I think it would be a system operator’s nightmare. You’re responsible for keeping everyone’s lights on, but a passing set of clouds cuts the output from several solar arrays from 100% to 20% — and then raises it back up to 100% in less than a minute.

Fluctuations like that would put me in the (more…)

The electric bike trend has apparently exploded all across the world. If you had gone to an alternative energy or electric bicycle convention 10 years ago you would have barely seen more than a dozen electric bicycle models on display. Of course, there were many reasons for this; mostly because electric power assisted bicycles were not advanced enough and (more…)

In advance of the Frankfurt Auto Show next week, details are leaking out about the plug-in hybrid and all-electric (or battery electric if you prefer) vehicles that will be showcased there. Automakers from Asia to Europe to North America are busy trying to outdo each other with promises of fuel efficiency and reduced emissions.

Hyundai, Mercedes, Fisker, Peugot and others will be in Germany, touting electric vehicles due to go on sale within the next few years. Most automakers are hedging their bets by promising both PHEVs and EVs at some point in the future.

But the hype around plug-ins so far has been greater than EVs for good reason — there will be a wider selection of models, and they are likely to sell in far greater quantities through the first half of the 2010’s than battery-electrics. PHEVs will sell because they will sufficiently address consumer expectations in the key areas of performance at a substantially reduced cost.

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Last night I had the dubious distinction of being the guy sitting next to former director of the CIA, Ambassador, and Undersecretary of the Navy (a post he held before I was born), and current Senior Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton and partner at Vantage Point Venture Partners, R. James Woolsey.

He has a fairly clear message that he is happy to share with anyone that will listen:

The United States is at grave risk to both “malignant” and “malevolent” disruptions to the grid and that threat can be addressed through distributed renewable generation which can simultaneously reduce the importance of oil to the ignominious fall from grace of salt.

I have had the pleasure of hearing him speak and spending some time with him before moderating last night’s event, and despite how highly I thought of him before, he did not disappoint.  His is a decidedly aggressive approach to the US’ energy future, and like the well trained litigator he is, he presents his case very well.  Electric vehicles and distributed renewables are the hallmarks of an utopian (utopic?) energy future, that would leave OPEC states reeling with the need to find, as he puts it,  honest work, and reducing the disposable cash reserves some currently use to fund terrorist activities.

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