Comments for Clean Energy Wonk

Comment on Vehicle to Grid, without the Vehicle by Power Bank with Flashlight

Power Bank with Flashlight — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:25:57 +0000

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Comment on When it Makes Sense to Worry About Jevons Paradox, and When it Doesn’t by freedom13

freedom13 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:18:35 +0000

You’ve got great insights about Green Enegy Possibilities, keep up the good work!

Comment on Bill Konrad 1930-2011 by Tom

Tom — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:20:15 +0000

Thanks.

Comment on Bill Konrad 1930-2011 by David Lane

David Lane — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:27:35 +0000

Thank you for publishing this. I know that we owe your Dad gratitude for your fine contributions. You certainly have my condolences. What a tremendous loss.

Comment on Visual Comparison of Electricity Generation Technologies by Lea Courtney

Lea Courtney — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:25:00 +0000

“What people want to believe is that so-called “clean” or “renewable” energy is the future. The reality is that although there have been recent advancements in technology on a number of levels; we are still a long way off from efficient vs. cost. Once the government incentives drop off or are reduced we’ll be back to slow motion once again. This is not to mention all the other problems with renewable as we know them today such as irradiance or what happened when there is no wind.”-Indeed true.

Comment on The Cost of Transmission by Tom

Tom — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:08:16 +0000

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadername2=Content-Type&blobheadervalue1=inline%3B+filename%3D%22REDI+Report+(Full+Version).pdf%22&blobheadervalue2=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251746588129&ssbinary=true

Comment on The Cost of Transmission by Cedric

Cedric — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:54:27 +0000

Dear Tom,

This is really interesting!

I just finished my PhD on the integration of wind power using demand response. In my further research, I would like to compare demand response opportunities with transmission interconnection and other sources of storage/flexibility. Could I get access to the presentation/publication behind as well as the excel file you refer to (I found a link on the internet, but it does not work)?

Thanks in advance for your reply!

Comment on They do it with Mirrors: Concentrating Solar Power by jack

jack — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:08:46 +0000

Hello , my name is jagjit hans. I would like to enquire about the price of one dish stirling. I am interested in buying one dish and taking it to India to start an buisness.Thank you

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Jagjit Hans
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Comment on Another Cost Comparison For Renewable Electricity by Dr.A.Jagadeesh

Dr.A.Jagadeesh — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:05:20 +0000

Solar power generation is expensive far far above Wind power generation in India.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com

Comment on They do it with Mirrors: Concentrating Solar Power by Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal’s Lunch - Alternative Renewable Energies

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:47:30 +0000

[...] renewable energy advocates (myself included) have long seen CSP as core to the decarbonization of the electric grid. That’s because CSP [...]

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Tom Konrad

Tom Konrad — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 04:22:10 +0000

No, Marc, Small is not always beautiful when it comes to efficiency, as you point out. The idea I’m trying to put forward here is that even though modular technologies may not be as efficienct or cost effective as industrial technologies, they may end up triumphing anyway because their small scale allows the technology to progress much faster.

Another way to think about it is evolution… small creatuers tend to live and reproduce much faster than large ones, and given more generations, they may be able ot eveolve qucker and be more sucessful as a species than a much more impressive large creature.

In other words, expect surprising progress from modular technologies… they may end up beating large scale technologies, even if the latter look better on paper.

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Marc Gunther

Marc Gunther — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:47:04 +0000

Great post, Tom, thanks, but is small always beautiful? One reason why EVs are more efficient and lower carbon that the internal combustion engine, I’m told, is because even a coal plant wastes less energy than many thousands of automobile engines.

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Tom

Tom — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:32:05 +0000

Modular to industrial scale is a continuum… wind and flow batteries are somewhere in between. I chose to consider flow batteries industrial scale because the more hours of energy storage you have, the more economical they become, so the economics mean that they’ll generally be big.

Another way to think of it is that modular technologies have some hope of entering consumer markets, like the solar calculator example.

Wind got its start with small turbines, although it’s more economic at large scale. But until someone invents a 1 kW flow battery, I think it will remain an industrial scale technology. They may still succeed, but hte path is harder.

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Jeff Brothers

Jeff Brothers — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:16:28 +0000

Tom,
We agree with your conclusions. Sol Orchard is a leader in the Distributed Utility scale solar installations, and we believe it is the right choice for most utilities because the power is consumed right where it’s produced, which has many advantages for the utilities. We also think distributed storage will be of value to the utilities, and have some initiatives to prove that out.
Not sure I agree with the flow battery being an industrial scale technology. One of the initiatives has a flow battery at the 1 MW scale, and it seems promising to me.
Love your work. You are truly an asset to the renewable industry.
Jeff

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Tom

Tom — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:50:54 +0000

I don’t think we have enough information to determine the economic merit of the powercube. I think there are enough functions that such a system could provide to easily pay for itself, but it might be a lot harder to get everyone who could benefit from those services to agree to pay of them,

Comment on Small is Beautiful by David Van

David Van — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:56:02 +0000

Makes sense to me, thanks! Speaking of grid based battery storage, what do you make of the Axion Powercube being integrated behind the meter as some kind of demand response system? I’m curious about the economic merit. http://tinyurl.com/7f42x2z

Comment on Small is Beautiful by Green Jobs UK

Green Jobs UK — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:54:48 +0000

There’s no doubt PV has become viable for homes and business the cost of PV has fallen around 30% in the past couple of years alone. And the growth in the Wind power has been big also but the UK FIT has helped to push solar forward in the UK, but that’s all changing this month. So we’ll have to see what happens to the UK solar industry.

Comment on They do it with Mirrors: Concentrating Solar Power by Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal’s Lunch - Alternative Renewable Energies

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:26:08 +0000

[...] renewable energy advocates (myself included) have long seen CSP as core to the decarbonization of the electric grid. That’s [...]

Comment on They do it with Mirrors: Concentrating Solar Power by Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal's Lunch - Forbes

Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal's Lunch - Forbes — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:27:01 +0000

[...] renewable energy advocates (myself included) have long seen CSP as core to the decarbonization of the electric grid. That’s [...]

Comment on Fuel Efficiency in the US by Tom

Tom — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:41:54 +0000

They aren’t really my numbers… I just liked the graphic, but I suspect that the reason Diesels are shown to have much higher MPG is that there are only a very few diesel passenger car models available in the US. Diesel typically on gives about a 20% fuel economy boost in comparable cars.