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Nov 12
Love107

The Future of Automobile Decarbonization

By Energy Rant No Comments
Two weeks ago, I described the chasm before mass-market electric vehicle adoption. The chasm, as shown in Figure 1 and depicted in the EV Rant as a moat, is the gap between enthusiastic nerds and mainstream curmudgeons. I'm often among the mainstream curmudgeons, but not always. I could be considered an early adopter of smart thermostats and cold-climate heat pumps purchased 11 and 7 years ago, respectively. Figure 1 Market Adoption Curve For automobiles, I have gone out of my way for years, decades even, to find ones with manual transmissions – why? Energy efficiency, for one. There is less…
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Oct 28
Love106

The Energy Transition’s Reverse Chasm

By Energy Rant No Comments
In September, I wrote a series of five Rants on data centers, a concise and comprehensive collection that might just be the Data Center Digest you never knew you needed!   Chip and server power density, cooling, and projected GW load growth. Data center facilities from modular to 200 GW-plus hyperscale. Efficiency ratings and power usage effectiveness scales. Data center HVAC (minus the H because that's not required) options. Future power shortages and power supply complications. The anticipated load growth is due to artificial intelligence, which most professionals believe will explode—and so does Wall Street. Table 1 lists the current…
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Oct 22
Love105

Herding Chickens Through Modern Energyscapes

By Energy Rant No Comments
A recent study, Stacked Energyscapes, led by professors at Loyola Marymount University and Penn State University, caught my eye. The paper describes webs of complexities associated with transitions from fossil-fuel-powered economies to clean-energy economies. I burrowed into this paper as a glutton for third, fourth, and fifth-order (and beyond) downstream chain reactions and the universal picture. The Inflation Reduction Act was deployed in part to provide a 10% tax break bonus for clean energy development in communities that have been negatively impacted by decreases or closures of fossil fuel extraction. However, developers in many locations, such as the enormous Permian…
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Sep 03
Love100

Climate Policies That Work or Not

By Energy Rant No Comments
I had already selected my topic for this week (most climate policies don't work) when I had the good fortune to cross paths with a Wall Street Journal article, 7 Years, $700 Million Wasted: The Stunning Collapse of New York's Traffic Moonshot. The policy attempted to penalize drivers for entering congested zones of Manhattan. The $15 per incident congestion charge would sum to over a billion dollars per year that would fund biking and mass transit improvements. New York City has the most snarled traffic in the world. The Journal reports, "The average travel speed in Midtown fell to 4.5…
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Jan 08
Love62

Seven Chicken Bones for 2024

By Energy Rant No Comments
I was going to skip predictions for 2024, but due to popular demand, I’ll throw some chicken bones at the tarot card enthusiasts. Like other things in my life, I don’t make safe bets or set goals of high probability. If my guesses aren’t 50% wrong, I’m not sufficiently aggressive. Clean Energy Investment Curtailment Inflation will continue to chop block the economy, including clean energy investment. I have a saying that many have heard in recent months: inflation is no problem for those of us who don’t need food or shelter. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that manufacturing in…
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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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May 02
Love28
Image shows a graphic of hands lifting up the earth next to text: "If We Are Serious About Environmental Justice."

If We Are Serious About Environmental Justice

By Energy Rant No Comments
This week’s Energy Rant was guest written by Teri Lutz, Director of Sales & Marketing at Michaels Energy. Teri believes in a fair and just energy economy and hopes this Rant edition will inspire our readers to get involved and advocate for environmental justice here and abroad. Please do not be silent in the face of injustice and inequity. Make your voice heard and your actions matter. If we are serious about environmental justice – and the very survival of Earth - the supply chain matters. "We shouldn't be transitioning to the use of electric vehicles at the cost of…
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Sep 20
Love2

Decarbonization Strategies for Manufacturing

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week a Yahoo News reporter headlined an article, Biden Administration Seeks to Lower Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions-and-That-Won't Be Easy. My first reaction: It won’t be easy to decarbonize any sector: residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation, although I did see that, like wind energy, the passenger blimp is making a comeback (say whaaat?). Will it replace passenger jets? I don’t think so. I focus on the above-linked article and industrial electrification and decarbonization in this post. The Yahoo author references the chart below for shares of GHG emissions. I assume that emissions from electricity generation are not double counted into…
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Jun 14
Love2

Energy Inflation and Resetting the Dislocated Shoulder

By Energy Rant No Comments
As of last week, year-to-date energy prices are up 58% for NYMEX crude oil, 91% for NYMEX gasoline, and only 39% for retail gasoline. Retail prices seem to have a long way to climb as the high NYMEX prices make their way to the local gasoline pump. This week we look at how inflation is hitting our industry of efficiency and electrification and what might lie ahead. Let’s start with one-year price changes for a basket of commodities and roll forward with that. Diesel Fuel is Food Diesel fuel is used to transport seed, chemicals, fertilizers, and equipment to the…
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Mar 17
Love0

Energy Storage v Storing Energy’s Benefits

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Utility Stuff 4 Comments
As we march along with the nation’s rather massive build-out of renewable energy resources, questions emerge for how to fill the gaps when the sun sets and the wind stops blowing – i.e., when it’s nice to be outdoors, especially in the summer.  So there you have it – turn off the lights, grab a drink and go out on the deck to hang out with your friends and family.  Now there is a behavior program to get behind!  Patent underway.  Unfortunately, the discussion is focused on energy storage rather than “quality time”, a term that predates “work-life balance”. Once…
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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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