electricity grid
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President Obama announces $3.4 billion investment to spur transition to smart energy grid
As the Senate debated the Kerry-Boxer climate bill in Washington, President Obama travelled to Arcadia, Florida to announce a $3.4 billion investment in to modernize the U.S. energy grid. Have a look at this official White House press release on the president’s new smart grid proposal: Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next […]
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2-way connections between electric cars and grid have amazing potential that needs no exaggeration
One of the many tasks of running an electric utility is maintaining operating reserves and spinning reserves to handle seasonal peaks, and occasional generation failures. Between peak demand that only occurs a few times a year, and the occasional shutdown for routine maintenance and response maintenance, utilities have to keep operating reserves — backup equipment […]
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Confessions of a fossil-fuel addict
The power grid: more feeble than you think.The trouble started on an August afternoon in a remote field in northern Ohio, miles from any town large enough to be marked on a standard road atlas. The only trace of humanity hung above the trees—an electrical cable known as the Harding-Chamberlin Line, carrying 345,000 volts of […]
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Enabling wind, sun to be our main power supplies
As the world meets this December to set plans to halt global warming, it is expected America and other industrial nations will commit to a daunting task: reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050. In just 40 years, a complete revolution in how we use and supply our power must happen, or the world will face […]
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Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels?
Solar Roadways A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean-energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels. The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable […]
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Removing roadblocks to the growth of renewables
On Friday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released new monthly statistics for renewable energy output as well as output of traditional forms of power. The good news is that renewable energy in May, the latest month for which statistics have been compiled, is at its all-time highest level, accounting for 13% of total power. The […]
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EEStor CEO says game-changing energy storage device coming by 2010
If the Texas company EEStor is running a scam, it’s a frakking brilliant one. For years the otherwise tight-lipped outfit has been promising a capacitor that can quickly charge, quickly discharge, and hold enormous amounts of energy — on all accounts, performance far beyond any battery on the market, or even contemplated. If it performs […]
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How much CO2 do our nation’s coal and gas plants actually produce?
It was the best of half-centuries, it was the worst of half-centuries … Broadly speaking, there are only three things we can do to lower CO2 emissions: switch fuels, use energy more efficiently, or use less energy (conserve). Our CO2 conversations too often focus on one of those three in isolation: Coal bad. Recycled waste […]
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Clean technology innovation: reaping the rewards
Business Week has a provocative article this week by Michael Mandel on innovation — or the collapse of it — in America. According to Mandel, many of our current woes stem from a failure to innovate over the last decade since the glory years of the late 1990s. While most Americans still take pride in our innovation, […]