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NREL

2022’s Lucky Seven Lookback

By Energy Rant No Comments
This post features the results of my Lucky 7 predictions I made a year ago, a grade for each omen, and a little sass here and there. Coal Record Prediction: Annual worldwide coal consumption will pass the all-time high set in 2014. Result: The Internation Energy Agency, on 16 December, reported, “Global coal use is set to rise by 1.2% in 2022, surpassing 8 billion tonnes in a single year for the first time and eclipsing the previous record set in 2013(sic), according to Coal 2022, the IEA’s latest annual market report on the sector.” This is remarkable, considering “For…
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Decoupling, Stupid

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff 2 Comments
One way the utility business works like the rest of the economy is that it sells its products/commodities at a price that is higher than the cost of production, on average.  The more utilities sell, the greater their gross profit.  This is at odds with utilities’ incentive to save energy with energy efficiency programs.  As a result, some utility executives are opposed to energy efficiency programs.  That is a short-sighted view but that’s a story for a different day. As a result of this dichotomy, a pricing mechanism known as decoupling has been developed.  This NREL paper gives a pretty…
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