Category Archives: Energy

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For decades the prevailing assumption has been that the primary enemies of environmental health, the essential aiders and abetters of catastrophic climate change, were the barons of industry, who sacrificed the planet for profit. Undeniably, they played a part. But they are not the main villains of this story.

An example: the speaker at the service-club meeting had done a good job of summarizing the scary, looming effects of climate change, he had the audience’s attention and concern. A questioner raised his hand: “We hear all this dire stuff but nobody ever says exactly what we have to do to avoid it.” 

“Okay,” said the speaker, “let’s start with this; how about a 15% surcharge on all energy produced by fossil fuels to encourage conservation and fund mitigation?” The answer was immediate: “Oh, hell, no!”

And there you have it. The American consumer absolutely refuses to be inconvenienced or penalized in any way in order to deal with a threat that looms over the future of humankind on earth. If you can solve it without interfering with my lifestyle, fine, otherwise, “fuggedaboudit.” Continue reading →

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3D Electric powerlines over sunrise

On Christmas Eve, the operator of the Eastern US power grid, one of the three grids in the country, declared a system-wide emergency as a savage winter storm brought high winds and sub-zero temperatures to much of the country. Demand for electricity, especially for heat, was threatening to overwhelm the system, as it did last year in Texas.

A system-wide Stage 2 emergency, which is what PJM, the company that operates the grid, declared, is quite rare in the Eastern grid, the previous one having occurred eight years ago. In such an emergency, power companies in the network are required to plead with their customers to voluntarily reduce power consumption by turning down thermostats (not something you want to hear in a blizzard) and forgoing the use of major appliances. In addition, businesses enrolled in “demand response” programs, by prior agreement with electric utilities, reduce their consumption and are compensated later for doing so. Continue reading →

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This attractive young lady is programming her smart thermostat to destroy the world.

We made “smart” thermostats too smart: they’ve hatched a plot to take down the electric grid. (BTW: whenever you see the word “smart” attached to an inanimate thing, know that something really stupid is going on.)

Smart thermostats contain a timer that, during the heating season, lowers the temperature of the house a few degrees while its residents are most likely asleep, then returns it to the preset level by the time they arise for the day. Marketers assure householders that a smart thermostat can save them 30% on their energy costs. Reality is more like 5%. Nevertheless, the pitch has worked so well that 40% of all US households are now governed by a smart thermostat. That’s 50 million homes (as of 2020).Only after this had happened did anybody realize what the hitch was.  Continue reading →

I never thought I would be even tempted to defend the oil industry, and that’s not exactly what I intend to do here, but their situation, and the situation in which they have put us,  need a little explaining. There are two major narratives about the oil business currently, spurred by spiking fuel prices and corporate profits. One is that President Biden is responsible for high fuel prices; there’s no point in even discussing that notion, it is simply too dumb to live. The other, embraced by a large number of very smart people, is that the oil companies are making obscene profits by price gouging — raising prices simply because they can, and using the profits to buy back stocks and pay higher dividends and salaries.

They are raising prices, and they are racking up historic profits, but to understand what’s happening to them, and us, we need to know, as Paul Harvey used to croon, “the rest of the story.” Continue reading →

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The drumbeat began with the rattling of a snare drum or two; now the tympani are being bludgeoned with sledge hammers. As a Washington Post headline puts it today: “A summer of blackouts? Wheezing power grid leaves states at risk.” The article — one of many like it appearing in heavyweight publications in recent weeks — says that the nation’s power grid is “under stress like never before,” and “could buckle in large areas of the country” with the onset of a summer that is forecast to be brutally hot. Continue reading →

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Elon Musk made $36 billion in one day this week. (Monday, October 25, 2021). Well, he didn’t really make it, he sort of won it — the New York Stock Casino bestowed it upon him after learning that Hertz, the rental-car company, had placed an order for 100,000 Teslas, the electric car that Musk’s company developed. Today, Musk is the richest man in America, perhaps the world, with a personal net worth estimated at $255 billion. His company’s market value exceeded a trillion dollars — said to be more than any other company, ever.

Musk developed the market for all-electric cars pretty much by himself, but his obvious success has stimulated such industrial mastodons as General Motors and Ford to say, hey, wait, me too. GM has gone so far as to say it will make nothing but electric cars by 2035, and will introduce 30 new models within four years. Ford launched an all-electric F-150 pickup truck, announced it would invest $22 billion in EVs and that 40% of its vehicles will be all-electric by 2030. 

So the burden of powering the nation’s transportation system is about to be transferred to an electric grid that is already failing in the face of rising demand, old age, mismanagement and climate change. Continue reading →

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One of the least understood and least reported stories of the Covid era has been the death of fracking — the much-touted “new technology” that was supposed to usher in a revolution of the American oil industry that would lead to energy independence and world oil-market domination. It did no such thing. It did not even come close. And now it is shutting down.

At a time when world oil demand and prices are rising, and the production of oil has become theoretically profitable again after a long, pandemic-induced coma, legacy oil fields are ramping up production and singing, “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Fracking, on the other hand, is sinking deeper into its final coma. Continue reading →

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The 800-mile-long Alaska Pipeline, one of the wonders of the industrial world, is about to become a victim of climate change. But it really doesn’t matter much.

One of my favorite things is to connect two major news stories, each of which is credible on its own,  but one of which cancels the other. One of my least favorite things is the shoddy journalism that goes into one of the stories. So today is the best of days, and the worst of days.

Story number one is alarming on its face, and at that somewhat understates the danger: “Alaska: One of the World’s Largest Pipelines Threatened by Thawing Permafrost,” blares one of the many headlines seen around the world. The fact is, the pipeline is doomed. On the other hand, it’s not going to matter very much. Continue reading →