[Episode #28] – Transition in Cities
It is widely assumed that the ongoing migration of rural peoples to mega-cities all over the world will help reduce humanity’s per-capita energy footprint, while giving people a higher standard of...
View Article[Episode #29] – Grid simulation and wind potential
What combination of power generators on the U.S. grid produces reliable power at the lowest cost? Or, what’s the most renewable energy that can be deployed at a given grid power cost, and what kind of...
View Article[Episode #30] – The Future of Wind
The cost of wind power has been falling steadily again since the 2008 price spike, and newer projects have been coming in at 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, making them very competitive with natural gas...
View Article[Episode #31] – Transition in Ireland
Ireland is one of the most advanced countries in energy transition, getting over a quarter of its electricity from renewables. It also has one of the most ambitious targets—to obtain 40% of its...
View Article[Episode #32] – Resources and Economy
The notion of “decoupling” energy consumption from economic growth has become vogue in policy circles, but how much evidence is there that it’s really happening? If the energy intensity of our economy...
View Article[Episode #33] – Fracking Follies
The US Energy Information Administration, or EIA, regularly updates its estimates for how much oil and gas might be recovered in the future, and at what rate. With the application of new technology...
View Article[Episode #7] – EROI
All about EROI (Energy Return on Investment), the state of biophysical economics, the relationship between energy and ecology, and what EROI could and should tell us about the outlook for a fuel -- for...
View Article[Episode #8] – Storage on the Grid
All about storage on the grid -- in front of the meter -- with a little bit about behind-the-meter storage. How to value storage, how storage complements and replaces generation, and some geeky...
View Article[Episode #9] – Macro Outlook for 2016
A full-spectrum romp through the macroeconomic context: Stock markets; oil and gas prices; coal's collapse; the difficult LNG export market; what commodities are telling us about the health of the...
View Article[Episode #10] – Grid Architecture of the Future
What kind of grid architecture and markets will we need in order to actually operate the distributed, decentralized grid of the future? What sorts of regulatory models will be needed? And what does it...
View Article[Episode #11] – India and Coal
Everyone knows that India is the second-largest coal importing nation in the world, after China, and that it is the fastest-growing source of global CO2 emissions thanks to its rapid adoption of coal....
View Article[Episode #12] – Energy Access for the Developing World
What’s the best way to bring energy to those in the developing world who lack it? Why do forecasts by agencies like IEA always seem to overstate the cost of solutions in the developing world? Why do...
View Article[Episode #13] – The Oracle of Oil
Many have heard of peak oil, but few seem to understand what it really means, and fewer still know much of anything about the father of the idea, M. King Hubbert. In this episode we interview science...
View Article[Episode #14] – China’s Energy Future
China is always a bit of an enigma to the West: It is the world’s largest user of coal and the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide; the world’s largest car market; it has the world’s largest...
View Article[Episode #15] – The Outlook for Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles are all the rage right now, and hopes are high that we might finally be able to transition off of oil and on to electric cars…preferably, cars powered by clean renewable electricity...
View Article[Episode #16] – Energy Efficiency Markets
Improving efficiency is almost always easier and cheaper than generating new power, so efficiency should be our first target in energy transition. But it’s usually the last. And while there are very...
View Article[Episode #17] – Denmark’s Energy Transition
In percentage terms, Denmark is the world leader in energy transition, as well as the king of wind power. Wind now supplies 42% of all Denmark’s electricity, and by 2020, the country plants to get...
View Article[Episode #18] – The Collapse of Coal
The last of the big-time U.S. coal companies has gone bankrupt, and in the hills of Appalachia, they’re looking for their next move. How will the former coal miners find new careers and build new...
View Article[Episode #19] – Distributed renewables in Latin America and beyond
Finance geeks, this episode is for you! Latin America has had one of the fastest-growing renewable energy markets on the planet for the past several years, but nobody ever talks about it. We aim to...
View Article[Episode #20] – Grid evolution
Utilities face a host of rapid changes in a what used to be a staid business: new business models, changing supply and demand forecasts, new distributed architectures, new types of resources, new...
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