Charles Raymond Patrick Considine, RIP

1908 - 2010

Home is the sailor, home from sea:
Her far-borne canvas furled
The ship pours shining on the quay
The plunder of the world.

Home is the hunter from the hill:
Fast in the boundless snare
All flesh lies taken at his will
And every fowl of air.

'Tis evening on the moorland free,
The starlit wave is still:
Home is the sailor from the sea,
The hunter from the hill.

 

A. E. Houseman

 

I thank everyone for the kind words, the emails,the prayers, and even the posts you have shared with me. I am not surprised, but still strangely numb. A banal moment, it comes to everyone on this earth sooner or later, but no words can describe the impact of the loss of one;s father, when it comes.

Smart grids will get worse, so dumb buildings must get smarter

The grid will never be as good as it was. The old grid had reliable surplus energy based on predictable energy sources, and adequate safety margins. The smart grid will have none of these. We are replacing predictable coal, nuclear, and hydro with intermittent energy sources. We cannot build the consensus to build transmission capacity to bring energy from far away. The grid’s reduced safety margins make even moderate adoption of intermittent energy sources risky.By every measure, the quality of the North American grid will get worse. That’s the plan...

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Idle Thoughts on Smart Grids

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Musings from the GridWise Architectural Council, Orlando, 2010

After a week at the AHR show, and meeting with ASHRAE, and sitting in on B2G (Building to Grid) summit, I was back in the building zone as I sat in on day one of the GWAC meeting. The GridWise Architectural Council (GWAC) is a voluntary organization of people concerned with the future of energy. The Department of Energy sponsors meetings of the GWAC, a commitment that keeps the group in meeting rooms, coffee, and pastry...

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