[Episode #55] – Voltage Stability
Energy transition on the power grid is much more complicated than simply replacing fossil fuel and nuclear generators with wind and solar generators. Maintaining high-quality, reliable power will...
View Article[Episode #56] – Blockchain in Energy Transition
The blockchain is one of the most discussed and hyped technologies, and it’s not just limited to crypto-currencies like Bitcoin. There are also plenty of serious people looking at how the tokens and...
View Article[Episode #57] – Climate Science Part 7 – Carbon Budget
In this seventh episode of our mini-series on climate change, we explore what carbon budgets really mean, and what they indicate about the pathways that might allow us to keep global warming below two...
View Article[Episode #58] – Solar with Storage
Historically, thermal concentrating solar plants were the only type of solar power equipped with storage. But as cheaper PV systems became dominant, thermal solar plants fell into disfavor. Now solar...
View Article[Episode #59] – Lifecycle Assessment
When we need to compare the environmental consequences of energy technologies — between an internal combustion vehicle or an EV, or between a compact natural gas generator and a big wind farm — what’s...
View Article[Episode #1] – The Real War on Coal
How the real war on coal is about economics, geology, and little skirmishes in local courts, not a national or presidential campaign; and the tragic failing of politics to address the phasing-out of...
View Article[Episode #2] – Limits on the Grid – Part 1
What the modeling work of our national renewable energy lab tells us about how far renewables can go on the grid under various scenarios, and their real technical limits. Geek rating: 7 Guest: Mackay...
View Article[Episode #3] – Limits on the Grid – Part 2
How energy markets need to change to level the playing field for renewables, how renewables should be valued, and whether wind and solar must "eat their own lunch" by virtue of having a free marginal...
View Article[Episode #4] – Energiewende
All about Germany's famed energy transition effort, the Energiewende. What it is, what it isn't (with a strong dose of mythbusting), and what the future of grid power looks like from one of the...
View Article[Episode #5] – Winning the Carbon War
One man's sweeping ride through three decades of campaigning for action on climate and deploying solar from a veteran of the "carbon wars," plus his pithy observations on what our leaders in government...
View Article[Episode #6] – Transition from Oil
The recent history of oil production and prices, the future of the oil industry, the potential for transitioning away from oil and the opportunity for EVs, and ERCI - the Energy Returned on Capital...
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...
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