Latest Articles

Umbra on installing solar power

Dear Umbra, I live on Long Island, N.Y., and am interested in getting solar power for my home. I am not sure, however, if that is viable in this area. Do you have any recommended reliable sources that I can reference? There is just so much confusing information in the marketplace. Thanks, Rick Port Washington, […]

Why the Smart Grid is important

It's the world's largest machine -- the interconnected network of power plants, transmission towers, substations, poles, and wires that make up the power grid. When you flip the switch you expect the juice to flow and don't have much reason to think about it, except during the occasional blackout. Power engineers and energy wonks might get passionate about the grid, but for most people it's just a background fact of life.

It's time to bring the grid into the foreground, because it positions at the exact center of the world's most crucial issue, global climate change. The power grid is the source of one-third of U.S. global warming emissions. Unless we clean it up we cannot avert severe climate change. The grid is also the key to electrifying transportation and making more effective use of heat generated for buildings and industry, source of the vast bulk of remaining emissions. The grid can be the ultimate climate saver.

But today's power grid cannot do it. A system built on central generating stations, little changed from the first power grids deployed in the late 1800s, lacks flexibility and smarts. We need a new grid capable of networking millions of distributed energy devices such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and smart appliances. We need an internet of energy that employs the latest in digital technologies. We need a Smart Grid.

Dairy farmers’ organic practices called into question

Regulation might not be the best way to create greener markets, but the right sort of regulations enforced the right way can work.

That's a lesson in the organic market, which witnessed a first this week: a mega-organic dairy with 10,000 cows (3,500 "organic"), which was clearly skirting regulations, was suspended by a certifier and no longer allowed to sell "organic" milk.

How can renewable energy ‘power up’?

In coming days, we'll be talking about how to "power up" renewable energy.

Everyone's talking renewables. G8 leaders are talking about reducing CO2 emissions and increasing renewables; federal and state officials are talking about tough new renewable portfolio standards; many in the general public seem eager to embrace renewables as the only logical way to address global warming (although whether or not they are aware of the price of renewable energy remains unclear).

There's a fundamental problem, however. The one thing no one is talking about is perhaps the one thing that would make the transition to renewables work, namely energy storage.

Richard Rorty, RIP

This will likely be of interest to exactly none of you, but one of my great philosophical heroes died yesterday. The first paper I ever presented at a professional philosophy conference was on Rorty. I can’t improve on what Chris Hayes says: Rorty had an uncanny ability to stare into the post-modern abyss, in which […]

Not together

First and foremost: If you have Windows Media Player, check out this PSA from basketball hottie Steve Nash. “When the Suns get hot, that’s good. But when the earth gets hot, that’s bad.” Swoon! Second and, uh, secondmost, there’s stuff out there about Beijing 2008 and London 2012. But there will be stories about the […]

Jon Stewart on the G8

Honda ditches Accord hybrid

Honda is ditching the Accord Hybrid because it discovered that … are you sitting down? … people who buy hybrids like good gas mileage.

They just keep coming

Speaking of guides to the candidates’ positions on global warming and other guides to the candidates’ positions on global warming, here’s yet another guide to the candidates’ positions on global warming — this one from NPR. And while you’re there, check out this story about how global warming is playing big in the presidential race.

Built to scale

Small and medium size wind generators of about 100 KW each are playing an important role in the power supplied by the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC) -- a non-profit customer-owned electric co-op serving 52 villages throughout interior and western Alaska.

Wind power on this scale, and in these conditions, is not cheap. Unlike megawatt scale wind turbines which cost around $1,600 per KW of installed capacity, these smaller generators run around $10,000 per installed KW. Part of that cost is simply a matter of buying on a smaller scale. But according to Brent Petrie, Key Accounts Manager for AVEC, the harsh Alaska conditions are responsible for much of this cost. Building in permafrost has always been tough, especially when that permafrost undergoes seasonal melts that turns it to mush and marsh. As an environmentally sensitive utility, AVEC is careful to minimize damage during installation. Overall, electricity costs from such small scale generation are estimated by Petrie to run around 15 cents per kWh -- three to four times the price of larger scale wind farms in milder conditions.

But the same conditions that drive the price of wind electricity for the AVEC customers drive up conventional sources even more. Fuel is shipped by barge to the small isolated communities, or even flows in, meaning that electricity is supplied by diesel generators run on the most expensive of fossil fuels. Since transporting large amount of fuel is an expensive prospect, normally fuel is delivered only once a year.

According to Petrie, AVEC tries to make sure that as a cushion each village has storage capacity for 13 months of fuel. Building a diesel storage facility on permafrost is an expensive prospect too. Combined fuel purchase, shipping, and storage for diesel in these villages runs between 13 cents and 25 cents per kWh -- even before purchase and maintenance of generators is considered. Overall, electricity to these villages averages 45 cents per kWh; so the 15 cents per kWh for wind electricity represents a real savings.