Organ Donation As a Club Good Rather Than a Public Good
Al Roth, blogging at Market Design, discusses Lifesharers in a post “Lifesharers: organ donation as a club good rather than a public good.”
December 2008
“10 Big Energy Myths”
Lynne Kiesling Here’s an interesting list of “energy myths” from Chris Goodall at The Guardian. What I find useful about his discussion is not the “myth debunking” per se, but rather his comments on why he considers them myths. The “wind is unreliable” myth, for example: Actually, during some periods earlier this year the wind …
The Forthcoming Dramatic Fall of Reported Oil Reserves
Geoff Styles offers a timely discussion of how SEC requirements for reporting oil and gas reserves and current low prices will combine to force a drop in reported oil and gas reserves.
A Bike-Powered Phone Charger
Lynne Kiesling As a cyclist, I occasionally measure my power output on the bike (you fellow bike weenies know how much attention we pay to wattage!), and wonder about using my work to some beneficial purpose beyond my own enjoyment, health, and sports training. There are gyms here and there that use their stationary bikes …
Another Potentially Price-Responsive Appliance: the Dynamic Fridge
Lynne Kiesling We have another step toward the smart grid, the transactive electric power network prototyped in the GridWise Olympic Peninsula project: from the UK, pilot testing of 3,000 dynamic, intelligent refrigerators! The trial, run by energy company npower, will be the first trial of new technology to be approved under the government’s carbon emissions …
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Couple of Bailout and Stimulus Links
Lynne Kiesling Going into 2009 with a recession, the discussion of a federal stimulus plan has kicked into high gear. This useful aggregation at the New York Times has some recommendations from economists about the form such a stimulus should take. Like Tyler Cowen, I find Andrew Samwick’s comments particularly important to bear in mind: …
End-of-year Best Album Lists
Lynne Kiesling The inevitable “best albums of 2008” lists are starting to come out, including this top-50 list from Pitchfork and these lists from the three DJs at woxy.com. Some names show up repeatedly — TV On The Radio, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, The Hold Steady, Hot Chip, Blitzen Trapper, etc. I have to admit …
Almost Done with Anathem
Lynne Kiesling Anyone else out there reading Anathem? I am on page 726, and I’m really enjoying it. I think to this point it’s been a book about consciousness, in addition to being an action/fantasy novel. But I can tell that it’s about to delve into more, shall we say, timely narrative. One thing I’ve …
New Analysis: California’s Grid Can Accommodate More Renewables
Lynne Kiesling This Wired article summarizes and links to a poster for the American Geophysical Union meetings (pdf) from Elaine Hart, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. Her power flow simulation suggests that the existing transmission network in California can accommodate up to 70% of renewables in the portfolio on a …
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Kids Don’t Know Their History – Energy Czar and Atari
Michael Giberson At Common Tragedies Daniel Hall links to my post on reading recommendations for the Car Czar which mentions the Atari simulation game “Energy Czar,” only he titles his post: “Maybe Carol Browner should dust off an old Atari 2600.” C’mon now, you couldn’t get a serious game like “Energy Czar” for the Atari 2600. …
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