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Management In Real Life: The Power of Positive Meeting
Why can't we all just get along? That's what John was wondering when he called to ask me if I could do some sort of team building exercise to fix his finance team. The team's bickering and personality conflicts were driving him crazy. It was like a flashback to elementary school. Remember when the teacher used to say, "I'm going to have to keep you two separated?" That's where John ...
Prospects to Trade Electric Power Across the Asia-Pacific Region
A variety of perspectives on the failure of Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant as a result of a tidal wave, have been published over that past several months. Japan does generate nuclear electric power near the coast of the Sea of Japan where tidal waves are less likely to occur, indicating that the location of the Fukushima power station contributed to its failure. Public sentiment in Japan is no longer ...
Solutions for High Gas Prices
It is common knowledge that "there is no quick fix" for high gas prices. It's going to be a long-term effort to reduce our reliance on oil and we're probably in for higher prices no matter what we do in the short-term or long-term because we're facing a number of macro trends, such as systemic tightness in global supplies (peak oil), ongoing international tensions with Iran, etc., and perhaps also ...
Two Natural Gas Kings: Russia & Qatar
By Ferdinand E. BanksIn my forthcoming energy economics textbook (2012), the two natural gas kings are three -- Russia, Qatar and Iran -- while if I were beginning that book today, I would consider making it a foursome. The United States (U.S.) might belong with this royalty, assuming that the shale revolution is indisputably authentic and relevant, and not a transient bounty. Unfortunately we must wait a while for the verification we require, ...
Home Energy Management with or without an Advanced Metering Infrastructure - Part 2
An Alternative to AMI According to Parks Associates, approximately 45% of all U.S. households will be served by smart meters by the end of 2015. As few as 10% of those meters, however, will be enabled for two-way communications between a home area network (HAN) and the utility's back-end processing system. Other analysts predict more or less smart meter penetration and HAN capabilities, but the result is the same: Effective ...
Home Energy Management with or without an Advanced Metering Infrastructure - Part 1
Why are electric utilities progressing so slowly on residential demand response as peak demand for electricity continues to grow, creating the very real possibility of a serious crisis? Even for those utilities where demand has slowed owing to the economic downturn need to be ready for the rapid growth that will come when the economy strengthens. The crisis initially will be financial, as utilities purchase more power from the limited ...
Navigating the Smart Grid Middle Mile
By Eedo Lifshitz - Director of Utilities and Smart Grids, AlvarionMaturing communications technology is playing an integral role in the advancement of today's smart grid infrastructure and enabling utilities and municipalities to generate and distribute power, as well as deliver new services and applications that connect to the home. But as network traffic increases to meet the demands for high bandwidth and low latency, utilities will be faced with new challenges that will prevent the reliable real-time monitoring and control ...
Toward Energy Literacy
"Energy literacy" and "peak oil literacy" should be requirements for pundits -- and for citizens more generally. I've followed these issues for many years now and it still amazes me how poor the knowledge of energy issues is among even the chattering classes and punditry. A recent MSNBC show allowed a guest to state, without challenge, that US oil production is now at an all-time high. No one, including the ...
How To Empower India With Big Solar Energy Plans
Solar energy can be the source of many benefits for India and the environment. Solar energy has the potential to re-energize India's economy by creating millions of new jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce the trade deficit and propel India forward as a "Green Nation." Solar Energy offers too many benefits for India to ignore or delay its development. India is the Sun's most favored nation, blessed with about 5,000 trillion ...
Some Valuable Remarks About Oil and Speculation
By Ferdinand E. BanksLast night I participated in a debate (arranged by Russia Today TV -- 24-7 -- Crosstalk, and transmitted internationally in English) in which I pointed out -- on several occasions -- that the aggregate (though unweighted) Brent-WTI (West Texas Intermediate) price of oil was about 112 dollars a barrel (= $112/b), and I claimed that if this price reaches $130, we could be facing a clear and impending economic danger. ...
