A Greener America

The Equipment Pathway of Electrification

Blog #93  The late Henry J. Kaiser (entrepreneur extraordinaire who built Liberty Ships and the Hoover Dam) had a motto of “Find a need and fill it.”  To some extent, American industry is still carrying out that approach.  For example, take government.  It swings a big bat through regulations, tax policy, and financial inducements.   […]

Solar PV & Battery Use at Home

Blog #91  Electrification is both a catch-phrase and a policy.  Consumers are increasingly interested in decarbonization to fight climate change and for stable electricity access without supply interference by foreign or domestic actors.  They are resistant to rising electricity bills resulting from expensive conventional generation, and are increasingly interested in home energy independence.     […]

Hydrogen is Coming

Blog #90  Hydrogen is the least dense of any element in the Periodic Table but among the most stable when combined with oxygen as a water molecule.  Three fifths of the earth’s surface is covered with salty ocean waters and the average depth is something like 12,000 feet.               […]

Upcoming Dryness (More Danger?)

Blog #86, CaliforniaGeo 4-7-22  Plumas (recent) fire history- Where I live in Quincy, California, we’ve been threatened by wildfire three times in the past five years and we evacuated twice.  The largest and longest danger we endured was from the Dixie Fire from mid-July to late-October, 2021.  By the time of its containment its staffing […]

Proven Carbon Capture and Avoidance

Photons to wood and Photons to electricity Blog #83, CaliforniaGeo 11-16–21  Fall can be a colorful time of year.  For some, it is the final goodbye to summer’s growing season and for others, a warning that shorter days are already here, with winter fast approaching.  For many of us, coping with Fall is a bit […]

Heat, Drought, and Watershed Storage

Blog #80  6-30-21  CaliforniaGeo   A Heat Dome Covered the Pacific Northwest-  This week, Portland, Oregon became a standout for shattered record temperatures, causing a re-shuffling of high temp U.S. cities.  It was a tough string of days for a region where less than a third of residences have air conditioning.  It  was 117° in […]

Technology (alone) can’t stop global warming

Blog #79 4-18-21 CaliforniaGeo   Trends That Deserve Watching-  California continues to set unwelcome records that focus our attention on increased risk.  In 2020 we experienced a drought year that helped burn a record 4 million+ acres of wild lands, including the largest single fire ever recorded here.  Our most recent 7-year drought ended in […]

Will Action Follow Awareness?

Blog #77, CaliforniaGeo 10-5-20   Forests from a climate viewpoint-  I live in the center of the Plumas National Forest, located in the northern Sierra Nevada.  It is  owned and managed by the federal government and is just over a million acres in size (1,563 square miles).  As of this writing, California has lost four […]

Can Suffering Be Replaced By Solutions?

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 […]

The Path of Beneficial Electrification

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, […]