For the fourth time since July 2013, Washington state is requiring an analysis of the full climate impacts of a major fossil fuel project proposed within its borders. … [Read more...]
Are Mexican Renewables Really this Cheap?
The latest good news on renewable electricity generation comes from Mexico, where results were just announced for the country’s third renewables auction for large-scale projects. After average winning bids in April and September of last year of 4.8 cents and 3.3 cents, the average winning bids in 2017 were 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour. … [Read more...]
Innovative Measurement Tool Will Help Illinois Calculate the Benefits of Smart-Grid Investments
Even as the Trump administration moved last week to repeal the Clean Power Plan, some of the biggest American utilities indicated they’ll continue investing in clean energy and strategizing around climate change. … [Read more...]
IEA Underreports Contribution of Solar and Wind by a Factor of Three Compared to Fossil Fuels
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) statistics underreport the role of wind and solar in the world’s energy mix by a factor of three, writes Erik Sauar. This gives policymakers, investors and the public the false impression that wind and solar are insignificant. According to Sauar, the counting method must be changed to reflect how close the world really is to a transition to renewables. … [Read more...]
When Certified Smart Meters Still Give Wildly Inaccurate Readings
How can you trust a smart meter when you know that it gives wrong readings – even though it has passed the certification tests? Some meters currently on the market containing the technology now known to fail. Smart meters can provide electricity readings up to six times higher than actual levels, according to a new study. These meters have passed standards tests. However these tests have failed to identify faults … [Read more...]
Proving the Negative: The Challenge of Calculating Energy Efficiency
“Efficiency is good.” That’s the mantra, a known truth, shared by both business executives and environmentalists, who eliminate waste to increase profits and reduce pollution. When it comes to electricity, efficiency also has proven effective. … [Read more...]
Connecting CMOs, PPMs, and Joules
I have often been asked questions like how many cubic miles of CO2 do we produce when we burn a cubic mile of oil, and how many ppms does that represent. In this post, I will make some simplifying, yet reasonable, assumptions to provide answers to these and other questions. In round numbers, one cubic mile of oil weighs 3.8 billion tons and contains roughly 3.2 billion tons of carbon. Burning this quantity of oil produces 153 quadrillion Btu … [Read more...]
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