Blackouts
Blackouts
Could Regional Electric Grid Impose Costly CA Policies on Other States?
When talking about the management of California’s power grid, people’s eyelids will surely grow heavy before you finish making your point. But how California’s power grid is managed is incredibly important. Think back to 2001 and California’s electricity crisis and the rolling blackouts. I once had the chance to visit ...
Blackouts
Stop squandering California’s energy resources
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. just announced plans to prematurely shutter California’s sole nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon. The news came hours after energy officials issued the year’s first “flex alert” — a warning that certain areas should conserve energy to avoid a blackout. That’s right — at a time ...
Blackouts
CAPITAL IDEAS: California Following Dangerous Energy Path
Read the full brief On a sweltering June day, the California Independent System Operator (CalISO), the group that oversees the state’s electricity grid, issued the first “flex alert” of the year. That same week, a major California utility announced it had reached an agreement with the environmental community to close ...
Blackouts
Moonbeams Over California: The 33-percent Non-solution
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed SB 2x by Joe Simitian, mandating that 33 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020, an increase of 13 percent from the previous mandate of 20 percent. This signals bad news for California but reveals a key dynamic of our ...
Blackouts
The Energy Policy Morass
‘Think, Baby, Think’ April 26, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 30 If you think the health care debate is a tangled mess, try wading into the thickets of the energy sector, which is high on the Obama administration’s list of targets to subjugate. Few areas of national policy offer as bad ...
Blackouts
Attention Greens and Geeks: Time for an Energy Revolution
Earth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a difficult matter. The electricity grid’s basic structure hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison came ...
Blackouts
How to Stamp Out Christmas
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On cue, California jumped into the yearly fray over why Christmas symbols and carols get banned from schools and other public places, when that well-known religious radical, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ignited a controversy by pointedly calling the state’s official “holiday” tree its “Christmas” tree instead. Schwarzenegger is ...
Blackouts
Network Theory Can Explain US Credit Crunch
The financial crisis currently consuming the U.S. has led tech industry leaders, such as Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Steve Ballmer, to speak out in favor of quick Congressional action. Tech stocks, as well as general stocks, have plummeted, and there is confusion over why this crisis is happening and spreading so ...
Blackouts
The Credit Crunch is a Network Failure
Dr. John Rutledge Blog, September 30, 2008 My friend Sonia Arrison, the technology wizard at Pacific Research Institute, asked me to give her my current thinking about how to analyze the current credit crunch as a cascading network failure, a subject I wrote about in Chapters 6 and 7 of ...
Blackouts
Coal Power Opposition Raises Blackout Possibilities
The lights may soon go out in the Washington, DC metro area and other parts of the country due to environmental activist opposition to coal-fired power plants, energy analysts are warning. “Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities, say, it could become ...
Could Regional Electric Grid Impose Costly CA Policies on Other States?
When talking about the management of California’s power grid, people’s eyelids will surely grow heavy before you finish making your point. But how California’s power grid is managed is incredibly important. Think back to 2001 and California’s electricity crisis and the rolling blackouts. I once had the chance to visit ...
Stop squandering California’s energy resources
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. just announced plans to prematurely shutter California’s sole nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon. The news came hours after energy officials issued the year’s first “flex alert” — a warning that certain areas should conserve energy to avoid a blackout. That’s right — at a time ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: California Following Dangerous Energy Path
Read the full brief On a sweltering June day, the California Independent System Operator (CalISO), the group that oversees the state’s electricity grid, issued the first “flex alert” of the year. That same week, a major California utility announced it had reached an agreement with the environmental community to close ...
Moonbeams Over California: The 33-percent Non-solution
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed SB 2x by Joe Simitian, mandating that 33 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020, an increase of 13 percent from the previous mandate of 20 percent. This signals bad news for California but reveals a key dynamic of our ...
The Energy Policy Morass
‘Think, Baby, Think’ April 26, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 30 If you think the health care debate is a tangled mess, try wading into the thickets of the energy sector, which is high on the Obama administration’s list of targets to subjugate. Few areas of national policy offer as bad ...
Attention Greens and Geeks: Time for an Energy Revolution
Earth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a difficult matter. The electricity grid’s basic structure hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison came ...
How to Stamp Out Christmas
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On cue, California jumped into the yearly fray over why Christmas symbols and carols get banned from schools and other public places, when that well-known religious radical, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ignited a controversy by pointedly calling the state’s official “holiday” tree its “Christmas” tree instead. Schwarzenegger is ...
Network Theory Can Explain US Credit Crunch
The financial crisis currently consuming the U.S. has led tech industry leaders, such as Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Steve Ballmer, to speak out in favor of quick Congressional action. Tech stocks, as well as general stocks, have plummeted, and there is confusion over why this crisis is happening and spreading so ...
The Credit Crunch is a Network Failure
Dr. John Rutledge Blog, September 30, 2008 My friend Sonia Arrison, the technology wizard at Pacific Research Institute, asked me to give her my current thinking about how to analyze the current credit crunch as a cascading network failure, a subject I wrote about in Chapters 6 and 7 of ...
Coal Power Opposition Raises Blackout Possibilities
The lights may soon go out in the Washington, DC metro area and other parts of the country due to environmental activist opposition to coal-fired power plants, energy analysts are warning. “Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities, say, it could become ...
