Jim Pierobon is Founder and principal writer of The Energy Fix. He is a policy, marketing and social media strategist who has reported on, testified and consulted about smarter grids, cyber-security as it affects the power grid, fossil fuel shortages, price spikes, energy efficiency and the rise and fall -- and the rise again of nuclear and renewable energy sources.Wind power could be a cost-effective hedge against rising natural gas prices
That’s the conclusion of a new report by researcher Mark Bolinger at the U.S. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He’s done an enviable job of scouring public sources for wind energy supply contracts at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, state utility commissions and long-term power-purchase agreements in various wholesale markets. This question is front-of-mind for [...]
Energy ‘datapalooza’ draws more apps; know the cost of that old refrigerator?
The Obama administration threw a its third datathon (my word) this week dubbed the “Energy Datapalooza.” It featured about 150 entrepreneurs, policymakers and software developers, among others, and aspired to offer ways to learn new ways to save energy and lower bills from what is supposed to be free and secure data. Government and private [...]
Shale gas helping reduce carbon & overall emissions – but by how much?
The results are adding up. It’s hard to ignore how the surging deployment of natural gas for industrial uses and power generation is reducing the growth in U.S. carbon and other harmful emissions and possibly lowering overall emissions. Two recent studies draw from different data sets so one should be careful not to jump to [...]
Let’s see if THIS green social network – Ozoshare – has staying power
The web is littered with attempts to build a ‘green’ social network for allied individuals and organizations. Here comes “Ozoshare” from a couple of L.A.-based recycling pros who are taking Ozoshare out of its beta test tomorrow-Tuesday, August 7. Sharing the endangered ozone layer is what co-founders Tom Smith and Scott Peters hope will capture [...]
Risks loom from closure of 25 gigawatts of U.S. coal power plants by 2015 = 8% of capacity
Is there enough natural gas that is findable and deliverable to plug most of the gap created by the projected closure of 25.5 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. generating capacity from coal between now and year-end 2015? That is an increasingly urgent question facing U.S. utilities, power marketers and regulators. The risks of brownouts and perhaps [...]
10 reasons to create a carbon tax
The possible revival of serious talks about a U.S. carbon tax should take thought-leaders to the most recent credible analysis in a book finished earlier this year by Shi-Ling Hsu, a professor at the University of British Columbia: The Case for a Carbon Tax. Here I cut to the chase to spotlight the 10 reasons [...]
Can ‘Energy Fact Check’ from ACORE balance fossil-vs-renewables debate?
Acknowledging that opponents of renewable energy “are dominating the conversation” and asserting they are doing so “through misrepresentation, exaggeration, distraction and millions of dollars in lobbying and advertising,” the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) is launching EnergyFactCheck.org to “help ensure that the facts about our industry are front and center.” With those stated aspirations, [...]
Support for cleaner energy surcharges, carbon expectations, firms controlling their energy costs–Deloitte study
More companies are setting formal energy cost-cutting goals and in the process making energy management a strategic discipline. That is one dimension of Deloitte’s second annual survey designed to help executives make energy-related investment and business decisions. Conducted for Deloitte’s Center for Energy Solutions by the Harrison Group market research firm, the survey also found [...]
Can Maryland spin any wind turbines off its coast after setbacks in New Jersey and Delaware?
Offshore wind has two strikes against it in New Jersey and Delaware. Cape Wind off Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound is fighting to stay alive in extra innings. Now Maryland is trying to get ‘on base’ with a second bid by Governor Martin O’Malley which is halfway toward approval (at this writing) by the state’s General Assembly. [...]
Boulder, Colorado faces more hurdles trying to ‘divorce’ Xcel Energy; real negotiations now begin
It’s hardly a done ‘deal’ but a band of citizens in Boulder, Colorado have taken the biggest step toward dismissing Xcel Energy as the city’s electricity utility. The main reasons is a yearning to garner more power from renewable sources and reduce carbon emissions more quickly. But a bungled smart grid experiment two years ago [...]