Greetings all! It’s a big week in the policy world, as the DNC gets underway and the Harris camp outlines its vision for U.S. energy. Here’s the best of the past week’s news:
The Inflation Reduction Act two years later (Forbes)
Scientists achieve major breakthrough in the quest for limitless energy: 'It's setting a world record’ (The Cool Down) K.T.’s note: Buzz about fusion is making the rounds. Again.
Harris vs. Trump and the future of FERC’s grid policy (E&E News)
How to achieve IoT-driven sustainability (Fast Company)
Giant batteries a ‘game changer’ for California power outages (Government Technology)
Kansas residents: We’re just scared to death’ (KSN) K.T.’s note: when eminent domain goes rogue
America’s plan to resurrect nuclear power (Freethink)
Are US wind farms killing thousands of birds? (Colorado Sun) K.T.’s note: yes
Clean fuel startups were supposed to be the next big thing. Now they are collapsing. (WSJ)
Opinion: Climate Reactionaries: Green activists defend policies that disproportionately harm the poor. (City Journal)
As always, thanks for reading, and have a great week!
Electrically yours,
K.T.
This is a great list of articles.
I have reservations about fusion power. They've worked on it for decades and have accomplished little. And scaling up to useable levels seems very unlikely. It's a great idea in theory, but so is the tooth fairy.
Ironic that the fusion device is called a “mirror” device. Most fusion work appears to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Lie#1:” tritium and deuterium fusion produces no radioactivity.”Most of the energy is in high energy neutrons which must be used to “breed” fission fuel or more tritium, both radioactive.
Lie#2: “containing plasma and heating it to ignite fusion can generate more energy than put in.” The only potential way to compress and heat plasma is to allow magnetic pinch to create a quantum effect which captures electrons injected for heating while reducing the cooling effect of X-rays that would otherwise occur. See the explanation at LPPFusion.com. Lie#3 “fusion power will be more efficient “. The most efficient way to harness electricity from a fusion reactor would be DC current. Large scale inverters would then be required to feed the grid, reducing overall efficiency while increasing cost and complexity.