This fall, Congress will likely consider an energy permitting bill modeled on the SPEED Act that the House passed last December. The 53 Republican Senators hope to recruit seven Democrats or independents to pass the bill with a filibuster-proof 60-vote supermajority, making it very difficult to later revise or repeal. The bill s sponsors will likely Continue reading "What energy infrastructure are…
There s a perennial debate in climate circles about global warming potentials (GWPs). A GWP is an exchange rate between greenhouse gases. It attempts to quantify the badness of emitting a ton of a given gas (such as methane, CH4) relative to emitting a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). How are GWPs used? Policymakers typically set Continue reading " Different targets for different greenhouse gases…
This is the tenth live-blog of my spring 2026 DERs class. The last post introduced buildings from an energy perspective and discussed why a DER student might want to learn about them. This post discusses how we model the thermal dynamics of buildings using (surprise!) linear ordinary differential equations. As discussed in the last post, Continue reading "Thermal modeling for buildings"
This is the ninth live-blog of my spring 2026 DERs class. The last post talked about solar energy. This post discusses why we might care about buildings in general and their thermal equipment in particular. The next post will introduce thermal modeling techniques for buildings. When people in the energy world say buildings, we generally Continue reading "Buildings and thermal equipment"
This is the eighth live-blog of my spring 2026 DERs class. The last two posts discussed modeling DERs using linear ordinary differential equations and applied that modeling approach to batteries, the canonical DER. This post focuses on the one big DER we ll study this semester that we won t model with differential equations: Solar energy. As Continue reading "A miasma of incandescent plasma"
This is the seventh live-blog of my spring 2026 DERs class. The last post introduced linear ordinary differential equations as a tool for DER modeling. Instead of leading with the general theory, as the lectures do, the last post led with a DER we re all familiar with: The humble battery. It turns out that learning Continue reading "More battery modeling"
This is the sixth live-blog of my spring 2026 DERs class. The last few posts discussed what Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are and why someone might want to learn about them. This post marks a shift from the first, introductory section of the class on definitions, motivations, and context (social, political, economic) to Continue reading "Modeling DERs"
Humans have changed the climate. We should clean up the grid and electrify everything we can - transitions that feature DERs prominently.
DERs are a huge business opportunity. They can also improve affordability and reduce inequality.
Fossil-fuel air pollution kills millions of people per year. DERs can help.
Controllable electrical devices that plug into the grid edge.
I want to convey the basic ideas with minimal math.
Let's clean up the grid and electrify everything we can.
Make your contributions clear. Spend time on the title, abstract, and figures. Be concise.
Sharing walls with neighbors reduces demand for heat and cooling a lot. It also correlates with living near the people and places we love, reduces demand for driving.
Purdue was founded on a gift of land that the federal government forced Indigenous people off of. That gift is worth billions today.
Wind and solar costs have dropped sharply over the last 15 years. They now make up most new electricity generation.
Human activities, largely burning fossil fuels, are making weather disasters more frequent and severe. Things will get worse in coming decades unless we act quickly. But there's a lot we can do.
