Rethinking Renewable Energy with Professor Susan Krumdieck

What about that Michael Moore Movie?

How dare they cast doubt on the sanctity of Renewable Energy? Why am I feeling like this about that movie? I have been asked by a LOT of people what I thought of Planet of the Humans ? Of course the movie has its story to tell and its own perspective that makes it interesting - it is a movie. The facts about renewable energy weren't off the mark. I don't know about the implied corporate handshake of our esteemed environmental leaders. I have only worked with Richard Heinberg, and have found him to be straight up. What it is that is disturbing for people is that their perspective is being shifted. You find out about climate change and climate destruction and you get over your shock and horror and denial, and then you want to bargain. You want to save the world. We will be good. We will use only good energy. We need wind and solar. We are good pe ople. And so the narrative is formed and the story begins to become impervious to facts. You can find a talk that I

What is Energy Transition Engineering and why it is imperative, with Sus...

I had a really interesting conversation with Jason Marmon of US Energy. He has worked in Oil and Gas and then decided to work on energy transition. We had a nice time brainstorming what energy transition means for oil and gas industry. Like everything these days, the go-to framework for debate is opposites positioning. In energy and climate change the position used to be "I'm not worried about climate change" vs "I'm freaked out about climate change". That framing didn't get a lot done, and it was masking the real issues, questions and potentials. The opposites positioning has moved on a bit and now the "it's not happening" people are off in their own bubble cooking up conspiracies. Now the opposites positioning is "Energy transition is switching to renewables" vs "energy transition is hydrogen and CCS". These two positions usually argue about the other not being able to replace fossil fuels at scale. That is correct

Peak Oil

Peak Oil! There is a big problem, and we are going to have to deal with it. Is it possible to actually come out ahead? The evidence has long been clear that oil resources are finite, and production will peak and go into decline early this century. The question is, why there has been so little high-level policy action? What about the proposition that dealing with the complex changes involved in the transition to oil supply contraction requires new kinds of engineering modelling and analysis. There are no miracle technologies that will mitigate the need for major policy, economic, infrastructure and land use changes. Researchers have the responsibility to develop new methods and tools necessary for policy makers and planners to manage this unaccustomed change. Without the right tools, the policy choice is between denying the problem and hoping for miracles. With the right Transition Engineering tools, the policy choices are about which changes in land use, ince

Energy Transition Engineering

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