Tag Archives: renewable energy

My Comments before Georgia’s Public Service Commission 5 Nov 2013

November 5, 2013 By in Blog, Energy, Natural Gas, Policy, Renewables Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the Commission today.

I spent the last five years studying energy policy, leading to two career changes, and my pursuit of a PhD at Tech in Nuclear Engineering. What I thought was a challenging set of circumstances is much more complex–with significant consequences. Energy is a cornerstone of our economy. It’s use represents 80% of our GDP. If we are to grow our economy, increasing our access to energy carries the utmost importance. It should be our goal to reduce energy’s cost. While we do not have control over fuel costs, we do control how we use them and our policies to regulate their use. Continue reading →

Thermodynamic Wind Energy Analysis: Bonneville Power Administration

September 6, 2013 By in Data Analysis, Energy, Policy, Renewables Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

A thermodynamic paper on a renewable energy source on an economics blog? Seriously?  Yes seriously.

The paper is my first attempt at applying the principles of statistical economics into other fields. I model the consumption and production of various sources of electricity.  Electricity is a pure human creation for human use and is the defining characteristic of modern life.  So yes, it is all connected.

The results shocked me when I saw them. The power of the method is readily apparent and starts to lay bare our understanding or lack thereof of energy production and consumption.

Thermodynamic Wind Energy Analysis: Bonneville Power Administration

I look forward to your comments.

The Second Law: The limited potential of wind energy

March 23, 2013 By in Blog, Data Analysis, Energy, Renewables Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Cal Abel
23 March 2013

After watching An Inconvenient Truth and becoming aware of the push for renewable energy, I questioned the efficacy of renewable energy sources meeting global energy needs. I thought thermodynamics held the key in being able to understand this. Thus my quest began in January 2007. Today, I can report meaningful progress on this subject.

To build the appropriate model, I started with some publicly available fine grain data from the Bonneville Power Administration. I used data from January 1, 2007 00:00 to February 28, 2011 12:05 PST. The data is segregated into 5 minute blocks of the average power within that 5 minute period. Here is the excel file of the BPA wind power/capacity and grid load. You can verify this data by comparing the previous links. The date format is from Mathematica and is in “Absolute Time” : each full integer is 1 second. As a reference, 3376598400 is January 1, 2007 00:00:00 PST. The data is posted here in a parsed format only for your convenience and to aid in your analysis as the entirety of the modeling can readily be done in Excel if so desired. Continue reading →