 |
This time around, Graph of the Week focuses on one of those things “everyone” knows that ain’t necessarily so–the fact that Americans drive hideously long distances to their jobs. The graph, courtesy of US Dept. of Energy and the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, shows that 58% of the trips to work are 10 miles or . . . → Read More: GOTW: Miles driven to work Yet another study on the cost of a specific way to move electrons has been released, this time the technology of interest is nuclear fission. The author is Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis From the press release announcing the study [PDF]: The likely cost of electricity for . . . → Read More: Document alert: The cost of nuclear power I recently posted about what methane was up to (Methane checkpoint), prompted by the noticeable upturn in the atmospheric level of that particular greenhouse gas. See that post for sexy graphs and instructions on making your own (graphs, not methane). My conclusion is that there’s definitely something going on with the methane level, but . . . → Read More: CO2 checkpoint The EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) has released an interim version of their “Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap”. From the cover letter on the document: Under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has “primary responsibility to coordinate development of a . . . → Read More: Document alert: Supergrid Report: Global climate disaster is moving closer – COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009: With unabated greenhouse gas emissions the world faces a growing risk of “abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts”. This is one of the conclusions in a scientific synthesis report released Thursday. Based on more than 1,400 studies presented at a congress in March . . . → Read More: Document alert: New synthesis report The US government has released a report that’s sure to be a “must read” item for anyone who cares about the mushrooming issue of climate chaos. The report is “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”, and is a product of the US Global Change Research Program. (See the end of this post for links . . . → Read More: Document alert: US climate chaos impacts When I gave a presentation on the challenges of electricity generation to 10 classes of local middle school students a while back, one of the things I stressed to them was how we were entering an age of localized energy. I didn’t mean generating electricity local to the end users (that’s decentralization, and we’ll see . . . → Read More: Desert solar power A new ad, set to start running today in the US, from Repower America: This strikes me as a great way to frame the issue[1], and one that will appeal to a lot of Americans: We’re not just doing something stupid and self-destructive now, but we’ve been doing it for decades. Isn’t it time to show . . . → Read More: Repowering America You can quote numbers all day about how much oil the US uses and for which purposes, but few things drive the point home like the graph below. This shows US oil consumption for just transportation (broken out by mode), with a line plot of domestic production, revealing a humongous gap and explaining why so . . . → Read More: Graph of the week: The US transportation gap I’ve long believed that in our quest to match electricity supply and demand, especially when both are varying, that it’s easy to overlook physical storage. We keep looking for the sexy solution, like gigantic lithium batteries, when a more economical solution could be vastly simpler. Probably my favorite example of this approach is pumped . . . → Read More: Flywheels, baby! |
|
|
Copyright © 2003-2012 The Cost of Energy - All Rights Reserved |
||
