s start with the revelation that force, in the form of mandates, will break things. An aeronautical engineer’s piece in Energy Central, says EVs, at scale, will break the grid. He notes that the Biden regime is developing restrictions requiring the market share of…
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Mar 21
Love19
Image shows a graphic of stacked books with "Energy Rant" on the spine. Next to graphic is text displaying: "The Book of Energy Program Evaluation - Tssssss"

The Book on Energy Program Evaluation – Tssssss

By Energy Rant No Comments
Although, or maybe because Michaels Energy has provided research and evaluation services for about 25 years, I’ve been a consistent critic of evaluation, measurement, and verification (EMV), and I’ll tell you why in several chapters. Chapter 1 Resource Acquisition Evaluation methodologies are predominately based on widget programs, also known as resource acquisition programs. The hypothesis is this: efficient equipment costs more, and that extra cost is the barrier. How to mitigate or remove the barrier? Pay down the incremental cost with a rebate after the purchase or incentive before the purchase. It’s that simple and dumb. The simpleton approach to…
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Mar 13
Love18
Image shows text, "The Anxious Leader and Li-Ion Batteries," along with 2 graphics of electric bicycles.

The Anxious Leader and Li-Ion Batteries

By Energy Rant No Comments
One of the nasty results of the Covid lockdowns was the meteoric growth of electric bikes. I thought, great. Let’s take the only means of exercise for some people and power it with a battery and motor to take away physical propulsion via the human body. Would you like to see a graphical representation of exponential growth? The following chart satisfies your craving to show e-bike fires in New York City alone. In an article published by The Wall Street Journal last week, New York Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh is quoted, “These are incredibly dangerous devices if they are unregulated…
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Dec 27
Love9
Deep Thoughts from a Scatterbrain

Deep Thoughts from a Scatterbrain

By Energy Rant No Comments
With most people off this week, it is a good time to probe the mysteries of life that I have accumulated in recent years. Food Let’s start with a great food mystery; the hamburger. Every other burger has the key ingredient in the name: turkey burger, walnut burger, pork burger. Ham? What would a burger made of ham be called? Next up: Grapes, grape nuts, and grapefruit. What is the common denominator? Orange, lemon, lime, tangerine… Fruit namer: “I’m tired. To hell with it. We’ll call this largest citrus fruit a grapefruit and call it a day.” Steel-cut oats. What…
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Sep 06
Love2
picture with patton

Channeling Patton for Energy Policy

By Energy Rant No Comments
Of 34 personality characteristics, my top strength, according to Gallup CliftonStrengths®, is “context.” What does context mean, according to Gallup? History. Gallup describes the history strength: “You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present. From your vantage point, the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time when the plans were being drawn up that the present regains its stability. The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints.” Hmm. This…
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Sep 21
Love2
energy rant with doug scott

Special Rant Vlog with Performance-Based Ratemaking Guru, Doug Scott

By Energy Rant No Comments
This week, we’re continuing our discussion on GEBs (Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings) with our special guest Doug Scott. Doug is the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Great Plains Institute and is a great resource for performance-based ratemaking which is a key component of GEBs for both customers and utilities. Check out our fun conversation with Doug!
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Jul 06
Love0
climate change

Measuring Climate Change

By Energy Rant No Comments
The super heatwave of a couple of weeks ago in the northwest got me thinking about weather anomalies and climate change. What is really happening, as if anyone knows. This fits nicely with a paper that was published a month ago by the Institute for Energy Research entitled Climate Policy - The Case for a New Perspective. That provided some interesting data and got me going on more in-depth research. I added to that through a few hours of mining National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data. Whoa, does NOAA have data! Yeow! So let’s look at the data and…
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