Thursday, May 29, 2014

Mac Bandy

I heard today that google searches for Climate Change are down 85% in the last seven years. This suggests that Climate Change messaging sucks.

Recommended Viewing


Monday, May 26, 2014

Recommended Reading

Stanford to divest from coal companies

QOTD

And of course we have to answer open questions, eg, to control the power grid when many solar panels and wind turbines feed their electricity. But these are harmless problems towards finding a repository for radioactive waste or the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Detlef Neuhaus

Thursday, May 22, 2014

QOTD

"Due to the massive drop in cost of solar systems, it is now possible to produce electricity at a depreciation of the plant for over 30 years to around 5.5 cents."

Michael Boenisch, Heckert Solar AG Sales Manager

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Thursday, May 15, 2014

My Hero is me in 10 Years

In a moment of giddy candor Musk revealed that his hero is him in 10 years. When ask why 10 years Musk paused thoughtfully... "It's not an exact science but I figure I'll need 10 more years to build my life-force. Additionally... Our technology roadmaps need this amount of time to reach criticality." It was at this point that Musk started dropping bombs... "Developing the Lithium Ion battery factory has nothing to do with cars... It's all about achieving power densities that enable Lightsabers. Red, Green, Blue... We think we can achieve the full spectrum of Sabers." In a subsequent revelation the father of SpaceX indicated his space project also has nothing to do with its stated goals... "Mars is a lifeless ball of dirt which I have no interest in visiting... Our goal is to develop a space cruiser capable of reaching Tatooine." May the Force be with you Elon.

FU Yummy

Woke up, got out of bed, had a smoke and ate some lead... I've been trying out this new breakfast product called Fossil Flakes - they're preposterously delicious. As a side benefit they cause weight loss. How awesome is that? This is ironic but as I was sucking down my Flakes I came across this quote in Coal Digest...

"Since the mid-1990s, the coal industry has used mountaintop removal mining to extract coal - destroying more than one million acres of Appalachian forest and burying nearly 2,000 miles of streams."

America... FUCK yeah... As if things couldn't get any better I noticed the Fossil Flakes box had a whole story on the back. Gripping stuff...

At FU Industries we strive to be environmental stewards. We're proud to say that when it comes to packaging our materials we don't stop at 100% preused materials... Our clientists have found that our packaging actually comes from 8353% preused materials - oops... 8354%.

Our environmental leadership doesn't stop there... At FU Industries we not only make our packaging out of pre-used materials - we make everything inside out of pre-used materials as well. At FU Industries we live by the 10 to 1 promise... We guarantee that 10 calories of fossil fuels were used to process every calorie that goes into your mouth. We think you can taste the difference. As a bonus... each bite is guaranteed to have trace amounts of real fly ash residues. Folks around here like to say... Mmm Mmm Mmm... FU Yummy...

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Recommended Reading

Home energy management grows in some mind-bending ways

Economics of Photoelectrictricity - May 2014

Economics of Photoelectrictricity - May 2014

*Completed the Reserve Unit Translator.
*Added a pie chart visualization to the LCOE Calculator.
*Built a Worksheet Reordering tool to better organize the worksheets.
*Expanded the Blender function and tweaked the data entry layout
*Added a tool that removes data associated with a specific source.
*Expanded the information displayed with the Energy Report tool.
*Added a bridging tool that fills in missing data. So for example if data exists for the years 2000 and 2008 the bridging function will fill in data for the years inbetween with an exponential guess. The bridging tool will also bring data up to the present year by assuming persistance... i.e. If there is data for 2011 it will be carried over to 2012 and 2013.
*The bridging data is coded to have a source of *... I added an abridging tool which quickly removes all * data leaving valid sourced data only.
*Added a tool that estimates the TWh generated by photoelectric systems based on the installed GW per country. The function relies on population weighted insolation stats.
*Added several functions that allow new countries to be added or removed as well as moved around in the database.
*Added a This per That tool. This allows the user to generate derivative pages. For example, CO2 per Person or CO2 per GDP or Watts of Solar per Person.
*Expanded the Country Datasheets to include regions... Africa, North Africa, Middle East, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia et cetera.
*Improved the PVinsight and Energy Trend data downloaders such that they run a logic check on the downloaded data and will redownload data if they see any junk. Also added dedicated pages for Monthly/Quarterly data along with code that automatically updates the pages.
*Added a visualization of Photoelectric Module prices that shows how prices have evolved since 1975.
*Aligned the Electricity Price pages to the standard layout and retuned the currency converter tool.
*Added Production data for an assortment of major minerals.
*Added Production data for ethanol and biodiesel.
*Added Import and Export data for Coal, Oil, Natural Gas and Uranium.
*Added TPES data for Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Renewables and All Sources.
*Added pages for GW, Renewables and Thermal as well as TWh of Renewables and Thermal

Ideas
*Add more data on Energy Use per Sector - Transport in particular. The goal here is to gather enough information to be able to synthesize TPES stats.
*Add graphs and visualiations to the Energy Report tool. Add graphs and visualizations in general.
*Finish importing Major Mineral data.
*Go after regional data which I've been neglecting up to this point.
*Produce instructional videos that explain how to use all the tools.
*Add logic that looks at past capacity factors and carries those forward and allows for the estimation of TWh based on installed GW.

I did a hell of a lot of work on the project this month. One night I got out of bed at midnight and worked for several hours to finish off a script. At this point I don't have any ideas that will get me out of bed. The tool has gotten to be well organized and very flexible. When I read an article I can quickly cross-check the data from the article against EPE regardless of the units used. Not saying EPE is boring but I've completed my ya gotta do list - no critical subjects remain - I'm working off a nice to do list...

I have another project, PEPE, which I've been neglecting... not for lack of interest but for lack of both path and data. Earlier this week I read a thesis paper that provided both missing ingredients. PEPE is an photoelectric modeling tool and an energy modeling tool rolled into one. PEPE can currently model the performance of a photoelectric system, household appliance load and household lighting load. What PEPE lacks is the ability to model household heating and cooling load - these are huge loads but difficult to model. It will take several weeks of work but I believe I have a roadmap I can use to add these heating and cooling simulation abilities. Once heating and cooling simulations are added I'll be able to model photoelectric energy production against total household energy consumption and simulate how energy management can align the two. This is something I've had on my mind for about 4 years. I've used EPE as a meantime project to stay busy and develop skills which I can apply to PEPE. EPE is currently sitting at 12 MB and PEPE will easily be that large so integrating the two would produce a cumbersome product. The basic plan is to stripe out a few of the worksheets from EPE and build them into PEPE. The striped out EPE sheets would provide finacial modeling abilities to PEPE. The goal is to have a tool which is simple to use - you pick your house typology (built in 1980 for example), answer some questions (how many people live in the home and what appliances you own for example) and press play. The program would then calculate the economic performance at a range of system sizes, display the results and suggest an optimum.

There's a decent chance of completing an upgrade to PEPE in the next month and change. This would free up some time for things like cooking, hiking and riding my new bike. In the last two weeks I've tried out three new recipes - Roman Chicken, Indian Butter Chicken and Thai Coconut Chicken... Maybe I'll pivot to beef or lamb or pork? We'll see..

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Mac Bandy


When it rains it doesn't necessarily pour... Sometimes it sprinkles. Sometimes you'll get a rainbow.

My wife drew a three legged man when she was is kindergarten. Problem was the middle leg was a little short so the picture looked more dick man than stick man. Aimee claims she was showing correct perspective.

We had a class project to draw idioms once. Early bird get the worm - don't bet your bottom dollar - that sorta stuff. I drew a man's home is his castle. Johnny drew a massacre of cats and dogs splashed on houses and front yards, dangling from trees and powerlines and shit. A few frantically falling through the air. It's raining cats and dogs he says.

Recommended Reading

Tandem devices and Perovskite cells