Category Archives: Climate Change

The Stuttering Energy Transition: Fishing in Maine

Posted on January 20, 2015 by climatechangefork

As we approached the new year, I started to describe the global energy transition that’s been taking place, which we hope will take us away from fossil fuels and closer to non-carbon-based energy sources. My plan was to study the … Continue reading →

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The Stuttering Energy Transition and the Sharp Drop in Oil Price

Posted on January 13, 2015 by climatechangefork

Economically, the recent global event that has attracted everybody’s attention is the sharp and major decline in oil prices. Figure 1 shows the decline. I am writing this blog on Friday, January 9th, and the price of Brent Crude is … Continue reading →

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Assessment: Winter 2015

Posted on January 6, 2015 by climatechangefork

In my July 8, 2014 blog, I promised to check in with four self-assessment reports throughout the year, at the following times: The commemorations of the American and French Revolutions (first two weeks of July) The Jewish religion’s holy day, … Continue reading →

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Storage

Posted on December 30, 2014 by climatechangefork

As I have mentioned before, electric utilities must necessarily store electricity in order to keep up with the fluctuations in consumer demands (July 29 – August 12 blogs). For example, all around the world (where people are connected to electrical … Continue reading →

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Producers

Posted on December 23, 2014 by climatechangefork

As I discussed in the in the last blog, the feed-in tariff that was introduced as a key element in the German energy transition has resulted in the Germans paying among the highest electricity rates in the world. It was … Continue reading →

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany – Consumers

Posted on December 16, 2014 by climatechangefork

The German Renewable Energy Act (German: Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG) was designed to encourage cost reductions based on improved energy efficiency from economies of scale over time. The Act came into force in the year 2000 and was the initial spark behind … Continue reading →

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Stuttering Energy Transitions: Germany

Posted on December 9, 2014 by climatechangefork

2015 is knocking at the door. I just got The Economist’s “The World in 2015” special issue both in print and digital form. It’s full of numbers, predictions and stories. Most of its numbers and predictions are optimistic extrapolations of … Continue reading →

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The Price of Wobbling

Posted on December 2, 2014 by climatechangefork

Thanksgiving is around the corner (at the time of writing – by the time this is posted it will be a few days after) and the semester is just about over. This time of the year the students are focusing … Continue reading →

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Yes We Can 3: The Alcohol Debate

Posted on November 25, 2014 by climatechangefork

This will be the last in the series of blogs on EROI that started with John Morgan’s guest blog (November 4). The set of data in all three blogs was based on a paper by Weißbach et al. that suggested … Continue reading →

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Yes We Can 2: The Weißbach Paper

Posted on November 18, 2014 by climatechangefork

A few weeks ago, John Morgan wrote a guest blog here (November 4, 2014) called “The Catch-22 of Energy Storage and EROI.” My conversation with him started by way of a Twitter discussion of David MacKay’s paper on the long … Continue reading →

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