10 inventions of Nikola Tesla that changed the world
by expression of truth

Nikola Tesla is finally beginning to attract real attention and encourage serious debate nearly 70 years after his death. Was he for real? A crackpot? Part of an early experiment in corporate-government control?

We know that he was undoubtedly persecuted by the energy power brokers of his day — namely Thomas Edison, whom we are taught in school to revere as a genius. He was also attacked by J.P. Morgan and other “captains of industry.” Upon Tesla’s death on January 7th, 1943, the U.S. government moved into his lab and apartment confiscating all of his scientific research, and to this day none of this research has been made public.

Besides his persecution by corporate-government interests (which is practically a certification of authenticity), there is at least one solid indication of Nikola Tesla’s integrity — he tore up a contract with Westinghouse that was worth billions in order to save the company from paying him his huge royalty payments.

But, let’s take a look at what Nikola Tesla — a man who died broke and alone — has actually given to the world. For better or worse, with credit or without, he changed the face of the planet in ways that perhaps no man ever has. continued…

first published week of:   06/03/2013

100 percent of new power added to the grid in March was solar power
by David Gutierrez

One hundred percent of the new electric generating capacity added to the US power grid in March came from solar power, according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) report.

The report notes that a total of 44 MW of capacity were added from a total of seven projects in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey and North Carolina.

Notably, the FERC report tracks only utility-scale solar power, which is designed to be distributed through the power grid by utility companies much like traditionally sourced power. The report does not include rooftop systems for individual homes and businesses ("distributed capacity"). continued…

first published week of:   04/29/2013

17 Incredible Photos From the Dawn of California's Electrical Age
by kelsey campbell-dollaghan

Los Angeles is inextricably bound to the advent of electricity in American cities—it might technically be the city of angels, but it’s really the city of lights. And lucky for us, the transformation of LA from a dark backwater to radiant city of lights was widely documented.

At Huntington Library's sprawling Edison Archives, 70,000 photos of LA’s so-called “electrical age” tell the story of how electricity—aka "white gold"—made the city what it is. And thanks to a new digital exhibit called Form and Landscape (part of the ongoing Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA program), a group of historians and curators have parsed the most fascinating for us. The curators explain:

Boosters spoke fervently about the opportunity a regular supply of electricity created and the benefit it would provide a mass of people for whom ready access to white gold meant extended hours of productive labor, enhanced quality of their leisure hours, and greater safety while traveling in and about the company’s service area by foot, by mass transit, or by automobile. It is a story of private enterprise elevating individual and collective wellbeing and in doing so contributing toward the public good by taking the smoke out of manufacturing; by making the labor of workers, both wage-earners and domestic, more efficient; by increasing safety and deterring crime; by improving health. continued…

first published week of:   06/24/2013

41 Scientists Warn Obama Admin Against Burning Trees To Produce Electricity
by ari phillips

This week 41 leading scientists sent a letter the the Environmental Protection Agency calling on the agency to use caution when determining what biomass — wood or plant materials — to use for power plants. The letter states that burning trees to produce electricity increases carbon emissions and contributes to air pollution. Burning other biomass, such as perennial grasses or harvest residues that can either regrow quickly or are not needed for other purposes, is quite different from burning forests.

While the biomass industry argues that since trees grow back they offer a carbon neutral form of energy, recent research shows that burning trees for electricity is highly inefficient. An analysis from the National Resources Defense Council states that, “By substituting trees for coal, power plants avoid fossil-fuel carbon emissions”:

“But trees are approximately half water by weight, which means they contain less potential energy per unit of carbon emissions than coal and other fossil fuels do. In other words, to get the same amount of energy from trees as from fossil fuels, many more trees have to be burned, resulting in 40 percent more carbon emissions at the smokestack per unit of energy generated. And even if trees are replanted immediately, it takes many decades for a tree to grow and absorb all the carbon released from the burning of just one tree.”

first published week of:   12/09/2013

eMeter Delivers Applications Targeting the Center of Utilities Innovation Strategy
source emeter

eMeter, A Siemens Business, Equipment Load Management (ELM) and Grid Data Vault (GDV), which are both available on its flagship EnergyIP® grid application platform. An application centric approach makes it easier and faster for utilities to use energy consumption data to address business needs and specifically in Europe to hit 2020 renewable energy targets.

Advanced metering at full scale is essential to utilities as they realign their business processes to hit mandatory renewable energy targets. Utilities worldwide need to act swiftly and decisively with their enterprise framework to adhere to regulatory demands and position themselves for future growth.

EnergyIP is a proven and mature platform that enables utilities to scale from 10k to 50 million meters and capture meter data that can be acted on, reducing business risk and giving the flexibility to respond to changing regulation via rules based configuration tools.

EnergyIP has a proven history of addressing ease of deployment to help utilities manage consumption data and supports a wide range of other applications, from settlements, asset optimization, demand response, and customer engagement. The latest in the EnergyIP application suite, Equipment Load Management (ELM) provides insights into transformers, preventing outages and accidents thereby increasing customer satisfaction although not limited to transformers.

Grid Data Vault (GDV) offers best-in-class data archiving software designed to help utilities cost- effectively manage data growth while enabling data accessibility reducing costs and meeting archiving regulations. Siemens continues to expand on its existing suite of applications seamlessly supported on the EnergyIP smart grid platform.

By lowering the overall cost to scale up, utilities can add more meters or applications to meet their business needs. The business advantages provided by deploying state-of-the-art applications on a proven platform are tangible for both the top and bottom line. EnergyIP supports a high volume of data processing, making it a faster, easier and more flexible platform with advance applications to address unique areas of operational needs while lowering overall total cost of ownership. continued…

first published week of:   11/18/2013

After the ‘Boom’
by Michael A. Marullo, Editor in Chief

As you have probably heard by now, Baby Boomers (my generation, so I can be as candid as I want here) started retiring in 2010 at the rate of about 10,000/day – a trend that will continue for the next two decades – or until we’re all retired and/or dead, whichever comes first. That’s a lot of retirees, and the utility industry will be hit especially hard by this brain drain, as some utilities are already experiencing. Mark my words, however; this problem will get a lot worse before it gets better. We aren’t even halfway up the rising side of the curve, so we’re looking at several more years of increasing retirements before there is any hope of stemming these losses.

We have all lamented the impacts of losing the skills, experience and ingenuity that have been the hallmark of a generation. While it might not rival the Depression Era’s so called Greatest Generation, I can say without false modesty that I’m (mostly) proud of what my generation has accomplished and contributed. By contrast, however, I’m not nearly as proud of the legacy we’re leaving behind, which is ironically punctuated by widespread indifference and protracted neglect of the infrastructure we all worked so hard to create. . continued…

first published week of:   09/16/2013

Alert to Congress: Nuclear evacuation may bog down
by jeff donn | associated press

Regulators and congressional investigators clashed Wednesday over a new report warning that in the event of an accident at a nuclear plant, panicking residents from outside the official evacuation zone might jam the roads and prevent others from escaping.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, which acts as the investigative arm of Congress, challenges a three-decade-old fundamental of emergency planning around American nuclear power plants: that preparations for evacuation should focus on people who live within 10 miles of the site.

The GAO found that people living beyond the official 10-mile evacuation zone might be so frightened by the prospect of spreading radiation that they would flee of their own accord, clog roads, and delay the escape of others. The investigators said regulators have never properly studied how many people beyond 10 miles would make their own decisions to take flight, prompting what is called a "shadow evacuation." As a result, the GAO report says, "evacuation time estimates may not accurately consider the impact of shadow evacuations." continued…

HR Editor's note: Really? A government plan that may not work? Did we need a study to conclude that a mass exodus of people fearing for the lives may bog down?

first published week of:   04/22/2013

American Electric Power Agrees to Retire Three Coal-Fired Power Plants
by earthjustice.org

A coalition of citizen groups, states and U.S. EPA announced a landmark settlement agreement with American Electric Power (AEP) requiring AEP to stop burning coal by 2015 at three power plants in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. AEP also agreed to replace a portion of these coal plants with new wind and solar investments in Indiana and Michigan, bringing more clean energy on line to meet the region’s electricity needs.

AEP will stop burning coal at the Tanners Creek Generating Station Unit 4 in Indiana, the Muskingum River Power Plant Unit 5 in Ohio, and the Big Sandy Power Plant Unit 2 in Kentucky. Collectively, a total of 2,011 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired power will retire as part of the settlement, removing almost 12 million tons of climate-disrupting carbon pollution and nearly 84,000 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution that the three coal-fired power plants spew into the air each year.

Details Here

first published week of:   03/04/2013

American Honda installs 1 MW stationary fuel cell system at California campus
The fuel cell power plant consists of five Bloom Energy Servers, each producing 200 kW of clean electric power.

The solid oxide fuel cell installation at American Honda consists of five 200 kW Energy Servers manufactured by Bloom Energy, running on natural gas.

The fuel cell installation will provide 25% of Honda’s electricity needs for its 1.13 million square feet (105 000 m2) of office space, research, design and development operations, and parts distribution centre on the 101 acre (41 ha) campus. The power generated by the fuel cell system would power approximately 750 average-sized homes each day.

For each megawatt-hour of power the fuel cell system generates, CO2 emissions will be reduced by 18–25%, according to internal calculations based on the California AB 32 Scoping Plan and data provided by Bloom Energy. Over a project life of 10 years, the system will reduce Honda’s CO2 emissions by approximately 16 million pounds (7250 tonnes).

Details Here

first published week of:   04/01/2013

American Streets May Be Paved With Natural Gas
by ken silverstein

Those in the natural gas business are feeling a bit heady nowadays. But those with links to the automotive sector are saying that American roads are wide open.

Increasing demand for the now inexpensive and relatively abundant natural resource is not just breathing new life into the power industry but it is also doing the same in the vehicle sector as well. Estimates are that the cost of compressed natural gas used in cars, buses and light trucks is about a third that of gasoline.

A recent Navigant Consulting report says that, globally, natural gas vehicles could hit 35 million by 2020. That is up from 18 million today. To be clear, two types of natural gas vehicles are prevalent: compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is used in long-haul, heavy-duty trucks. Many of the auto manufacturers are in the hunt, as well as the major natural gas producers such as Chesapeake Energy, ExxonMobil and RoyalDutchShell.

"We believe consumers deserve more choices in the vehicles they drive and the fuel they use to power their vehicles," Kathryn Clay, executive director of the Drive Natural Gas Initiative, the membership-based, collaborative effort of America’s Natural Gas Alliance and the American Gas Association.  continued…

first published week of:   09/02/2013