At the end of November 2012 I met with Professor Rong Zeng of Tsinghua University, and he told me of his long-term vision of an electric power system that only used Direct Current (DC). There is much to recommend this vision if one were starting a power system from
Read moreClimate Progress reported yesterday on a new study about the warming effects of black carbon published in the peer reviewed journal Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. The study reveals that black carbon (dark particles of soot emitted by various kinds of combustion) is roughly twice as powerful a warming agent
Read moreMy friend Alex Zwissler, who heads up the Chabot Space and Science Center, published an interesting blog post today giving guidance about how to separate fact from fiction on scientific topics, with the promise of more to come. He focused today on determining the source of any claim, assessing whether
Read moreThe National Center for Science Education (NCSE) states as its mission “defending the teaching of evolution and climate science. NCSE highlighted Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs in a post on December 21, 2012, and it remains on their top page as of tonight. At their
Read moreBill McKibben of 350.org created a graph summarizing the picture for carbon in a particularly effective way. It’s part of a Washington Post compilation of the most important graphs of 2012. This graph summarizes the warming limit approach to the climate problem nicely (for more details, see my
Read moreAs I pointed out in this post and this one, growth in the national debt can only be fairly evaluated by assigning causality to the different contributors to that debt. Simple-minded comparisons of debt when a president came into office with current day debt will be misleading if previous
Read moreThe world is starting to pay greater attention to energy harvesting, through which ultra-low power sensors and controls can be powered by ambient energy flows (like light, heat, motion, or stray radio and TV signals). This week, Electronics Weekly reported on a study that estimated the current market for
Read moreAs if in reply to my missive about hazards in political polling, Politico has a great story today about just how far astray likely voter screens can lead even seasoned political professionals: For Republicans, one of the worst parts of the GOP’s 2012 trouncing was that they didn’t
Read moreI had great fun this past Wednesday (October 31st, 2012) talking at ARM’s Tech Con event, which is probably the world’s largest gathering of technologists devoted to low power innovation. Compared to my Authors@Google talk, I’ve added some additional examples of ultra-low-power computing and
Read moreAs the election approaches, I’ve been musing over the nature of political polling. There are many folks who make a living reporting on poll results, and a few who actually do solid analysis using such polls (with Nate Silver at 538 being the most prominent and sophisticated example). Unfortunately,
Read moreMany observers have been heartened by the increase in natural gas production, which has contributed to significant significant declines in US greenhouse gas emissions. It is not actually the most important factor reducing emissions in the first half of 2012, as my friends at CO2 Scorecard and I showed earlier
Read moreOn October 1, 2012, the Brattle Group published an update to its 2010 numbers on coal-fired power plant retirements, and it “finds that 59,000 to 77,000 MW of coal plant capacity are likely to retire over the next five years, which is approximately 25,000 MW more
Read moreI had great fun at Google on September 12th, 2012 talking about the implications of computing efficiency trends for mobile sensors, controls, and computing more generally. This version contains my latest thinking and is my most polished version to date. You can watch it below (or by clicking here). My
Read moreKCRW in Santa Monica, CA had a discussion show this morning (“To the Point”) about electricity used by data centers, prompted by the NY Times article by Jim Glanz. Jim led off the show in discussions with the host (Warren Olney), and then I, Andrew Blum of Wired, and Andy
Read moreKatie Fehrenbacher over at GigaOm did a service for those of us interested in data centers by compiling some of the issues with the recent New York Times article. She summarizes her conclusions (with which I agree) here: I feel the same way about the NYT’s series that I
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