Task: Remotely control Transmission with iPhone, from anywhere
Difficulty: Easy
Time: 10-15 minutes

You’ve probably noticed that Apple seems to disapprove of torrent applications, due to their actions toward apps like Drivetrain, but don’t let that stop you from managing your perfectly legal (I’m sure) torrenting at home.

Honestly–why would you really want to torrent onto a mobile device–battery life, connection speed, multi-tasking? Really?

Back to the issue at hand, my preferred torrent client is Transmission, and one of the reasons is its elegant web interface, among other things. We’ll learn how to use this with the iPhone, whether you’ve jailbroken it or not.

If you’re the type that likes to share your music collection (for instance) with others, you’ll appreciate the ability to control that sharing while you’re on the go. Enter DynDNS.

Registering at DynDNS is easy, quick, fast, and free. These guys have sustained their service for years; if you don’t know what DynDNS does, here’s it quick: DynDNS provides a way for you to track your computer’s IP address wherever you are (and wherever it is), allowing you to get reach our computer anytime you have internet access. DynDNS works by letting a process on your computer notify their servers whenever your IP address has changed; if you’d like, they provide a slim and lightweight client that automatically updates this information for you. You get to pick your own subdomain, and their site includes very straightforward directions here. Once you’ve chosen a domain, we can move on to setting up Transmission.

It’s simple, really. All you’ve got to do is “CMD + , ” into Transmission’s preferences. Once there, click on the “Remote” tab. Then, check “Enable remote access.” I recommend checking “Require authentication” as well: then set your credentials. My transmission defaults to port 9091; it seems to be a good enough choice.

Once that’s set up properly, it’s time to set up the iPhone. Open Mobile Safari and touch the address bar to type in your computer’s location. I chose the “.endoftheinternet.org” domain, but just replace your subdomain and domain with the ones that you chose at DynDNS. Don’t forget to add “:9091″ onto the end of the address–that tells Safari to attempt a connection at that port.

All that’s left for you to do is enter your login credentials–and for you to enjoy remotely monitoring your torrents! If you’d like to make this feel even more native on the iPhone, touch the “+” icon from the Transmission mobile page and then touch “Add to Home Screen.” Pick your icon’s name (I choose “TransMan mobile”) and touch “Add.” As soon as that’s done, you’ll see the Transmission icon on your iPhone’s SpringBoard, and when you touch it, it’ll run fullscreen like a professional web-app. Well, with the noticeable exceptions that it won’t cost any money, and it runs in real-time with your computer.

Most problems with this can be remedied by making sure your addresses are typed properly (oh, that small keyboard…), and in some cases, making sure your router is properly forwarding ports. How that’s done depends on your router, but a quick Google search will solve most issues.

I hope this helps some of you, and saves you the hassle of paying money for a task that can and should be done professionally and free (even some of the jailbreak ones aren’t). Any questions? Just ask. Thanks to the good folks at Transmission, this really is a slice of pie to do.

En fait quand on apprend que le bébé est là, ça fait déjà 3 semaines qu’il pousse dans le ventre de sa maman. Alors des 9 mois, il y en a déjà quasiment 1 d’écoulé. Ce n’est peut-être pas plus mal puisque le temps passe à 2 à l’heure. Je savoure chaque seconde de cette attente. Je pense au bébé à chaque instant, j’essaye de faire attention à sa maman, d’être “au taquet” et bien renseigné. J’adore la sensation de devenir papa, je suis impatient de voir le ventre de ma douce se bomber, de voir le baby donner des coups et déformer la surface, comme si je pouvais filer des coups de pompes au ciel.

Ce matin j’ai eu une méchante envie d’écouter Queen (sûrement à cause de la pub sur Deezer). Bref, je mets Bohemian Rapsody et comme de juste, sous la douche – là où viennent toutes les idées, je pense à Wayne’s World. “Wah! mais il/elle ne va jamais connaître ce monument de la culture B, il faut absolument que j’achète le DVD pour pouvoir le lui montrer quand il/elle aura l’âge. Et puis la musique aussi. Qu’il grandisse en écoutant tous les classiques: Led Zep, Gainsbourg, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Marley, Janis, il faut que je nous constitue une discothèque digne de ce nom!”. Et me voilà à faire des listes sur mon Moleskine. L’envie de transmettre mes trips, les chansons, les films qui m’ont marqué, l’envie de partager avec lui/elle ma ptite histoire comme l’ont fait avec moi mes parents, mes tantes (qui ont été comme des grandes soeurs d’à peine 13 ans plus vieilles). C’est mon tour d’apprendre à mon gosse les paroles de Renaud.

It has been over a year since I’ve been let loose on the radio to play incessant indiepop and gabba. And I’ve really missed it.

But hold on! It’s ok! Come the new year there’ll be more radio shenanigans! Sunday evenings on Bristol University’s student radio will play host to myself and Paul, who’s well versed in this whole radio jazz, having presented an excellent show in Manchester for several years.

I daren’t try and replicate the joys of Transmission (I fear the sexual tension between myself and Alex may never break the airwaves again!), so it’ll be something slightly new. Though rest assured, indie pop will feature heavily, as well lots of country and shouty Scottish indie-rock.

More details as and when I get them.

Time for Contingent Climate Commitments: Should the Obama administration get out ahead of Congress, pledging to set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that 67 senators may not be willing to ratify? — Grist

GM Marketing Volt to…Middle Schoolers?: “On November 30th, hundreds of middle school students and teachers will assemble at the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, along with untold thousands of their electronically-linked peers, to take part in a giant show-and-tell webcast featuring” the upcoming Chevy Volt from General Motors. Your tax dollars at work. — Autoblog Green

FERC Enters the Transmission Maze: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “has solicited views of industry, environmental and consumer groups on transmission planning and cost allocation policy, with a filing deadline today, indicating to industry officials that the commission may seek to break new ground on the issue.” — ClimateWire via NYT

Putting a Price on Nature: The U.N.’s big, ongoing study of “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” (TEEB)—a project aims to quantify just what the world’s actually losing as species and habitats vanish at an alarming rate, casting the damage in raw monetary terms. — TNR’s The Vine

Climate Protesters Arrested Down Under: About 130 protesters have been arrested at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra while demonstrating against the government’s actions on climate change. — ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Big Pink is a huge buzz on both sides of the Atlantic so it only makes sense that their Wednesday show at the 7th Street Entry is sold out. Guess what you lucky wanker?! You can see them perform a DJ set at Clubhouse Jäger after their gig! Guess what else?!

IT’S EFFING FREE!!!

They’ll be joining Transmission for the biggest night of the year thus far.

Clubhouse Jäger
923 Washington Avenue N (corner of Washington and 10th)

For more info view the FB event page here.

…so it hurts when you don’t dance… the last few times i’ve played transmission i’ve been pretty lucky with the crowd – they’ve been dancing from around 11.30 and slowly but surely the floor has been filled by the time i’ve finished. not so tonight. it was frustrating – especially when people started dancing in clusters but then left the floor in whole groups rather than in dribs and drabs… anyway the last 20 minutes or so were epic. big up to my mate jake who texted me asking for baltic pine – unlike the guy why asked for crystal castles and deadmau5, jake got what he asked for… anyway this isn’t all exactly in order but you get the drift.

Pase Rock – So Fucking Disco
LCD Soundsystem – Get Innocuous
Christopher Wade – Be Still My Beating Heart
Armand van Helden – Je T’Aime (Simian Mobile Disco Remix)
Eli Escobar – Glass House
Holy Ghost! – I Will Come Back (Classixx Acapulco Nights Remix)
The xx – Crystallised (Rory Phillips Remix)
Laberge – True Love
Eli Escobar – Movin On
Ghostface Killah – Charlie Brown (DJ Mehdi Remix)
Passion Pit – The Reeling (Sammy Bananas Remix)
LCD Soundsystem – 45:33 (Padded Cell Remix)
Lykke Li – Little Bit (Loving Hand Remix)
The Teenagers – Starlett Johansson (Rory Phillips Remix)
Para One – Midnight Swim
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion (Diplo Remix)
Daft Punk – Face To Face
Marina and The Diamonds – I Am Not A Robot (Dveloped Heavy Edit)
Gossip – Love Long Distance (Riva Starr Remix)
Little Boots – Stuck On Repeat (Alexander Robotnick Remix)
The Juan MacLean – No Time
Cut Copy – Lights and Music (Boys Noize Remix)
Telephoned – Pop Champagne
La Roux – I’m Not Your Toy (Jack Beats Remix)
Lady Gaga – Bad Romance (Hercules and Love Affair Remix)
Joe and Will Ask? – Fabric of Win
Fake Blood – Fix Your Accent
Major Lazer – When You Hear The Bassline
The Count & Sinden – Beeper (A-Trak Remix)[just the "uh-uh"s]
Boy 8-Bit – Baltic Pine

205422     เครือข่ายสื่อสารและสายส่ง     Communication Networks and Transmission Lines

ทฤษฎีบทเครือข่าย การวิเคราะห์และการออกแบบสมมูลหนึ่งและสองช่องทางเข้าออกเรโซแนนซ์แบบอนุกรมและแบบขนาน เรโซแนนซ์แบบพหุคูณ ตัวกรองคลื่น การแปลงความต้านทานเชิงซ้อนและเครือข่ายเพื่อการเข้ากันได้ การเข้าสู่ทฤษฎีของสายส่งโดยเครือข่ายสายโทรศัพท์ การทํ าให้เข้ากันได้ของความต้านทานเชิงซ้อนโดยใช้สายส่ง

(Network theorems: analysis and design of equivalent one-port and two-port, series and parallel resonance, multiple resonance, wave filters; impedance transformation and matching networks; network approach to theory of transformation line; telephone line; utilization of transmission lines for impedance matching.)

(205422 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

With wind, solar, and geothermal projects popping up with increasing frequency in the U.S., a recurring theme of obstruction is materializing. When it comes to development obstacles, all forms of renewable energy have one thing in common: a lack of transmission.

Inside Renewable Energy’s weekly podcast recently covered the issue that has been inhibiting renewable energy growth ever since its inception. Erik Swenson, a partner with the international law firm Fullbright and Jaworski dealing with energy and climate issues, provides commentary on the topic. Swenson describes the transmission problem as one of “federalism.” He believes that the government is good at seeing the big picture, “macro” necessity of creating a so-called green power super highway but fails to understand the smaller, “micro” complexities that must be overcome to accomplish the task. He cites the stimulus bill as a misfire for transmission projects:

“ARRA legislation is focused on shovel ready projects but it takes 7 to 10 years, roughly, to site a new transmission line. So, if you can’t start construction on your new transmission line within about the next year and complete it within about the 2016 timeframe then the money is not available to you… so it’s just not going to solve the problem of how to connect new geothermal, new solar, new offshore wave energy projects to the grid.”

The podcast, which also covers other renewable energy topics, can be heard in its entirety here.

Transmission has been a popular focus for the National Wind blog these days (see here and here) but it is an issue that encompasses more than just wind energy. We’re still hoping that Congress will recognize that and figure out how to handle the “micro” complexities in time to make a difference with the new energy bill.

Michael Giberson

My most recent 15 seconds of fame*: The Environment Report: The ‘Tres Amigas’ Project. (Or, if you prefer, you can listen to today’s full 4:00 minute news segment.)

In the segment I make the outrageous claim** that the project is located in an area where many renewable power resources will be built.  The Environment Report is public radio news service focused on environment issues, they were interested in Tres Amigas transmission project because it is promoted as a “renewable energy hub.”***

*Actually, my part is slightly less than 15 seconds, closer to 12, but fame is generally parceled out in 15-unit intervals and I want it all.  The Tres Amigas segment is about a minute long.

**Actually, I make the relatively obvious observation described, but I’m trying to develop a reputation for outrageous claims in case, later, I want a job hosting a cable news program.

***For more substance on the Tres Amigas project, read the USA Today story, try my guest post at Alt Energy Stocks or see the earlier posts here at KP on the topic.

Tom Konrad Ph.D.

California’s RETI process lends insight into the near-term prospects of Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Biomass.  

In September, California’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) released their Phase 2A report, which outlined potential transmission corridors to collect renewable energy from Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) that had been identified in previous phases.  As part of Phase 2A, they also screened each CREZ for environmental impact, and the potential difficulty of obtaining land for renewable energy development.  

I previously looked at the results from Phase 1A and gained some insight into the cost of renewable energy technologies.  However, what renewable energy projects actually get built has to do with a lot more than just economics.  If it raises too many environmental concerns, such as infringing on endangered Mojave Ground Squirrel habitat, it isn’t going to get built.

Drawing on the spreadsheet "Supplemental Materials, CREZ Data" I put together the following charts, graphing the economics of each type of renewable energy in each CREZ against the expected environmental impact of that CREZ.  

Each circle represents one type of renewable energy at one of 35 CREZs.  Concentric circles in different colors appear where a single CREZ offers multiple types of renewable energy development.  The only difference between the two graphs is the size of the circles.  In the first graph, circle sizes represent the potential annual energy production (GWh/yr) of a CREZ, while circle sizes in the second shows power rating (MW.)  Geothermal and Biomass resources are relatively larger in the first graph because these are typically baseload technologies generating electricity near peak capacity all the time, while solar and wind are variable.

The cluster of circles in the middle right represent resources outside California: they were not rated for environmental concerns, so I assigned them an arbitrary value in the middle of the range in order to display them on the charts.

Economic/Environmental Tradeoff?

I found it surprising that there is little evidence of a tradeoff between economic viability of CREZ’s and environmental impact.  In fact, the circles in the graphs above are generally clustered along a line from the lower left (high environmental impact, bad economics) to the upper right (little environmental impact, good economics).  A tradeoff between economic viability and environmental concerns would manifest itself in a clustering along a line from the upper left (bad economics, little environmental impact) to the lower right (good economics, large environmental impact.)

Considering these four major renewable energy technologies, as they might be deployed in California, there is no real tradeoff between economics and the environment.  The best economics coincide with the least environmental impact.  If we were to include energy efficiency in the analysis, the trend would be even more pronounced: energy efficiency has the best economic profile of all, yet avoids the use of energy and hence does less harm to the environment.

The exception here is biomass.  The small green dots don’t show a pronounced trend in any direction, meaning that there may be some tradeoff for biomass.  Such a tradeoff would not be surprising, because harvesting plant matter on a large scale is bound to have significant ecosystem impacts.  Note that Biomass here does not include such technologies as waste to energy, which can be environmentally benign, or even an improvement compared to land filling.  In this study, the biomass in remote regions that do not yet have transmission, since lack of sufficient transmission was one of the requirements to be a CREZ.

With clean energy, it may actually be possible to do well while doing good.

There is an old saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  I don’t think there is any guarantee that goes along with that by the way!  You could be ‘ready Freddy’, and nothing happens.  But, my experience has been that if you are eager, sufficiently humble, and willing to work hard, then teachers will appear. How?  I don’t know, it’s a mystery!

If you want to learn something… anything… then you need to put that thing forefront in your consciousness.  Get every book you can get on the subject, attend seminars, and subscribe to magazines.  That will put the subject in your consciousness, and connect you with other people who have the same subject in their consciousness.  In so doing, you may come across some small shred of information that leads you to a person willing to teach you what you want to know. You just have to be willing to pay for lessons, or apprentice yourself to them… whatever they may require.

I wanted to learn this instrument called the shakuhachi.  It is an ethnic Japanese flute made out of bamboo (the Chinese have very similar flutes), and it is notoriously hard to play.  So, I researched them and found a local guy in NY who made and sold them.  I offered to buy one and he came to my apartment, played the flute for me, since I couldn’t even get a sound out of it yet, and he told me about a local teacher I could take lessons from if I wished.  I researched the teacher and found that he was the most advanced teacher for this instrument outside of Japan, right here, in my city. Soon, I was learning, what I wanted to learn, from one of the best teachers in the world.

The same methodology has worked for me when wanting to learn about boats and long distance sailing, fencing, martial arts, skydiving, film editing, bicycle mechanics and many many other subjects.

When I became interested in meditation and self-discovery, I met a teacher and I didn’t even know that I was looking for, nor even interested in having, a teacher. But there he was.  Later, I recognized that the meeting was just the culmination of one or more years of conversation that my deeper being, my soul, had been having, unbeknownst to my conscious mind, with this very same teacher.

So many of my ‘big ideas’ weren’t even my own ideas.  They were suggestions the teacher made during my dreams.  He had this ability to visit people in dreams, sometimes thousands of people simultaneously, and carry on a dialog. “Say, if you’re looking for a career change, why don’t you think about going into computers?”. “Say, if you want to be happier, find true love, why don’t you consider learning meditation?”.

I studied with my meditation teacher for 13 years (in the physical).  And one of the more interesting things he taught me is that a teacher doesn’t really teach that much through the explicit instructions that they give… oh sure, that’s important information, but the real teaching is on a much more esoteric level; teaching happens on a vibratory level.  When you spend time with a person who knows what you want to know, their mind vibrates at a certain level, and at that level of vibration is the knowledge that you seek.

When you spend time with a teacher, a part of you is making note of the vibratory energy of their awareness.  If you then try to bring your own vibration up to the level of theirs, you can suddenly absorb much of the knowledge that they have to offer.  In the spiritual texts, they call this “the direct transmission of the dharma.” Really, it is just pattern matching!

So, if you want to learn something.  Find someone who does exactly whatever it is you want to learn, then do whatever you’re willing to do to spend time around them. It’s a bonus if they are willing to give you explicit knowledge and instruction, but what you really need, is to just absorb their level of vibration, their mind-state.  That will transmit to you more knowledge than you can possibly imagine.  So, do whatever you have to do to just hang out with them… and, well, I guess, knowledge does, in fact, rub off!

EBay will install five natural gas fuel cells with a total capacity of 500 kilowatts at its facility in San Jose.  The city approved the permit in July.  The fuels cells are made by Bloom Energy:

CNN Money in 2007 placed Bloom on its list of 15 companies that will change the world, and it said Bloom’s fuel cell could disrupt the idea that power has to come from central power plants. Sridhar’s plan calls for making fuel cells that can run on any hydrocarbon fuel, including ethanol, biodiesel, methane or natural gas.

The fuel cells turn natural gas into electricity with much higher efficiency than large combustion generators.   These small fuel cells could power single homes, neighborhoods or commercial facilities and could feed power back to the grid.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory published a study in 2003 explaining how widespread distributed generation could interact with the grid.

The U.S. military will be very interested.

Bloom was started by K.R. Sridhar who aims to bring the benefits of electricity to the billions of people not connected to any power grid — and likely never will be.

Michael Giberson

A few weeks ago we mentioned commentary by John Harrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance asserting that the “last thing renewable energy needs right now are new transmission lines.”  The ILSR has a recent study suggesting the almost every state could be energy self sufficient relying only on in-state renewable power sources.  I remarked, “While I agree that ‘local self-reliance’ in energy may be possible, I don’t think most people are willing to pay the price of such extreme energy independence.”

Comes now Tom Konrad at the Clean Energy Wonk blog who takes a long hard look at the price of local renewable energy self-reliance as conceived of by the ILSR.  The short version of Konrad’s assessment is that (1) the high levels of renewable power proposed will require support from substantial quantities of relatively expensive energy storage, and (2) that transmission can reduce the amount of storage needed.  Those two points, combined with reasonable estimates of the costs of transmission and storage,  reveals that the energy storage + long-distance transmission approach dramatically reduces the cost of pursuing widespread renewable power deployment. (The full version of Konrad’s assessment provides a more complete takedown of the ILSR’s “Heresy on Transmission.”)

In other words, a little extra long-distance transmission investment would go a long way toward making the ILSR’s vision of widespread renewable power an attainable system.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think either vision is way-out-of-the-ballpark crazy for the foreseeable future.  Still, there is a difference between “astronauts landing on Mars” crazy, and “astronauts landing on Pluto” crazy.  Both are way, way out of the ballpark at present, but one will always be way more economical than the other.

[Konrad also blogs at clean energy investing site Alt Energy Stocks.]

15 películas después, mi semana en el Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla ha terminado. En lo personal, ser miembro del Jurado Joven (o CAMP_US/universitario) ha sido una experiencia fantástica.

Han sido muchas horas en el cine, con algunos títulos decentes, y el resto a cual peor. Motivaban los tickets de comida, los ratos de sobremesa que dejaban entrever cuáles iban siendo nuestras películas favoritas, nuestras escapadas a películas que supuestamente no teníamos por qué ver (como la estupenda ‘La cinta blanca’ de Michael Haneke), los desayunos tertulianos en La Raza o en el Pabellón de Chile.

Finalmente llegó el viernes, día en que, tras hora y media de convincentes y elaboradas argumentaciones, decidimos que otorgábamos el premio Jurado Joven a ‘Transmission’ (‘Adás’), de Roland Vranik. Una cínica y tediosa distopía que sin embargo ha planteado, junto con ‘Lourdes‘ (2º lugar de nuestro consenso), las reflexiones más densas de todo el festival. En tercer lugar de nuestras evaluaciones quedó ‘Fish Tank‘, de Andrea Arnold. La última escena de ‘Transmission’ es de lejos lo mejor que he visto esta semana.

El sábado fue la gala de clausura. Se hicieron entrega de los premios, y nos presentamos al director de la película premiada; un agradecido Roland Vranik que, recogiendo el premio, no se fue hasta encontrarnos entre las butacas. “Es un honor para mí recibir este premio, ya que los estudiantes son, por su juventud y por estar en una etapa de continuo aprendizaje, los espectadores más exigentes posibles”, dijo aproximadamente.

Roland Vranik alzando nuestro premio

Además, Vranik recibió también el premio al Mejor Director, así que fue el único que volvió a casa con más de una estatuilla.

Formalismos aparte, he de decir que he quedado encantado con la experiencia, no ya por el hecho de vivir el festival, sino por el grupo que hemos formado. El jurado joven éramos nada menos que 11 personas. Entre ellos se encontraban profesores de universidad, una mayoría de estudiantes de Comunicación Audiovisual (algunos autores de cortos premiados), y gente ante la que yo no podía sentirme sino pequeño, un simple espectador de a pie.

Con todo, la acogida que me dieron (“un ingeniero informático que juega a ser escritor y evaluar cine”) fue fenomenal. Algunos incluso me “reconocieron” cuando les dije mi nombre, por mi pasado como editor en algunos medios sobre crítica de cine, y tomaban en consideración mis comentarios.

Nuestra elección de ‘Transmission’ fue algo polémica. El ínclito crítico Manuel J. Lombardo, nos dedicó el adjetivo ‘desatinados’ en su crónica para el Diario de Sevilla. Ante esto, no pudimos más que tomárnoslo a guasa, y autodenominarnos ‘el club de los desatinados’ y cosas parecidas. Nos unió más aún saber que nuestra decisión resultó desconcertante (también se nos llamó, en otros medios, rebeldes, valientes, y hasta se insinuó, a modo de broma, que habíamos elegido bajo el efecto de las drogas).

El Jurado Joven al completo con Roland Vranik

Samuel, Antonio, Mably, Rocío, Emilio, Habib, Carmen, Sergio, Álvaro y Manuel: GRACIAS. Ha sido un placer inmenso. Espero que repitamos todos el año que viene.

Fotografías | Antonio de la Mano Roces (1 y 3), festivaldesevilla.com (2).

Energy Self-Reliant States [pdf], a flawed study on local Renewable Energy availability from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR) found that 18 of the 50 states could not meet their electricity needs with local renewables.   In fact, no state can meet its electricity demand through local renewables without expensive electricity storage.  On a national basis, such storage would cost an estimated $13 Trillion, or over 65 times the cost of the transmission investments they oppose.

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D.

Straw Man: "Transmission is Only for Utility Scale Renewables"

Image: GE Smart Grid Scarecrow (video)

One of the study authors, John Farrell, has been promoting the study as a "Heresy on Transmission."  Rather than a heretic attacking misguided establishment shibboleths, this flawed study attacks a simplistic misunderstanding of why we need transmission.  Farrell and his co-author David Morris are either intentionally promoting this misunderstanding as a straw man, or if they simply fail to grasp the reasons behind long distance transmission’s necessity.

Their straw man is the false choice between states relying on local renewables such as PV on rooftops which supposedly would require only "minimal transmission upgrades" and far-off wind farms requiring expensive long distance transmission.  They say, for example,

[I]f Ohio’s electricity came from North Dakota wind farms — 1,000 miles away — the cost of constructing new transmission lines to carry all that power and the electricity losses during transmission could result in an electricity cost to the consumer that is about the same, or higher, than local generation with minimal transmission upgrades.

This ignores most of the benefits which would flow from new transmission lines connecting North Dakota and Ohio.  A 1,150 mile transmission line from Bismark to Cincinnati would also connect Fargo, Minneapolis, Eau Claire, Madison, Chicago, and Indianapolis running along Interstate Highway corridors (Google maps.)  It also ignores the study’s own finding that Ohio would only be able to generate 29% of the electricity it needs with local renewables. 

Incidentally, their national map shows Ohio being able to generate 33% of its electricity from local renewables, but adding up their own numbers for the renewables they identify gives 29%.  I looked closely at their numbers for only six states, so there may be other arithmetic errors as well.

The states along this hypothetical route are North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.  The study found that these states can generate the following percentages of local demand with in-state renewables:

If each of these states attempted to meet their local electricity needs with the renewables in the study, Ohio and Indiana would still need to import some electricity from other states.  Although Ohio would not need to import power from as far away as North Dakota, they would have to tap into Minnesota’s wind resources if demand were to be satisfied along this corridor.  An attempt to meet that demand with the nearest resources might look like this:

You’ll note that the total above exceeds 600% because the states with renewable energy surpluses have much lower local demand.  The magnitudes of this demand are my best guess.  Keep in mind that I did not choose this corridor to make my example work; the suggestion came directly from the transmission example in the study.

The Consequences of Timing

By the study’s own methodology, both Ohio and Illinois need interstate transmission, because they cannot generate all their renewable electricity locally.  Yet, as I will demonstrate, even though North Dakota and Minnesota would be generating electricity for export, they will often need to import renewable electricity as well.  

Using the Correlation Maximization tool on Energy Timing (note: Energy Timing has been taken down, see comment here.), I generated the best portfolio of North Dakota wind and solar farms to meet the needs of Square Butte Electric Coop, an electric utility in Grand Forks, ND.  The results are shown below:

Composition of Optimal Portfolio of North Dakota Renewable Energy: 

This combination of three wind farms represents the best fit between electric output from existing wind farms and solar sites in Energy Timing’s database, and local demand.  Even though this is the best fit, the correlation between supply and demand is only 13.2%.  Solar sites do not appear in the optimal portfolio because they do not lead to a better fit.

As you can see from the bottom graph, wind output is strongest in the morning, when demand is relatively low, and falls off in the afternoon, as demand rises.  Hence, unless North Dakota builds far more wind farms than it needs to supply local demand (an expensive proposition which could only be justified by electricity exports), they would not have enough electrify in the afternoon and early evening, when the wind typically dies down.  This would be the situation on a typical day.  On any given day, wind power is even more variable than it is on average, leading to large and frequent swings from oversupply to undersupply.

Composition of Optimal Portfolio of Minnesota Renewable Energy: 

In the case of Minnesota electrical demand, solar sites turn out to be a better fit than wind sites.  In reality, if Minnesota were to attempt to meet local demand with renewable energy, a mix of wind and solar sites would be used, since wind is so much less expensive than solar.  But since solar sites are the best fit for local demand, a mix of wind and solar would produce a worse match than the 24.5% correlation we see in the scenario above.

Benefits of Transmission

We can now see how both Minnesota and North Dakota would benefit with a high capacity transmission connection between the states.  In the early morning, before the sun rises, Minnesota will not be producing any domestic renewables, so it makes sense to import electricity from North Dakota, where production is far in excess of demand all morning.  Minnesota will in turn be able to supply excess solar power to North Dakota in the afternoon before the sun gets low and cuts solar output.  

In short, even though both Minnesota and North Dakota can easily produce enough local renewable electricity for their needs, the timing of that electricity causes problems of both oversupply and unmet demand.  If we build transmission connecting states regions, these problems are reduced, and less storage is needed to make up the difference.

As we increase the interregional connections, we will be able to bring in power from farther afield that better meets demand.  For instance, both these states don’t have enough local renewables in the evening, even when combined.  The worst period is just around dusk, from about 5pm to 8pm Central time, before the wind begins to pick up at night in North Dakota.  But in the sunny Mojave Desert of southern California, the sun is still up (it’s two hours earlier, Pacific Time), and large Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants can use relatively cheap thermal storage to continue producing power for hours after sunset.

We can also see that both North Dakota and Minnesota typically have spare production capacity in the summer months, so they could export electricity back to the Southwest during these months, when Southwest electricity demand peaks due to air conditioning loads.

As we increase the length of regional transmission networks, each state along the path gains, both as an electricity exporter and as an importer depending on the season and weather conditions.  Ohio does not need to pay for giant transmission lines from North Dakota to import which "could result in an electricity cost to the consumer that is about the same, or higher, than local generation."  North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana would also benefit from such a line, and all could be asked to contribute.

Costing Storage vs. Transmission

The study’s authors also invoke electricity storage to "solve" the problem of timing, saying

Some renewable fuels, like sunlight and wind, are variable.  Thus, the estimates, especially for wind, assume a significant level of storage or on-demand distributed generation.

Unfortunately, they make no attempt to account for the price tag of such storage.  They state only, 

This report does not examine storage and its implications, but in our analysis of variable renewable energy potential, we assume that sufficient storage is available.

"On-demand distributed generation" could come from natural gas or biomass.  Renewable generation relies on the availability of the natural resource, few of which can be stored.  Even incremental hydropower is typically not on-demand, because it is usually the result of adding generation to existing dams and comes with obligations to maintain flow rates.

Biomass based power is typically baseload, not on-demand.  Furthermore, the study authors explicitly rule out the large scale use of biomass for electricity because they expect the amount of biomass-based electricity to be "modest."  Even if large scale, on-demand distributed biomass based generation were available, it would only be available in those states with a large biomass resources.  See the map below.

Natural gas is an incomplete response to climate change in that it is a fossil fuel, may not even be available in the necessary quantities, and must be imported by the vast majority of states.  What is the point in pushing for reliance on locally generated renewable electricity if it only increases our dependence on imported natural gas which may not be available and produces greenhouse gas emissions? 

Given the not only daily, but seasonal mismatches between local electricity production and demand, states which are locally self-sufficient in electricity would have to invest in a month or more worth of storage.  While electric vehicles may be able to provide some daily or hourly storage, they will not be available for seasonal electricity storage, since the vehicle owners will need to drive them, and so cannot keep them fully charged for months or even days on end.

The cheapest large scale electricity storage solutions, (Pumped Hydropower, Compressed Air Energy Storage, and Molten Salt Thermal Storage) typically cost $10 to $50 per kWh of storage.  Unfortunately, all three of these options are limited in where they can be located, so restricting transmission will also restrict the use of these cheaper forms of storage.  The cheapest battery and flow battery storage technologies cost about $100 to $150 per kWh.  To be generous, I will assume that all states can build as much electricity storage as they want at $50 per kWh, or $50,000 per MWh.  I will also assume that geothermal, hydropower, combined heat and power, and efficiency gains will mean that solar and wind will need to supply only 50% of our current electricity usage. 

According to the Energy Information Administration, total electricity production in 2007 was 4,156,745 thousand MWh.  An average monthly production was thus 346,395,000 MWh, and the cost of a month’s worth of national electricity storage to meet half of a month’s demand would be $8,665 Billion under the assumptions above.  In contrast, the ILSR study states that "FERC, Congress, and environmental groups… rush to accelerate the construction of a new $100-$200 Billion interregional transmission network."  

If such a network cost $200 Billion, and reduced the need for storage by only 10%, then it would have paid for itself more than eight times.  Given less conservative (and I think more realistic) assumptions of reducing the need for storage by 50%, and a per MWh cost of storage of $75,000, a regional transmission network would pay for itself in reduced storage needs by 65 to 1.

Conclusion

To me, 65-to-one, or a savings of approximately $13 Trillion, seems worth the price of stringing wires.  For comparison, $700 Billion has been spent on the war in Iraq since 2001.  In other words, the ILSR study is suggesting that we pay for eighteen wars in Iraq in order to avoid building an interregional transmission network, costing about as much as we spent in Iraq in 2008. 

In fact, the price for local self-reliance on renewable energy would likely be higher.  Thirteen trillion dollars does not include the cost savings that the report’s authors tried to address: Transmission allows us to exploit less expensive renewable generation.    Furthermore, the variability of both wind and solar generation can be vastly reduced by combining the output of dispersed wind and solar farms.  Less variability reduced the need for costly spinning reserves to stabilize the grid if wind power suddenly drops or a cloud passes above a solar farm.

Not all self-styled heretics are fighting a just cause against an oppressive consensus.  To the extent that a consensus exists in favor of an improved national transmission grid, it is based on sound science and economics.  It is unfortunate that so many environmentalists are seduced by the mirage of renewable energy self-reliance.

at transmission we play indie/dance/noize – or so the poster on my wall says. i’ve played my fair share of dance, and a bit of noize, but not so much in the way of indie. i’ve never been the biggest indie kid, so right now i’m trying to find tracks that i can play that will work in my sets but still fall under the indie umbrella. one which i just found is a nice remix of a track by wild palms. the remix is by sniTch djs – two hip as dj/blogger types based in london. it starts off all brooding and dark, with a few lines from the original track. then in comes a wall of guitars, an echo-y build up and an understated drop that’s fizzing with tension. things build and fall, and build and fall before suddenly finishing up after an all too brief four minutes. this one will definitely fit in somewhere.

Wild Palms – Over Time (sniTch DJs Remix)