Blog #76 CaliforniaGeo 9-30-20 It’s Gettin’ Personal  I work in a sector of our society that is attempting to decarbonize homes and places of business in order to lower emissions and global warming.  They are the major culprits in climate change. phenomenon is like no other in our society, and the continuing effects on us […]

What is it that’s moving us to Renewables? Blog#75 CaliforniaGeo 7-14-20 The Climate Forward department of the New York Times has been covering many subjects that pertain to sustainability, renewable resources, climate change, greenhouse gases, and the like.  They began a tally immediately after the Trump Inauguration in early 2017.  Since then, the Administration’s rhetoric […]

Blog #74, CaliforniaGeo, 5-15-2020 The Climate Forward department of the New York Times has been covering many subjects that pertain to sustainability, renewable resources, climate change, greenhouse gases, and the like.  They began a tally immediately after the Trump Inauguration in early 2017.  Since then, the rhetoric against environmentalism preceded the massive rollbacks of previous […]

California Geo 4-3-20 Electricity has operated stationary devices and equipment for much of its history.  Until the development of Lithium-ion batteries for hand tools, plugs and cords were necessary to run equipment not already hard-wired to circuit breakers in an electrical box.  Aside from a brief, 1950s residential trend toward the “gold medallion” all-electric home, […]

CaliforniaGeo 12-27-19 Hello.  I’m Bill Martin, your leader at the California Geothermal Heat Pump Association.  We always push a consistent message— how renewable energy can replace fossil fuel use and the emissions they cause that threaten our health in the near term and our survival as a species in the long term. Geothermal heat pumps […]

CaliforniaGeo 12-11-19 The economic boycott as a means to achieve desired ends goes back to colonial America’s Stamp Act of 1765.  The better-known 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott was initiated by the arrest of Rosa Parks and it lasted 381 days until it equalized bus riders’ rights in the Jim Crow south.  Between these two […]

CaliforniaGeo 12-10-19 There are 197 nations other than the United States who committed to the Paris Accords of 2015.  Even though the Green New Deal and Greta Thunberg have become well known for de-carbonization, the U.S. has maintained that energy “independence” is still a worthy policy goal. False Independence- Historically, a number of critical moments […]

(Why we should care about that) CaliforniaGeo 8-13-19 The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is a numerical value that tells us what a particular generating technology will cost over 20 years to create a unit we are all familiar with—a Kilowatt hour.  It’s the same quantity that might be expressed as a 100 watt light […]

CaliforniaGeo 8-1-19  Recent developments in California municipalities (Folsom & Berkeley) have been both good and not so good for the environment and the overall thrust of this state’s emissions and related policy.  Some years ago, the City of Folsom annexed an adjacent southern parcel and masterplanned it for some 10,000 residential dwellings, built out over […]

Economics are the ultimate policy driver CaliforniaGeo, 7-12-19 On a trip through central and western Montana this summer I spied a couple of long, westbound coal trains, and a switchyard full of them in Missoula (like the ones below).  Wondering where they were headed I consulted a RR map of Montana and concluded they were […]