Category Archives: Electricity

The IEA, Heat, and Net Zero

Summer has officially started. Over the last week or so, I’ve been keeping track of which large US cities have experienced temperatures above 100oF, according to the New York Times weather report (see August 18, 2020 blog for descriptions of … Continue reading

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Electricity Through Fusion: Hope vs. Reality

I am finishing writing this blog on D-Day, Sunday, June 6th. This commemorates the day the Allied forces invaded Normandy on their way to liberating the rest of Western Europe from the Nazi menace. On April 13, 1945, they reached … Continue reading

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Utilities: Calculating our Carbon Footprints

I have used Table 1 in the last few blogs (starting on May 11th) to show the carbon intensities for the various sources of energy that we use in large buildings (greater than 25,000ft2) in NYC. From there, I’ve shown … Continue reading

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Electricity Generation: Carbon Intensity and Composition

Two years ago (June 18, 2019), I discussed higher-education carbon emissions. This included the lists that organizations such as the Sierra Club made to rank campuses across the country by their emissions. We split emissions into three categories: Scope 1 … Continue reading

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Help: How Can We Set Up an Energy Education Park?

In 2012, I was with Vinit Parmar, filming the energy transition in the Sundarbans region in India as it moved from traditional hunter-gatherer life to an electrified society (Quest for Energy – 2012, see the April 29, 2014 blog). In … Continue reading

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Energy Resilience: Winter in Texas

 I have written often about resilience and its importance in our energy transition. You can put the word into the search box and see a plethora of posts. Most of them focus on California and Australia, where climate change has … Continue reading

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Energy Saving on Specific Campuses

There are two branches to making campuses more sustainable: reducing carbon emissions (with the objective of zero carbon by mid-century) and increasing resiliency in the energy supply. We have dealt with both objectives throughout this blog. One campus’ conversion to … Continue reading

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School Energy Use: Smart Grids & the Long Term

Last week I outlined my school’s effort to measure its energy use during the COVID-19 lockdown. As I mentioned there, I got the data following my (approved) visit to the campus. While I was there, I realized that even without … Continue reading

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Using COVID-19 to Measure Energy Consumption at Brooklyn College

I am on the faculty at both CUNY Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. CUNY is a huge institution: The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social … Continue reading

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How to Use COVID-19 to Make your Workplace Greener

The “lonely” Brooklyn College in June This is the beautiful campus where I teach. There are almost no students; it looks lonely. Granted, I took the photograph on Sunday, June 21st, a day when the campus likely wouldn’t look much … Continue reading

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