Wind generation as an intermittent power source adds to the total variability of a regional grid system. A number of studies have been completed that model and analyze wind profiles by region with the intent of better understanding how high penetrations of wind energy might impact system reliability and what steps could be taken to minimize the impacts.
In most cases, these studies are based on available wind data (speed, direction, timing) collected over many years–the type data used by developers forecasting project performance prior to construction. These wind studies are also used by legislators and regulators when evaluating policies that mandate renewable energy development.
Growing evidence from both sides of the Atlantic indicates that performance models based on wind data often promise levels of generation substantially above actual wind power output.…
Continue Reading“There has to be a lot of shrillness taken out of our language,” Environmental Defense Fund chief Fred Krupp said in a moment of candor last month. “In the environmental community, we have to be more humble. We can’t take the attitude that we have all the answers.”(1)
Fred Krupp–please call Joe Romm, the incendiary editor of the (‘Lack of’?) Climate Progress blog of the Center for American Progress. Romm is as shrill as ever, and except to his apocalyptic apostles, people are turned off. What is wine for his hard core is whine to the open-minded, which is the large majority of us. Making jokes about global-warming exaggeration has turned into pretty good sport, as Krupp must know.
The latest from Dr. Doom (what’s new?) is that we are living on borrowed time.…
Continue ReadingAs the battle rages over the federal debt ceiling, more pundits and even some politicians are taking a serious look at a solution that any private organization would have considered from the beginning: selling off assets to satisfy creditors.
Contrary to the doomsday rhetoric of Treasury Secretary Geithner, it is simply not true that the Congress needs to raise the federal debt ceiling, lest Uncle Sam default on existing obligations. On the contrary, large (but feasible) spending cuts, coupled with aggressive privatization of federal assets, would balance the books. There is no need to raise taxes or the debt ceiling.
The bonus to privatization is also market entrepreneurship in place of bureaucratic management. So the asset transfer would be good for both taxpayers and the private sector writ large.
I’ll outline the numbers, then focus on the possible objection to privatizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a topic that should be of the most interest to readers of Master Resource.…
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