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September 6, 2010
Boulder Smart Grid: Handicapped From the Start?

Boulder, Colorado is just one big technology magnet when it comes to anything to do with alternative energy, conservation and end-use efficiency. There’s no other place quite like it. And that’s precisely why it was bound to hit major roadbumps as a Smart Grid pilot project.

Insights, Smart City, Smart Grid
3
Article
August 30, 2010
How Clean and Green are Electric Vehicles? It All Depends…

The eco-friendliness of EVs all depends on how and when the batteries are charged. A number of utilities are offering special rates for charging EVs on off-peak hours. Those incentives may encourage maximizing total EV-related carbon emissions, particularly in areas with growing solar and wind resource penetration.

Insights, Electric/Hybrid vehicles, PHEV, Plug-in Electric Vehicle, Smart Grid, Transportation
1
Article
August 23, 2010
The Utility Industry: Stodgy and stuffy maybe, but malevolent? Give it a rest!

Utilities aren’t set up to defend themselves and usually they don’t even try. They’re easy targets, convenient scapegoats, ideal Big Brothers in energy conspiracy theories.

 

Insights, Business, Utility Generation, Policy
Article
August 12, 2010
Greenhouse Gas? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Someday we may see an actual decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions. But in the near term, CO2 levels will continue rising way beyond any level that Kyoto and Copenhagen considered tolerable, or maybe even thinkable.

Insights, Greenhouse gas, Climate Change
Article
August 9, 2010
Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. - German Proverb

Global warming, terrorism, war, world-wide economic woes, U.S. mid-term elections with the usual mud- slinging, and, of course, continued job loss – think on those things long enough and depression and fear will take over your head and make you nuts!

Insights, Community
Article
August 5, 2010
Rare Smart Grid Setback in Hawaii

The movement toward smart grids seems inevitable. So it came as a bit of a surprise this week when a high-profile smart grid project seemed to hit a significant hurdle.

Insights, State, Smart Grid, Policy
2
Article
August 2, 2010
Wanted – More Engineers and Scientists – and they don’t have to be ‘Green’!

We need more well trained engineers and scientists much more than we need a generation of young people pursuing vague “green” careers.

Insights, Policy, Energy Education
Article
July 26, 2010
Unified World Climate Action? It’s Not in the Cards

Want to paralyze energy policy making? Just call a world conference and try for consensus. Want to maximize public apathy regarding greenhouse gas issues? Just do a few more Copenhagens.   There’s a game that psychologists use to understand how group decisions are made, particularly when strategies to achieve benefits for the group as a whole increase the risk to individual participants. In other words, when do players put the good of the group above their own (individual) good?  

Insights, Climate Change Strategy, Greenhouse gas, IPCC, Climate Change
1
Article
July 21, 2010
BGE’s AMI Gambit: Lack of Clear Customer Benefits

When one party claims no benefit from a business transaction but pushes through with the deal anyway, we usually question their motives.

Insights, Advanced Metering, State, Smart Grid, Policy
Article
July 20, 2010
PV and Solar Thermal: both can be winners

For about three decades Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) have competed for utility attention and public funding. Although PV is often the apple of the solar advocate's eye, both technologies have unique advantages that we need.

Insights, Solar Thermal, Solar, Solar Power, Utility Generation, Customer Generation