Energy

Going to an area where there are a lot of wind vanes can be shocking. The noise and environmental blight for so little energy isn't worthwhile, and needing to get exemptions from endangered species laws due to deaths of avians like eagles make them a real negative. Solar panels have a little better cultural response but can still be unattractive. If you are a wealthy elite who doesn't like the appearance, or a government building using taxpayer funds, you may be able to turn architectural constraints into alternative energy without ruining the aesthetic. The archaeological park of Pompeii…

When French and German intelligence agencies passed along to the U.S. CIA that Iraq was acquiring components to build weapons of mass destruction, they did it assuming President Bush was like President Clinton and such information would send America to the negotiating table to loosen restrictions on the Iraq embargo that France and Germany were violating on the black market anyway. 'Promise not to build bombs and we'll let you buy more stuff' tactics that had worked for North Korea. He was not Clinton and when he heard there might soon be a nuclear or chemical bomb in the hands of a…

One of the sillier commercials for a cell phone I have seen in recent memory is some guy shaking his head in sadness that his phone is out of battery and a kindly person places her phone on his to give him a boost. They were able to use the Qi wireless charging capability to share energy with each other. This looked like a solution without a problem. If you are going to be that despondent without your phone, you bring one of those little charging packs, you bring a power cord, you are not shaking your head like you unwittingly got placed into an episode of "Alone" and have been dropped into…

The Biden administration has issued a decree that any furnace sold after 2029 must be a "condensing" furnace, and his environmental group allies are thrilled they have locked in another win. It may not be a win for the public. Imagine you are a consumer and your hot water heater goes bad and you find out your home does not have the ventilation needed to install the furnace the federal government has given you no choice in buying. You instead have to buy an electric furnace, and then your bills are really going up. If you are in a state that has mandated and subsidized solar, like California,…

One thing electric car owners who have lost the mystique tell you is that you live your life around them. Some report going to a store like Costco to charge their cars, they need new service panels at their house, and one owner famously blew up his Tesla with dynamite rather than pay $22,000 to replace the batteries when they wore out. An article in the Wall Street Journal was by someone excited to rent an electric car for a trip, only to find they spent more time charging it than sleeping. But, like ethanol, as long as government mandates and subsidizes it, it is here to stay and won't…

The downside to political mandates and subsidies for alternative energy is they place consumers in peril; and when a power grid does go down adjuvant energy sources like solar and wind can't "blackstart" without short circuits and faults. With conventional energy, grid failures are not only far less a concern, they are readily recoverable. The normal step-by-step recovery process takes time but is all relatively easy to control. Start up the turbines, use them to spin generators and watch the electrons flow steadily and predictably to re-energize a grid and withstand short circuits and…

Imagine a world where government decided they would mandate and subsidize existing cellular phones. With no incentive to improve, we'd still be using Motorola StarTacs.  That is the plight of solar panels. In 2009, the US President decided that he could do for $50 billion dollars what scientists and engineers had not been able to do in 50 years - make solar efficient enough to compete. Today, conventional energy is the same percentage of energy as it was then and 3 trillion dollars are gone. Subsidies and mandates are still necessary, financially stressed governments in Florida and…

 Solar power has potential but a crippling weakness that has meant despite trillions of dollars in subsidies and continuing mandates, it has not made a dent in use of conventional energy; it is not on demand and batteries are expensive and going to do more harm to the future than natural gas. The solar energy system MOST – Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage Systems - is starting small but the concept of a specially designed molecule that changes shape when it comes into contact with sunlight scaled to operational sizes might mean real solar farms in remote places that provide…

Nothing is more ridiculous than annual logjammed airports because celebrities use private jets to go to climate conferences and tell attendees eating four-course meals they need to do more to convince poor people using dung and wood for fuel that they should want solar panels. Environmental journalists insist they must also attend in person because it "builds relationships" and they promise to give money to some company that says it will plant a tree to assuage their guilt. It's all nonsense, of course, the kind of rich white elitism that has a different name than in the 19th century but is…

The war in Ukraine has driven oil prices to their highest levels since 2008. As crude oil is the main component of gasoline, the first place Americans encounter price pain is at the pump, with 56% of every gallon of gas reflecting the cost of crude, followed by spikes in home climate control. There’s more pain coming – economists warn that prices for food and consumer goods like iPhones may also soon increase with the cost of transportation and production. Yet, this crisis in America could have been avoided. As we scramble for solutions, it’s crucial to learn from the…