Musings

A Caffeinated view of Aging Energy Infrastructure

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The local coffee shop, The OpenEye Cafe, has an outsized role in thinking about smart buildings and the smart grid. Each day when I leave the gym, I go to the OpenEye to caffeinate myself out of my post exercise torpor and to write.

The OpenEye is a great college town coffee shop, even if it is in Carrboro, the town next door to the college town. Its main room is huge for a coffee shop, fitted out with as many old couches and comfy chairs as it has little tables surrounded by mismatched chairs. It has numerous small side rooms, a patio in the back, more sidewalk seating in the front.

This size gives it a wonderful variety of subcultures, as there is the construction contractor corner, klatches of endurance runners, and every college town’s PWDIBs (people who dress in black). On weekends, the Men Who Run in Kilts...

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Cargo Cult Energy

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I spent last week in Chicago and by of Silicon Valley, talking about new energy. In Chicago, we were talking about the smart grid, and how it enables new markets in energy. Out by San Francisco Bay, the conversation was, of course, about ventures and new businesses and high tech. There were exciting conversations in Chicago, ones that may lead getting the underlying structures of smart energy markets right. There were innovative projects in California, ones that are beginning to answer "What would your stuff do, if it knew the price of energy, now.?" In both locations, there was a tendency to fall into a trap that I call Cargo Cult Energy...

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The Talmud and the Smart Grid

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I received an animated Christmas card in e-mail from a leader in demand-response last month. The e-card used flash animation to explain demand-response. The flash animation told a tale of demand-response during a holiday season. Santa and his sleigh flew into a transmission line, causing power shortage. DR aware equipment rapidly responded to signals sent out. DR-aware Christmas lights dimmed just a little. DR-aware electric menorahs turned off every other light. The animated card told a story that demonstrated that demand-response could be efficient, effective, and doubly offensive.

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Packing Peanuts and Corn Ethanol

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It is hard to figure out the full cost of the government’s corn ethanol mania. Random observations during the holiday season suggest that they are still larger even than reported already. A full accounting, if it were possible, would sound a cautionary note as a new congress and a new administration consider how to stimulate new energy and E-Tech.

The most believable numbers suggest that the full production costs of corn ethanol use more oil-based energy then it replaces. These numbers are of course, in dispute as they include assumptions about fertilizer production and tractor driving and a twisted maze of hidden subsidies. Holiday packing peanuts are part of the picture....

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