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Jun 03
Love1

Turbulence, Tribes, and Climate Change

By Energy Rant No Comments
The topic of climate change is fascinating to me because I love to learn why people believe what they believe. I wrote last week that climate change policy is firmly and forever intertwined in political warfare. Does anyone stand alone on an island isolated from their tribe on anything?  Maybe five out of one hundred on an issue or two, but for the most part, no. This is where I come in – I love stirring the pot. A few months back, a friend forwarded a link to Global Warming for the Two Cultures, by Richard LIndzen, Professor of Meteorology,…
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Dec 03
Love0

Dig Some Wind – Blown Away by Inversions

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
As children, some engineers liked to take things apart to see how they worked – and maybe even put them back together. That was too much work for me, but I was curious. I would intently watch my Mom as she accelerated the 1970s Ford Galaxy 500 down the road. What was she doing to make it shift gears? I had to know! Of course, it was an automatic transmission. Today, I see some scientific claims, and I can’t help myself but to dig in and find the big lie, er, the big why. This week’s adventure started two months…
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Jul 02
Love0
Excess Power

Electricity Storage by the Other NWA; Chum v Beluga

By Energy Rant No Comments
Energy storage is easy and cheap. Grid-grade electricity storage is complex and expensive. Definitions of energy storage vary. Some consider hot water, chilled water, or ice to be stored energy. It’s really storing the benefits of energy consumption. For phenomenal refreshers and mental strolls down memory lane, see Storing Energy v Storing Benefits and Something Old, Something Old. Why is grid-scale electricity storage so expensive? To answer this question, let’s consider the forms of storage and the hurdles that must be overcome to make it cost effective. Electricity Storage Challenge #1 = Inefficiency First, we have the storage of potential…
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Nov 06
Love0

Why Energy Efficiency? – Five Findings

By Energy Rant No Comments
This year ACEEE published a three-part series on why people and companies invest in energy efficiency. First, they provide some guesstimates of energy efficiency investment in the United States. Their researched estimates vary from $60 billion to about $120 billion, annually. Is this a reasonable guesstimate? According to their State Scorecard, program spending on natural gas and electric demand-side management programs held steady at about $7.5 billion in 2016. Check. The International Energy Agency pegs worldwide investment at $231 billion and about $40 billion in the U.S. Check. As a laugh test, $100 billion is a measly 0.5% of the…
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May 15
Love0

Efficiency by Baby Steps and Giant Bounds

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
This post features concepts everyone can use to identify terrific savings opportunities, even if you did not take beloved calculus and thermodynamics. Let’s review a general hierarchy of typical energy efficiency families: 1. Shut it off 2. Slow it down, set it back (temperature, etc.) 3. Reduce waste 4. Retrofit or replace with efficient equipment Those are all wonderful and probably capture over 98% of portfolio savings. Even newer programs like behavioral, retro-commissioning, and strategic energy management merely pursue these items. What’s left? Smart design. I.e., 5. Don’t be stupid Or for the glass half full message, it would be…
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Mar 06
Love0

Power Factor Cures for Toenail Fungus

By Energy Rant One Comment
This post ends with a quiz and more than 49 $5 Starbucks card winners for correct answers. Why the quiz for this post? Because the subject is power factor. Most descriptions of power factor remind me of riding the NYC subway many years ago before passengers buried their faces in their smartphones, which did not yet exist. Instead, choices included looking at the floor or the ceiling, like riding an elevator. God knows you don’t want to make eye contact with the person sitting across from you. At the ceiling were ads for the most socially undesirable products imaginable: cures…
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Dec 19
Love0

Distributed Energy Resources – Messing with Near Perfection

By Energy Rant One Comment
A couple years ago at an AESP conference, we had a fascinating speaker and topic. It was one of those that had me thinking deeply and philosophically. The subject was technology and the future. The takeaway: every problem is either a technical problem or one of human flaw. As for technical problems, there is nothing short of violating the laws of physics, including the second law of thermodynamics, that humans can’t and won’t someday solve: cancer, heart disease, failed or destroyed body parts, and of course, energy, and even aging. As we say at Michaels, (although we are not yet…
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Jan 04
Love0

Climate Change 1, Things Untold

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
Of fourteen categories of Rant topics, Climate Change scored a solid seventh place for subjects readers want to read about. I am certain you will find information in this post that you’ve never seen before. As “settled science”, it sure is difficult to find unbiased information on this subject. In science we have laws, which are held to be true because nobody can prove otherwise. These include the law of gravity.  Gravity on a planet or star is proportional to its mass. Others include the first law of thermodynamics (energy can change forms but never increases or decreases), second law…
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Dec 01
Love0

Clean Power Plan and the Heat Rate Fairy

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
As you must know, the EPA’s release of its Clean Power Plan on June 2nd of this year includes four “building blocks” to achieve a 30% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, using a reference year of 2005.  Those building blocks are as follows: Improve the heat rate (efficiency) of coal-fired power plants by 6% “Re-dispatch” natural-gas generators to achieve a capacity factor of 70% Development and preservation of clean sources, including nuclear, hydro, and renewable sources Demand side energy efficiency Does the EPA have any engineers on staff?  Did any of them provide input and/or oversight for the…
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Sep 15
Love0

Black Box Technology – Rarely Real; More Often Hocus Pocus

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Readers of this blog may think I’m a cynical, frumpy coot because I’m frequently noting the negative aspects of approaches, programs, technologies, and evaluation.  I feel obligated to do it because I’m a licensed professional engineer in half a dozen, or so, states.  Professional engineers, like doctors, are sworn to go about their profession in the best interest for the general well-being, health, and welfare of the public and those they serve (e.g. clients).  Well-being and welfare include not getting screwed over or caught by surprise – by revealing the whole story; the whole truth. Recently, E Source published a…
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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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