Skip to main content
search
Tag

Renewable Energy

Jun 02
Love31
Image shows skyline of a city.

Pains & Risks Utilities Will Face If They Don’t Think At Scale and Down Range

By Carbon Reduction, Cost, Grid Capacity No Comments
This document includes pains and risks utilities face if they don’t think at scale and down range – what would “that” look like? Innovation and Pricing This aligns with a slide in my electrification presentation. Utilities must understand in the energy transition that their foothold as a monopoly isn’t going to last forever. This is a threat NOW. Consider microgrids. Microgrids can stand on their own and by definition, if the macrogrid goes down, they keep running. What happens when microgrids start linking together? Who needs a utility? Right now, there are a lot of bad ideas that will fail,...
Read More
Jun 02
Love31
Image shows graphic of a construction crane working on office buildings.

Risks Faced by Power Utility Companies

By Grid Capacity No Comments
Unprecedented transformation and rising threats are a top focus for power and utilities. Meanwhile, the cleaner energy transition poses unique opportunities to move the industry forward. Leaders know that taking a panoramic view of risk is no longer nice to have. It’s a must. Power utility companies are facing significant risks due to the latest technologies available. The advancements in technologies have led to a change in the power generation and distribution system, and thus, power utility companies must adapt to these changes to stay relevant in the industry. However, with these changes, there come a lot of uncertainties and...
Read More
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...
Read More
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...
Read More
Apr 03
Love23
Image shows text "Smart Renewables Cool the Climate Apocalypse" along with a graphic of wind turbines and text "Energy Rant."

Smart Renewables Cool the Climate Apocalypse

By Energy Rant No Comments
My passion is applying the right technology in the right place and at the right time for maximum effectiveness. Not coincidently, that is precisely Michaels Energy’s purpose for existence: minimizing waste and maximizing value. Last week I wrote about the gargantuan resource requirement for solar and batteries to displace a single nuclear power plant, including 40,000 acres for the panels, which, in Iowa, is worth $600 million in farmland alone. This is a D- for minimizing waste and maximizing value. Offshore Wind This week, we’re turning our attention to wind generation. Renewable enthusiasts need to get behind offshore wind for...
Read More
Nov 21
Love4

Cure Net Zero with Demand Response

By Energy Rant No Comments
I lambasted net zero many times, one time calling it an unserious weapon against climate change. Why is that? We’re going to see in this post. What is net zero? Simply, it is a building or property that produces as much renewable energy on-site as it consumes, typically over a year. Some utilities claim their net zero trophies for producing as much renewable energy as their customers buy. Why is Net Zero a Con? To answer this question in one word; exports. When a property or utility generates more electricity than it consumes, it must be exported to someone else....
Read More
Aug 09
Love2
illustration of an encyclopedia with a smiling face

Profiles in Decarb – I Call Ham

By Energy Rant No Comments
When I started at Michaels millennia ago, we had a brilliant walking encyclopedia of knowledge and engineering know-how. His name was Dave Hamilton, or Ham for short. He was probably 30 years older than me. My boss at the time said Ham knew the answer to any problem. Younger engineers would spend a few weeks to prove he was right. Scaling Electrification A couple of weeks ago, in the final of a series on electrification prompted by the EPRI conference in Charlotte, I wrote in Electrification at Scale that decarb fans need to 1) brace for consequences such as 9,000...
Read More
May 31
Love2

Managing Utility Bills with Automation and Information

By Energy Rant No Comments
Another week and we have two more dire warning shots of forecast blackouts this summer. These come from The Wall Street Journal and describe challenges from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region to California. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station shut down permanently on May 20th taking out 6.5% (800 MW) of the state’s electricity supply (gulp). The Journal notes it is part of Michigan’s transition to all renewable energy. They also write that it was slated for closure for five years, but Governor Whitmer waited to throw a last-minute Hail Mary just one month before closure to the federal...
Read More
May 24
Love2

Leveling the Skateboard Curve with a Demand Side Attack

By Energy Rant No Comments
NERC sounds alarm on solar tripping in sobering summer reliability report, May 19, 2022, UtilityDive.com. This seems like a timely sequel to last week’s Blistering Wind and Solar Energy post, in which I summarized the results of a renewables integration study performed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. The blisters represent pockets of excessive renewable energy generation and the “very different reliability risks than are experienced today,” as described in the MISO report. Electronics provide voltage and frequency control from solar panel generation. When the solar tiger grows from a cub that we had a few years ago into the...
Read More
May 17
Love2

Blistering Wind and Solar Energy

By Energy Rant No Comments
Grid reliability issues are upon us, and they will become more severe and disruptive in the next 10-20 years. But first, why is this happening? If governments mandated things in medicine[1] as they do with the grid, they would declare that chemotherapy will phase out by 2030 and cancer will be cured by 2035. Period. Because they said so. Meantime, we will have to deal with the deleterious effects of forced fantasies, so let’s get to work on that. The transition to high penetrations of renewable energy will increase in cost exponentially, as I wrote a year ago in Answer:...
Read More

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.

Subscribe for Expert Insights
Close Menu