Michael Giberson Last week I attended the Gulf Coast Power Association‘s spring conference. Very good time. More comments later this week after I have time to catch up. Just a note today on the pre-conference power plant tour featuring the Tenaska Frontier Generating Plant in Shiro, Texas (about 50 north of Houston). The 830-MW combined-cycle …
Michael Giberson The Kauffman Foundation offers a video of Tyler Cowen talking about blogging economics and other topics. Cowen wraps up with comments on current economic conditions in the United States: If there is one point I could get through about the mess we’re in, it’s that even if you think that the government needs …
Michael Giberson At EnergyPulse, Ron Rebenitsch discusses the unsettled foundation of the wind power industry: uncertain rights to use the energy present in the wind. Currently the industry seems to work on a “capture what you can” model, but the approach has its problems and the problems are likely to become more pronounced as the …
Is “First in Time, First in Right” the Best Way to Allocate Rights to Wind Energy? Read More »
Michael Giberson ERCOT tries to keep the electric power grid in Texas operating at 60 Hertz (i.e., 60 cycles per second, Hertz is abbreviated “Hz”), like the rest of North America, and a few other places in the world. If electrical load grows faster than power supply, the system frequency will fall below 60 Hz; …
Are Wind Power Producers the Low Cost Suppliers of Frequency Control Service in Ercot? Read More »
Michael Giberson Via Reuters: Researchers at New York University’s interactive telecommunications program have come up with a device that allows plants to tell owners when they need water or if they’ve had too much via the social network blogging service Twitter. If only I had had such a device last August, maybe I wouldn’t have …
Michael Giberson The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a story on battery technology and the electric power grid. I’m not sure that there is much new there for anyone who is already paying attention to energy storage issues in bulk power, but the story provides a decent overview. AN ASIDE: I’m am always mildly amused …
Battery Technology and the Electric Power Grid and Unreliable Power Sources Read More »
Michael Giberson A story from the Charlotte Observer provides a reminder of the speed at which useful information about the scarcity of resources percolates through regulated electric utility rates: “Duke to seek rate increases.” In brief, Duke Energy is requesting approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission to raise rates beginning September 2009 and continuing …
Consumers Asked to Pay More Next Year for Last Year’s Increases in Utility Costs Read More »
Michael Giberson Greentech Media has an interesting short article asking whether utilities or customers will take the lead in smart grid deployment. They suggest the answer is “a little of both.” Venture capitalist Gerd Goette says that investors do worry about getting out ahead of utilities when pursuing projects. A smart-grid component that can’t communicate …
Greentech Media Asks, Will Utilities or Customers Lead in Smart Grid? Read More »
Michael Giberson “Twitter marks an advance in freedom,” or at least so says Peder Zane in his column at the Raliegh News & Observer. I wouldn’t know, since I still don’t drink from the fountain of tweets. Only, I happened to notice at the end of an essay by Amartya Sen in the New York …
Michael Giberson At the Freakonomics blog they mentioned Walk Score, a website that will calculate walk-ability for an address based on number of nearby stores, parks, and other useful places. They admit that there scoring formula doesn’t get everything, but it did a reasonable job comparing my new address in Lubbock, Texas and my old …
Walk Score: Comparing My New and Old Neighborhoods Read More »
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