Michael Giberson At Platt’s The Barrel blog, Dave Ernsberger writes that, “no one particularly loves an economist, especially the ones that work at Wall Street banks.” But then he recalls that, about three years ago when oil prices were about $55/barrel, Goldman Sachs economist Arjun N. Murti briefly became famous in energy and finance circles …
Foreseeing $105/barrel Oil: a Reason to Love an Economist Read More »
Michael Giberson The WSJ’s Environmental Capital blog reports that venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (early backers of companies like Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com and Google), has become excited by clean technology. Kleiner partner John Doerr said the company hoped to cash in on what it believes will be a multi-trillion-dollar market for alternative …
Michael Giberson According to the Xcel Energy news release: The advanced, smart grid system – when fully implemented over the next few years – will provide customers with a portfolio of smart grid technologies designed to provide environmental, financial and operational benefits. Xcel Energy anticipates funding only a portion of the project, and plans to …
Xcel Will Make Boulder Colorado Its First “Smart Grid City” Read More »
Michael Giberson David Pogue in the New York Times: I can’t tell you how huge this is going to be. There will be thousands of iPhone programs, covering every possible interest. The iPhone will be valuable for far more than simple communications tasks; it will be the first widespread pocket desktop computer. You’re witnessing the …
Michael Giberson Via Texas Tech Today: If all of the cattle, swine and poultry waste across the United States could be collected and converted to electricity, the resulting energy could produce 80 percent of the nation’s current electrical power needs, while also generating marketable high-end plants and extracts. And the system works, at least on …
Turning Cattle, Swine and Poultry Waste into Electric Power Read More »
Michael Giberson I’m swamped with work and have a lot of reading stacked up in the queue, so I haven’t had a chance to check out all of the good stuff that has been coming out of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center lately. Here are a couple of recent working papers: Seth Blumsack, Lester …
Analysis out of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center Read More »
Michael Giberson If you, like me, were looking forward to the FCC’s auction of prime 700 MHz wireless spectrum — and frankly who wouldn’t be interested in seeing how the FCC’s new hierarchical package bidding rules worked out in the C-block auction — you may have noticed the distinct lack of news on the topic …
Whatever Happened to the Fcc’s Big Spectrum Auction? Read More »
Michael Giberson So, I’ve been thinking more about Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano’s goal of turning the state into “the Persian Gulf of solar energy.” Last week I concluded that devoting about 236 square miles of Arizona desert to solar generators — like the recently announced state-of-the-art Solana Generating Station — would be enough to make …
Michael Giberson The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported over the weekend that Texas grid operator ERCOT broke the rules during the response to last Tuesday’s emergency conditions brought on by a sudden loss of wind power. The rules call upon ERCOT to make appeals through the news media for conservation during emergencies. ERCOT officials acknowledged that …
Michael Giberson Arnold Kling notes Ray Kurzweil’s optimistic forecast on solar power (from LiveScience). Here’s the Kurzweil quote on solar power: “It is doubling now every two years. Doubling every two years means multiplying by 1,000 in 20 years. At that rate we’ll meet 100 percent of our energy needs in 20 years.” Kling’s response: …
Kling on Kurzweil on Solar Power, with an Aside on Politics Read More »
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