Technology – Page 17 – Knowledge Problem

Innovations in Solar Inverter Technologies, and Their Economic Impact

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Following up on Mike’s solar policy post from last week … one of the sub-areas in which development is occurring that I consider thoughtful, and unheralded, is in inverter technologies. When an array of photovoltaic panels generates electricity, it generates a direct current, but for use in conjunction with our alternating current distribution …

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More Smart Grid Q and A at Greentech Media

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling … But wait, there’s more! Greentech Media’s Green Tech Grid channel lists all of their smart grid Q&A interviews (from Jesse Berst and Michael Butler), including the two that I mentioned in my post earlier today. There are also links to other resources, worthy of your perusal.

Smart Grid Q and A at Greentech Media

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Greentech Media has a couple of really good smart grid Q&A articles, one with Peter Fox-Penner and Ahmad Faruqui, and one with Fred Butler. Fox-Penner and Faruqui are two leading economists (with the Brattle Group) in analyzing consumer behavior and price responsiveness in electricity, and Butler is on the New Jersey Public Service …

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My Smart Grid Article in Reason

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling My article on smart grid from the June print edition of Reason is now available online. Here’s the conclusion for a bit of a teaser: The obsolete electro-mechanical electric power network, built by and for a monopoly industry, cannot support the kind of growth experienced during the last 20 years in so many …

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The Bicycle Paved the Road for Automobiles

5 Comments / Economic history, Environmental policy, Technology / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson From Inventing Green, where WIRED writer Alexis Madrigal is blogging his research notes for a forthcoming book The History of Our Future, a discussion of how bicycling may have given the internal combustion engine an early leg up in its competition against steam and electric-powered automobiles (and eventually made the roads unsafe for …

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Perennial Gale of Creative Destruction, Personal Wireless Division

7 Comments / Economics, Technology, Telecom / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Even if it doesn’t end up being the disruptive innovation that these articles suggest, Verizon’s MiFI personal wifi hotspot device makes my little Schumpeterian heart go pitter-pat. Released yesterday, the Verizon MiFi (device by Novatel) is a credit-card sized 3G wireless router that can provide wireless Internet connection for up to 5 devices. …

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2009 Energy Efficiency Indicator Survey

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Johnson Controls and the International Facilities Management Association have released their third annual Energy Efficiency Indicator survey. As summarized in this GreenBiz article, More than 70 percent of respondents are paying more attention to energy efficiency now than they were in 2008. Eighty-five percent of executives believe significant legislation mandating energy efficiency and/or …

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A Good NYT Smart Grid Article

1 Comment / Economics, Electricity, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Here’s a very thoughtful and well-done smart grid article from the New York Times. It focuses on two different cases: the residential real-time pricing product available to ComEd customers in northern Illinois, and the Xcel Energy smart grid project in Boulder. I heartily encourage you to read the whole thing; it’s one of …

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Smart Grid Policy Heats Up

3 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Regulation, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Smart grid policy and activity continue to heat up … I will be attending the NIST-EPRI Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Interim Roadmap Workshop Tuesday and Wednesday in DC, and will be co-chair of a track of sessions on business and policy. The focus of the meeting is “high-level principles” for developing smart grid …

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Using Brain Waves to Write/Type

How cool is this?, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling How cool is this: a University of Wisconsin biomedical engineering student has developed a way to type using brain waves. He posted to Twitter using his brain, literally and not just metaphorically! That’s right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing …

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